Briefing Skipper: Clinton in Kabul, Chinese bribes, Iran, Iraq, Tegucigalpa

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of Friday's briefing at the Foreign Press Center by Department Spokesman Ian Kelly:

• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in Kabul today. The Cable has all the details of her agenda, where she delivered an anti-corruption message to Afghan President Hamid Karzai before his inauguration and met with U.S. troops, foreign ministers, and embassy staff.
• No confirmation of reports that the Chinese bribed Afghanistan's minister of mines, Muhammad Ibrahim Adel, in order to secure a $3 billion contract. "Corruption is a serious problem, and we expect [Karzai] to take concrete action to fight this problem," Kelly said, "The executive branch has to look into these allegations that were in The Washington Post today. And then, we need to have a prosecutorial part of it."
• After the Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Iran will not send any uranium out of the country, the State Department still doesn't consider this a formal response to the IAEA's proposed deal. "Until the IAEA gets the response and formally says this is Iran's response, I don't consider a statement to the press necessarily a response," said Kelly, "We're not going to close any door on the engagement track. But at a certain point, I think, we're going to start paying a little more attention to the other track. We're not quite at that point right now. But as I said before, I think that time is short."
• The State Department is "disappointed" that Iraqi Vice President Tariq Al-Hashimi vetoed the Iraqi election law, throwing plans to hold the polls in January into disarray. "We urge the Iraqi Parliament to take quick action," Kelly said, adding that U.S. troop withdrawal timetables would not be affected.
• Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly is still in Tegucigalpa meeting with de factor regime leader Roberto Micheletti and ousted president Manuel Zelaya. The Honduran parliament won't vote on whether to restore Zelaya until after the November 29 election, but that is fine because the accord that both parties are working under only says parliament should vote, not when, according to Kelly. "Scheduling the vote on December 2nd isn't necessarily inconsistent with the accord," he said. Somehow that doesn't change the U.S. position of calling for restoration of the democratically elected president, said Kelly, even though Zelaya would be the lamest of lame ducks, that is if the vote goes his way.