JOHN KERRY'S REMARKS TO STAFF AND FAMILIES AT U.S. EMBASSY IN KOREA

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Remarks to Staff and Families of Embassy Seoul
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Grand Hyatt Hotel
Seoul, South Korea
April 13, 2013

AMBASSADOR KIM: Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us.

Before I introduce our very special guest, let me thank all of you for all of the hard work you did under the Secretary’s visit. Many thanks to your efforts, I think the Secretary’s visit is going very smoothly.

As you know, this is Secretary Kerry’s first visit to Asia as Secretary. And it is no accident that the first leg of his first trip to Asia is right here in Korea. Secretary Kerry has long been a strong supporter of U.S.-Korea alliance, and a very powerful advocate of advancing our shared interests and goals on the peninsula. We’re especially grateful that his visit is happening at a rather critical moment on the peninsula, and delighted that he’s spending a few minutes with the Embassy community.

So please join me in welcoming our Secretary of State, John Kerry. (Applause.)

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ambassador Kim. Thank you. Good morning to everybody. Thank you so much for taking time to come out on a Saturday morning, early. You do celebrate Saturday, right? (Laughter.) So I’m very, very grateful to you that you managed to haul yourselves out of bed and come over here early to meet with me. And thank you for all the kids who are here. (Laughter.) It’s really terrific to see you.

Hi, guys. How are you doing? Are you doing well?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

SECRETARY KERRY: You having fun?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

SECRETARY KERRY: (Laughter.) That’s good. I’m glad to hear it. And why – we ought to get all of the kids to come up here. I think all the kids – you want to come up here?

PARTICIPANT: Yeah.

SECRETARY KERRY: Okay, you come up here. Come up here. Is there anybody who see little kids – up here. Come on, come here. (Inaudible). What about you two guys?

All right. Woops. All right. Now – whoa. (Laughter.) We are (inaudible), aren’t we? (Laughter.) How are you doing? When I said "all the kids," half the audience comes up. (Laughter.) It’s incredible. That’s really, really nice. Who’s the oldest? How old are you, sir?

PARTICIPANT: 11.

SECRETARY KERRY: 11. How old are you?

PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY KERRY: Anybody older than 11?

PARTICPIANT: I’m younger than 11. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY KERRY: How old are you?

PARTICIPANT: Five and a half.

SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible.)

PARTICIPANT: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY KERRY: Okay. He thinks he’s got it all together. That’s fantastic.

Well, I just wanted to – this is what it’s all about, guys, is trying to make the world a better place for these kids and pull people together from different cultures and different countries. And I want to thank you on behalf of President Obama and every – wow, he won’t stay down.

That’s okay, he can – I’m sorry. I think he’s found a purpose in life. (Laughter.) That’s fine. (Inaudible) going up.

I – first of all, join me – I really want to say a special thank you to our ambassador. He does an outstanding job. He is a professional and there’s a reason he’s here. He knows this issue as well as anybody in the world. There couldn’t be a better ambassador to have in a difficult place at a difficult time. Ambassador Kim, thank you to you and thank you to your family. Once again, thank you and your young daughter. You’re – really appreciate it, very, very, very much.

And Leslie – where’d Leslie go off to? (Inaudible.) Thank you for your terrific DCMship. We appreciate it. And everybody, whether you’re a Foreign Service officer or a civil servant or a political appointee, or you’re a part of that great extended family that makes up an embassy because you represent one of the other bureaus or departments of our government, or most importantly, whether you are a local employee, a Korean who is working with us in an effort to reach out to your country, or even a third country participant here.

We are an incredible mosaic. We’re an incredible gathering of the family that comes from all kinds of different walks of life and different places to do one thing – to try to bring a message about the possibilities of living together with other people in peace and harmony and working towards a common future for all of us, and most importantly for the next generation, for these kids. The test for all of us is really whether or not we leave this place – being Earth and the countries we’re in – in better shape for our children than it was left to us by our parents. And you have to work pretty hard to do that today.

The story of the Republic of Korea is one of the great stories. It really is. What has happened in 60 years of friendship from the day of the armistice through the bilateral security agreement all the way up through until today is an amazing story of the people who decided to build a democracy, build lives for themselves, come out of the ashes of war, and build an incredible society. And the difference between the North and the South is the difference of the values of what we’re working for and what other people put up in the way of what we’re trying to achieve.

So this is one of the most important places right now on Earth, because this is a place, regrettably, of some confrontation, but a huge contradiction, huge dichotomy between one society and another, between one set of possibilities and another set of repression, of dashed hopes, between what life can be like if you had the right choices and what life is like when people are presented with no choices.

So you should be very, very proud of what you’re doing. I want you to know that on behalf of President Obama and the larger embassy family, all the 70,000 people working all around the world, we really are grateful for what you’re doing. There are difficulties; it’s hard to be away from home. The reason I asked the question of these kids how old they are: I was 11 years old when I went away with my dad in the Foreign Service. And it’s an experience I cherish to this day because I learned language, I learned culture, I learned about other people; I learned to see the eyes – to see the world not just through my eyes as an American, which I appreciate, and am blessed to be able to do, but because I was able to also see the country I was in through the eyes of the people who live there and whose culture and history we were sharing. That’s a great gift.

So to every single one of you: Keep on doing what you’re doing. Thank you so much for being willing to serve. I think we are the luckiest people in the world to get up every day and be able to go to work, and no matter what you’re doing in the Embassy, you’re an ambassador, because you’re the face of our values, of our hopes, of our policies, to anybody that you come in contact with. So to everybody, thank you very, very much for what you do. Thank you for being here. Thank you especially for getting up early on Saturday morning – (laughter) – to come in to say hi. And I want to come out there and maybe we can take some photographs and say hi to everybody.

Thank you, and God bless. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY MEETS WITH KABUL EMBASSY STAFF AND FAMILIES

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Meeting With Staff and Families at U.S. Embassy Kabul
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
U.S. Embassy Kabul
Kabul, Afghanistan
March 26, 2013

AMBASSADOR CUNNINGHAM: Well, Secretary Kerry, welcome to the atrium at the U.S. Embassy. You spoke to us here a couple weeks ago on a big screen that was right here, and you said then that you’d be here in person soon to see us, and we’re glad that you are, so very welcomed.

This is your team, 15 U.S. Government agencies and Afghans, working for the same bright future for this country that we’ve been discussing the last few days with our Afghan hosts. So without further ado, please.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you very much. Thank you. Wow, how much cord have I got here? (Laughter.) Great, all right. I’ll get out from the back of that crazy thing here.

Hello, Embassy Kabul. How are you? Everybody good? (Applause.) I want you to know, and I just want to remind you of this, that for the days preceding my getting here, it was rainy and it was cold, it was horrible. I got here yesterday – sunny, warm, incredible, warm and sunny today. (Applause.) And even better, President Karzai and I stood up and it was like the sun had been shining forever between us. (Laughter.) It was wonderful.

We had a great visit, a great visit, and the President was unbelievably generous and welcoming. And I think we accomplished a lot and have gotten some things sort of laid out going forward. But I just want to, in person, have a chance to be able to talk to you all and particularly say thank you, but also just chat a little bit about where we are. First of all, I did have a chance to talk to you when you were all standing here graciously when we were doing the video. And I must say, from the video shot, it looked like it was cavernous, just waiting forever. (Laughter.) Now, I get to see you in person and see your faces and have a chance to really talk to you, and I appreciate that.

First of all, I want to begin by saying a huge thank you to the Ambassador and to Leslie. They have, together, carved out an extraordinary diplomatic career. He’s been in so many places – Rome and Brussels and Washington and New York and, of course, Hong Kong and Israel, which is where I got to meet him and get to know him, where he was in a challenging place and he decided it wasn’t challenging enough, so he came here. (Laughter.) What can I say? But I think you’ll all agree with me that they’re a great team and they’re doing a great job and we’re grateful to both of them for everything they’re doing. (Applause.) And I want to thank his teammate in that effort, Tina Kaidanow. Thank you very much for your leadership also in a tough spot here for all of you. We appreciate the hard work every single one of you are doing here. This is one of those posts where you don’t get to go out to restaurants at night and party and do a whole bunch of – I know you party a little bit, I’ve been told. (Laughter.) But it’s kind of confined and there are obviously risks and challenges. So we are particularly grateful to you for what you’re trying to achieve here.

I have to tell you, I met this morning with 10 extraordinary women who are so courageous and inspirational that it really tells the story of all of you and of everything else we’re trying to do here. I told President Karzai there is nothing we want more – we don’t have grand designs. We don’t want permanent bases. We’re not here to play in some modern-day 21st century great game between India and Pakistan and the ‘Stans and Russia. That’s not what it’s about. This is about the people of Afghanistan having the ability to make their choice about their future without oppression and without violence and coercion, and choose their leadership and define their future.

And every single one of you here are in one of the most exciting places in the whole world. There’s no greater diplomatic challenge than trying to fight through a cultural historical barrier that is standing in the way of the 21st century and of modernity. Those young women I talked to today, one of whom said, "I’ve always dreamed since I was a young girl of being a businesswoman," but she couldn’t even begin to think about doing that until 2002, 2003, ’04 – young women who are in schools and being educated.

When this process started back in 2002, there were almost no women in school. You had to hide to learn. And there were some boys. Now, you all know the figures. You know the numbers. Nearly 10 million, not yet there, and almost evenly divided between men and women. It’s an extraordinary story. Not to mention that there is a government that was elected, and there’s going to be another election. That’s the target. It’s not the end. It’s not the end goal. It’s a big way station on the way to the rest of these dreams being realized. But it’s a very important way station, and we need to do everything in our power to stay focused on it, to work with the Government of Afghanistan, to work with President Karzai, who I think is in the position to be a statesman and have a great legacy as he turns over leadership through a duly elected process to a new president, and we transition.

We have a bigger – a big milestone in a couple of months, and you marked a huge milestone just yesterday with the transfer of the detention facility. So you are succeeding, and no matter what you do here, whether you are a Foreign Service officer or a civil servant, a contractor, one of the other agencies that Jim mentioned, the many agencies that converge here to be operating together, or whether you’re a political appointee temporarily in some position, or temporarily duty assigned from somewhere else, or, most importantly, whether you’re one of those 1,000 Afghans locally hired and working here, we couldn’t do this without you. We really couldn’t do this without you. (Applause.)

So I just wanted to take a couple of minutes – I want to shake a few hands and say hello to everybody – but this is a great journey you all are on. And I’ve been here to Afghanistan quite a few times now. I have one – some of you may remember, I had one very eventful time. I was here with Vice President Biden, then a senator, and Secretary of Defense Hagel, then a senator, and myself. And we were up in Kunar, and we were flying back from Kunar and we got caught in a snow squall, a snowstorm up in the mountains near Bagram back, and the pilot literally couldn’t see a thing. And we made a forced landing up in the mountains, and it was winter and there were a lot of snow around and everything, and as we were going down in this forced landing and everybody’s kind of holding on, wondering what’s going on, the general just continues to talk away and brief us as if nothing’s happening. And we look at each other and we figure, "Well, maybe if one of us gives a speech, we can keep the aircraft up in the air flying, keep going." (Laughter.)

So we land on the ground and we’re looking out there and we see a couple of lonely figures in a couple of mountain over or something, wandering around. We wonder if they’re Taliban. We figure we’ll fight them with snowballs. (Laughter.) But eventually, the guys out of Bagram had to come up in through the mountains up the road in humvees, and a bunch of people came and rescued us and drove us back down, and the helicopters stayed up there until they were able to fly up. So I’ve had some fun here. I’ve had some really good adventures. That’s just the beginning. I won’t go into all of them.

What I want to say to you, from your country and those of you who are Afghans, from the United States of America, your friends, we want to say thank you to you for the enormously important work that you are invested in here. It’s an example to people all over the world. And just to listen to those women this morning and hear about how possibilities have changed for them, how proud they are of what they’re doing, most importantly, how their individual person is now fully blossoming and respected, and they’re not somebody’s property or not shut away and hidden from life, that’s a brilliant transformation to be engaged in. Not easy, but it’s really important.

So I think you should be very, very proud of what you’re doing here. Obviously, we’re in a period of transition. And as we transition, the duties of the embassy, the size of the embassy, what everybody’s involved in also changes with it. And don’t be frightened about that. It’s a good thing. It’s what we want to have happen, and it’s how, in the end, we’re going to measure our success here.

So from the President of the United States and the Administration and from the American people, I come here to thank you for the work that you are doing, a year-long duty for a lot you here without families under difficult circumstances. I know what you’re going through, because I was the son of a Foreign Service officer and I spent some time packing up bags and leaving school and moving and leaving some of your family and so on and so forth. So in all my past visits, I came here as a Senator. This time, I get to come here as one of you. And just like you have our backs every single day in what you’re doing here, I promise you I will have your back with the Congress and in Washington in our effort to make sure you have the tools you need.

So, thank you, and God bless you all. (Applause.)