SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS WITH EU HIGH REPRESENTATIVE MOGHERINI

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks With EU High Representative Federica Mogherini
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Treaty Room
Washington, DC
April 29, 2015

SECRETARY KERRY: Good morning, everybody. I am pleased to welcome the EU High Representative, Federica Mogherini, who is a key player in any number of priorities that we are engaged in right now, and a good friend. And I’m very, very appreciative for her contributions on any number of things that we’re working on. First of all, she is facilitating on behalf of the EU and the UN our meetings when we gather to try to work through the Iran nuclear negotiations. Perhaps more importantly immediately in terms of the challenges that we face, we are working together on Libya, which is at a critical moment where we believe that diplomacy is really being put to the test. And the EU, with the migrant situation, is particularly seized of this issue. And I appreciate Federica’s leadership and efforts to try to help galvanize some kind of diplomatic conference/meeting that can create a government under the UN mandate and begin to provide the stability that the people of Libya deserve and that the region needs in significant ways right now.

In addition, we are coordinating on the Mideast; we are coordinating with respect to Syria, humanitarian issues. We have the challenges, of course, of Ukraine. And here the EU is again critical to the sanctions regime that is essential to helping to impress on Russia the need to fully implement the Minsk agreements. There are some very important choices coming up in the next months regarding the continuation of the sanctions regime. It’s a critical moment for Russia to help implement that agreement fully. Right now there appear to be different views as to what the interpretation of the political requirements are. So we will be very engaged with the EU in working going forward with respect to the Minsk implementation.

So as you can see, with Yemen, with other issues, there is no end to the need for major EU-U.S. and other country coordination, and we’re very grateful to Federica for her leadership and for her willingness to be a key partner in helping to provide some solutions to these very thorny, tricky, complicated issues. So thank you for being here.

HIGH REPRESENTATIVE MOGHERINI: Thank you very much. It’s great to be back. It’s great to meet again and continue our work on all the issues you mentioned that are top priorities for the United States, as they are top priorities for the European Union. It is essential to us to work on this last mile of negotiations with Iran, and I am honored to facilitate to get an agreement that can improve the security of the region and of the entire world. And I would like to thank you personally for your leadership in this. It is essential in these times for the European Union to work together on saving lives of desperate people that are looking for a better future, fighting against the trafficking and smuggling of people, especially across the Mediterranean, in partnership with the UN, with the African Union, with the Arab countries, and also on the root causes of this, that in the end of the day are the many crises and wars we have around the region. We know as Europeans we live in one of the most complicated and dangerous places in the world today. We know we have a special responsibility in trying to prevent and face this crisis. We count on our cooperation, our strong friendship to do it more and more together as we’ve been doing in these months and years. And I thank you very much for welcoming here again.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, Federica.

HIGH REPRESENTATIVE MOGHERINI: It’s great to be back.

SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you very much. Thank you all.