In which we scour the transcript of the State
Department's daily presser so you don't have to. These are the highlights of
Monday's briefing by spokesman P.J. Crowley:
Crowley added his own lukewarm
response to the White House's disapproving
statement about Iran's deal
with Turkey and Brazil to ship some uranium stores to Turkey in exchange for
higher-enriched uranium. "The
United States continues to have concerns about the arrangement. The joint
declaration does not address core concerns of the international community,"
Crowley said, "Iran remains in defiance of five U.N. Security Council
resolutions, including its unwillingness to suspend enrichment operations."
A lot of questions still
need to be answered and the U.S. push for sanctions will continue, Crowley
said. Also, if Iran is getting uranium for the Tehran Research Reactor, why
does it still need to continue up to 20 percent enrichment, Crowley wondered
aloud. "Public statements today suggest that
the TRR deal is unrelated to its ongoing enrichment activity. In fact they are
integrally linked," he said.
Clinton spoke
over the phone with Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu over the weekend, but Crowley was "not aware" of
any calls to them over the weekend. And the U.S. isn't mad at Brazil and Turkey
for upsetting their UN sanctions push, according to Crowley. "We welcome the
fact that Turkey and Brazil continue to try to engage Iran and see if Iran is
willing to come forward and address the international community's concern. It
remains to be seen whether this joint declaration passes that test," he said.
So what
next? Crowley said the ball is still in Iran's court. "The burden is on Iran,"
he said, "Iran has to come forward and address the international concerns."
Iran has agree to cooperate with the IAEA and suspend enrichment, for starters.
If they do that, "We remain prepared to engage Iran anywhere," Crowley said.
Overall, the message is, "We remain skeptical that this represents anything
fundamentally new."
In between dealing with that issue,
Clinton spoke over the phone with Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosato
prepare President Felipe
Calderon's state visit to Washington later
this week. "I wouldn't be surprised if Mexico's concerns about the Arizona law
are also part of the discussion," Crowley predicted.
Clinton
also dropped in on the meeting between Undersecretary Bill Burns and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov, who discussed Iran, START, and the 123
Agreement
Special Envoy George Mitchell left Monday evening for the next round of proximity
talks. He'll meet with Palestinian officials on Wednesday and Israeli officials
on Thursday. Assistant Secretary Jeffrey
Feltman was in Baghdad Monday and met with President Jalal Talabani, present
and future Prime MinisterNouri al-Maliki
and Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.
USAID
Administrator Rajiv Shah is in Sudan
and visited Juba Monday. He's been busy, meeting with the World Food Program, the UNAMID, the U.N. Population Fund and
other UN agencies and humanitarian NGOs. He also started a new sustainable
agriculture called the Food, Agribusiness and Rural Markets (the FARM project,
get it?).
Undersecretary
of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria
Otero is en route to Indonesia to talk about human security issues. Assistant
Secretary for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs Jose Fernandez is in Brazil Monday and Tuesday. Ambassador for
global AIDS, Ambassador Eric Goosby,
was in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Monday.
Clinton led a memorial service
Monday for the embassy victims of the Haiti earthquake. The two U.S. embassy
employees lost were
Cultural Affairs Officer Victoria DeLong
and Centers for Disease Control staff member Diane Berry Caves. U.S. Air Force Major Kenneth Bourland was also killed, as well as the wife and two
children of Foreign Service Officer Andrew
Wylie. Six embassy local staffers were lost, as well as several of their
family members.
"We
can never replace the men, women, and children who lost their lives in the
earthquake - Haitians, Americans, and others from around the world," Clinton
said, "But we can remember them. We can celebrate them. And we can honor them
as we continue our mission in Haiti."
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