U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT DAILY BRIEFING APRIL 24, 2012

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Victoria Nuland
Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
April 24, 2012
TRANSCRIPT:
12:59 p.m. EDT
MS. NULAND: All right. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Further to our Free the Press daily highlight as we walk up to World Press Freedom Day, today’s highlighted journalist is Dilmurod Sayid, an independent Uzbek journalist. He wrote for opposition websites including The Voice of Freedom and was a member of the Ezgulik Human Rights Society. He was a particularly staunch critic of corruption in Uzbekistan, and he was convicted in a closed trial that did not meet international standards. So we take this opportunity to again call on the Government of Uzbekistan to release him, and we call your attention to his case on HUMANRIGHTS.GOV.
Let’s go to what’s on your minds.
QUESTION: Can I just ask one thing about this, the human rights?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Was there a call that was sent out to embassies to kind of come up with people that you’re going to highlight, or how do these – how were these people chosen?
MS. NULAND: Our Human Rights Bureau, working with embassies and working with our Annual Human Rights Report, came up with the list of journalists that we’re particularly highlighting. Do you have somebody in particular you want to add to the list?
QUESTION: Well, I was going to add me. (Laughter.) No --
MS. NULAND: We all have concerns about your human rights – (laughter) – and about our human rights at your hand. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: I’m sure that’s the case. No, I was just curious as to – I mean, how many are there going to be total?
MS. NULAND: We started this about a week ago and we’re doing it up through May 3rd, which is International Press Freedom Day.
QUESTION: Have you seen any kind of – has there been any response to this that you’re aware of yet?
MS. NULAND: Well, we’re seeing quite a bit of coverage in the various regions that these individuals are from.
QUESTION: But any actual action from the governments who are involved?
MS. NULAND: I’m going to take that one. I don’t think that we’ve had any formal responses to these, but sometimes these things take time. And sometimes when we shout out these cases, it emboldens folks in the region or in the host country to do more on their behalf.
QUESTION: Okay. Moving on to the issue of the day, or at least one of them, the situation in Sudan seems to be really deteriorating, even though there was a hopeful – possibly hopeful sign earlier in the week. It’s gotten worse. I’m wondering what your take on that is. What have the contacts been with both North and South? Where is Princeton Lyman now? Is he back? Is he still out there?
QUESTION: He was in the cafeteria about 20 minutes ago.
QUESTION: Thank you. Well, then I don’t need to – you don’t have to answer the last one.
MS. NULAND: Excellent. Well, as we said yesterday, we had the good news of South Sudan withdrawing from Heglig; but rather than responding in kind, we’ve had Sudan increase its aerial bombardment over the last 24 hours. And so these reprehensible bombings are targeting civilians. They are causing casualties all over the place. And they are obviously gross violations of international law, and we continue to call for an immediate cessation.
As the Secretary has been saying over the last week in particular, these countries have to work together if they are each going to succeed. They have got to come back to the table and settle these issues. So I think the concern that we had was, after the trip that Princeton Lyman made where he was in both Juba and Khartoum, where he worked with the parties, where the – we – working with the AU and others, we convinced the South to pull out of Heglig. Rather than that pulling both sides back to the table, the Sudanese seem to have taken negative advantage of it. So it’s very, very concerning. You saw the President’s statement of a week ago.
Ambassador Lyman is here, but he remains in contact with the parties and he remains in contact with a variety of international partners on a daily basis.
QUESTION: And what is the Administration doing, if anything, at the moment, directly with the two sides? Is there – other than Ambassador Lyman’s, I guess now, phone calls, is there anything else?
MS. NULAND: Well, in addition to the presidential statement of the weekend and his direct appeal to the sides, we’re also working with the AU on a package of increased pressure if we can’t get these --
QUESTION: And the UN?
MS. NULAND: And the UN, of course. Yeah.
QUESTION: Can we go to Israel?
QUESTION: And the West Bank?
QUESTION: Please.
QUESTION: Sure.
QUESTION: Hold on. Sudan, just for a second?
MS. NULAND: Why don’t we stay with Shaun and then come to you.
QUESTION: Sure. Just President Kiir was in Beijing.
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: I just wanted to see if you had an assessment of China’s role. China traditionally has been quite close to Khartoum, has received some criticism for that. How do you perceive China’s role in this?
MS. NULAND: Well, China has played a role in both Sudan and South Sudan. We actually have been in very close touch with the Chinese. The Secretary has raised the issue of Sudan with Foreign Minister Yang. Princeton Lyman has been in contact with Ambassador Zhang here. He’s traveled to Beijing. So our hope is that Beijing will play a constructive role. They have in the past in trying to encourage the sides to come back to the negotiating table. China has investments throughout the area and also benefits from stability, so we have been working to enlist Beijing and to work together on a common message.
QUESTION: Victoria, just a quick follow-up. Would you say that the withdrawal of the Southern forces is a direct result of the involvement of Ambassador Lyman? And if so, what did he get in return from the North? I mean, he went to both Juba and Khartoum.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, this is a process of trying to work with both sides and get them back to the table. He works, as you know, in extremely close partnership with the African Union, with the UN peacekeeping forces on the ground. But his own personal relationships and his own diplomacy have been very important to this process.
So I think this is the issue of concern, that Sudan wanted to see the withdrawals from Heglig. Those happened. And the response was – instead of being a response in kind, was a violent response. So that’s extremely concerning.
QUESTION: But the rhetoric today from al-Bashir, the president, is quite belligerent. Is anyone in contact with him from this Administration at the present time?
MS. NULAND: No, of course. And Ambassador Lyman is in regular contact with him, but so are others. And we will continue to be.
QUESTION: Hold on a second. Really? With President Bashir himself? I thought there was a kind of de facto ban on direct contacts between U.S. officials and President Bashir because of his status with the ICC.
MS. NULAND: I think that Princeton has been in contact with him directly. But if that’s not the case, I’ll get back to you.[1]
Yeah. Please.
QUESTION: Change of topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Just one more on that?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Jill.
QUESTION: This is the immediate problem, the fighting.
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: But there are underlying issues that are fueling this, such as borders. Is there any attempt at this point to even begin to sort that out?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, as part of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that created the two states that led to the velvet divorce creating South Sudan, there were unresolved issues of borders and resources and other things that had to be settled. There is a process that is internationally managed that the AU supervises for their negotiators to come to the table and work on these things. But every time we have serious flare-ups of violence, those talks break down, stall, get off the rail. So this is the problem, that they can’t move past the immediate difficulties to get to the underlying settlement of the remaining underlying issues.
And as the Secretary has said again and again, as the President said over the weekend, unless they can settle these issues, neither one of them is going to benefit from the potential to be reintegrated with the international community, to benefit from the resources, and to really invest in their people who are so long-suffering.
QUESTION: Is there a feeling that the AU is not putting enough pressure on either side, or specifically Sudan?
MS. NULAND: I think we’re all looking once again, as we have so many times in this process, at what pressure we can bring to bear – economic pressure, political pressure – but frankly, the AU has done a superb job speaking for the region on these issues. And we continue to work very closely with them on a daily basis.
QUESTION: Just one more on this. And I have to admit that I am not a Sudan expert, but – and this phrase “velvet divorce” is new to me. Is this – but given this – the incidents or the developments, is this --
MS. NULAND: No, of course, of course. I mean there was so much violence.
QUESTION: -- doesn’t really seem to be so much velvet --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- left to it.
MS. NULAND: Well, suffice to say that it was the result of a negotiated settlement, so it was not – the violence, obviously, was the backdrop, but ultimately they came to the table and decided how they were going to divide themselves. So --
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: Sorry.
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: Yeah, please, please, please.
QUESTION: Are you coordinating with the Arab League on the issue of Sudan?
MS. NULAND: We are.
QUESTION: I know you have coordinated on Syria, but are you --
MS. NULAND: We are, and we have Arab League meeting, I think, later this week, where we expect that Sudan will be on the agenda as well.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: So there are reports out of Israel that the Israeli Government has legalized three so-called settlement outposts. I think it’s the U.S. Government position that such outposts are illegal, but what is your – A, what is your view on Israel’s decision to, quote, “legalize these three outposts,” close quote? And B, how does that affect your efforts to bring the parties back into a direct negotiation?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think you’re talking about the reports that there has been a request for a stay of court decisions with regard to the settlements. Is that what you’re referring to?
QUESTION: I – and I’m sorry I don’t have – although I tried to email it to myself --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- I don’t have it in front of me.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: My understanding was that it was not just a request for a stay, but rather a determination that had been made. But maybe I misunderstood.
MS. NULAND: No, I think it’s a request for a court decision. We are, obviously, concerned by the reports that we’ve seen. We have raised this with the Israeli Government and we are seeking clarification. You know where we are on settlements. We don’t think this is helpful to the process and we don’t accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity.
QUESTION: And when you say we have raised this, you’ve raised this with them since these reports emerged? In other words --
MS. NULAND: My understanding is we raised it in Tel Aviv today. That’s my understanding.
QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up, three settlements – Bruchin, Rechelim, and Sansana, and they are on privately owned Palestinian land, they have for 15 years or 16 years – have been declared illegal. And a lot of people are interpreting it as a response to Abbas’s letter. Do you see it that way?
MS. NULAND: Again, we’re seeking clarification from the Israeli Government as to their intentions and making our own views very clear about this.
QUESTION: Yeah, but the office of the prime minister issued a statement that they are legal, that they have been deemed from this point on forward as legal settlements.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, you know where we stand on this. And as I said, we are raising it.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, I know where you stand, but what measures are you willing to take in case that the Israeli Government goes forward with this?
MS. NULAND: Again, Said, you know where we are on these things. We make this case every time we have an incident like this that it is not helpful to the process; it doesn’t get us where we need to go. We will continue to raise it, as we have.
QUESTION: Well, beside raising the issue with the Israeli Government, what measures is the United States Government willing to take?
MS. NULAND: Well --
QUESTION: You have constantly taken measures when similar activities are taken by other governments. What measures are you willing to take in this particular case?
MS. NULAND: Again, my understanding is that we have a government statement with regard to its intentions. We are seeking to clarify that. So I’m not going to predict what further response there might be on our side.
QUESTION: Do you know --
QUESTION: Do you feel that the government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is trying to sabotage efforts by David Hale?
MS. NULAND: David Hale has been in the region all week trying to work on the issues involved here and bring the parties back to the table. I don’t think that we would characterize that at all – the situation at all the way you just have.
QUESTION: And finally, do you see this as boding really ill to Palestinian landowners whose land is shrinking from underneath them?
MS. NULAND: I missed the beginning of your sentence, Said.
QUESTION: I mean, this new decision by the Israeli Government bodes very ill for Israeli landowners, how – for Palestinian landowners, however, that land is shrinking, so to speak.
MS. NULAND: Well, again, this is the backdrop for the statements that we always make about this kind of activity, but we want to get some more clarification from the Israelis.
QUESTION: So in this case, why wouldn’t the United States Government support an initiative by the United Nations to term the settlements, or these at least illegal outposts, as illegal?
MS. NULAND: Said, you know where we are on these things, and we are going to continue to talk to the Israelis about these issues.
Jill.
QUESTION: Can you just update – you mentioned David Hale. Can you update us on some of his --
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Yeah. So he was in Jerusalem yesterday. He met with his Israeli counterpart, the Israeli negotiator Mr. Molho. Today he met with Palestinian negotiator Erekat and with Jordanian Foreign Minister Judeh. He also now plans to go on to Qatar and Egypt. And thereafter, his travel plans are up in the air.
QUESTION: Did he meet them separately, with Erekat and Foreign Minister Judeh?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Yeah. I think he went to Amman to see Foreign Minister Judeh.
QUESTION: And so do you know if – was this an issue? Had it happened yet by the – had this government announcement happened by the time he had had his meetings? Do you know if he raised it, or when you say it was raised in Tel Aviv, was it raised by someone else?
MS. NULAND: He was in Jerusalem yesterday. He was with the Palestinians today. So my understanding is this announcement was sometime today, was this morning. So my – what I had was that the Embassy had raised it with the Israelis. If that is not --
QUESTION: Do you know if it was the ambassador or someone else?
MS. NULAND: I don’t have that.
QUESTION: And hadn’t he originally planned to go to Saudi, too? Is that now off the itinerary?
MS. NULAND: I think – no, he was in Riyadh at the beginning of the – oh, sorry. I’ve got it here at the very beginning. Yeah, he’s also in Riyadh today, currently in Riyadh for meetings with the senior Saudi officials. Jerusalem yesterday. Something’s not right here. Riyadh’s on this agenda; I don’t know when, though, because I also have that he is today with the Jordanians and with the Palestinians, but Riyadh is still on the agenda.
QUESTION: Okay. And his – and post – his post-Gulf – you had mentioned earlier that after the Gulf, he was probably going to go back to Israel and the PA. Is that – you said that’s now up in the air. It is because – is that because of this announcement?
MS. NULAND: No, I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I think he just wants to see where he is and whether there’s a need for him to come back to Washington and report first.
Please, Goyal.
QUESTION: Another subject?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: India.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: A number of education ministers from different Indian states were or are in the U.S. studying the U.S. community colleges system and the U.S. education system, and planning to open maybe hundreds of community colleges in India with the U.S. education system help, which Prime Minister Singh and President Obama and knowledge initiative was signed between the two leaders. What role do you think State Department playing in this role?
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously, we support this initiative. We have been working with the Indian side to flesh out the initiative that was agreed between the President and the prime minister through our Education Bureau here. And obviously, we are responsible for the visa issuance for the various folks studying in the United States.
QUESTION: And as far as Indian students now, over 125,000, I believe, in the U.S. What will be their status when these community college will be open in India? Because right now, when they graduate from an Indian university or colleges and their degrees are not really accepted or agreed to here in the U.S.
MS. NULAND: I guess I don’t understand the question, Goyal. You’re asking if they had graduate from Indian college, are those degrees accepted in the United States?
QUESTION: Right.
MS. NULAND: I think it’s a case-by-case issue depending upon where they graduate from and where they’re looking to get accredited from, and et cetera. So obviously, if there’s a sister university relationship, sometimes those accreditations can be recognized, but it just depends on what they want to do. I don’t think there’s a blanket way of looking at that.
QUESTION: And finally --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: I’m sorry. As far as the U.S. visa for the Indian students coming to higher study in the U.S., is there a change now? Because some feel that the requirements are more or higher than after this incident took place at the various (inaudible) universities, so-called, in the California area.
MS. NULAND: I don’t think we’ve changed our policy with regard to the way we interview applicants. I think what we are doing is making sure that the sponsoring organizations truly are what they say they are in the United States; that if they say that they are bringing students over to educate them, that they intend to educate them, not put them to work, et cetera, so – yeah.
QUESTION: New topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please, Ros.
QUESTION: In the WikiLeaks case, the judge in the Bradley Manning case this morning ordered the State Department, among other agencies, to turn over some of their documents to the defense in order to help the Manning team better prepare its case. Is the State Department going to turn over those documents? And my follow-up is: Does the U.S. still see a negative impact on its relations with other countries in diplomacy because of what happened in the alleged leaking of these documents?
MS. NULAND: Let me take the last part first. I think our view of the entire WikiLeaks incident has not changed at all in terms of the negative effects. With regard to what the court has ordered, Ros, I haven’t seen it, so let me take it and see what we know about what’s been requested of us and what our response is.
Jill.
QUESTION: Russia?
MS. NULAND: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: The Russian ambassador here in Washington is concerned about legislation that is moving forward, the Magnitsky legislation. And he’s saying essentially that this is just a way of – if you get rid of Jackson-Vanik, this is just another way of punishing Russia. He’s quite concerned about it. I know the State Department has been talking with Congress. Do we know what the status of Magnitsky is? Is the State Department encouraging, discouraging this legislation? What’s the view?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we do support the goals of the legislation. We have programs already in place to ensure that we are sanctioning those who are responsible for human rights abuses, and we are continuing our dialogue with the Congress about how we can appropriately make the views of the Congress and the American people known; at the same time, that we strongly favor the repeal of the Jackson-Vanik legislation, as really being a relic of the past that doesn’t apply to today’s situation. So this is an ongoing conversation that we’re having with the Hill.
QUESTION: Why is Magnitsky needed if the State Department really does have the ability right now legally to refuse visas to people who have been involved in crime, or at least, I guess, maybe alleged – I’m not quite sure how we can define that. But don’t you have the tools already to exclude people and not give them a visa?
MS. NULAND: We do have many of the tools in this legislation. I think it’s a matter of – from the Congress’s point of view, obviously, I would refer you to them. But our understanding in the conversations that we’ve had is that there’s a desire and an interest to make this a matter of law; and particularly, if we are going to make the point with members of Congress that the days are over for the kinds of sanctions that we had under Jackson-Vanik, but that we still have other human rights concerns that need to be taken into account.
So I think there are – there’s a feeling on the Hill that putting this in legislation will create a systemic, routine way of dealing with it and a clear set of guidelines that the Congress and the Administration agree to and understand and that are clear on the Russian side. So let’s see where this legislation goes as it goes through the Congress.
Please.
QUESTION: Thank you. On North Korea, they reported that North Korea is almost ready for the nuclear test. And so I would like to know, what’s the assessment from the U.S. Government?
MS. NULAND: Well, I don’t think our position on any of this has changed: No launching, no testing, no nothing if you want to have a better relationship with the international community. All of these are provocations, all of them take the DPRK in the wrong direction, so our message on all of this hasn’t changed.
QUESTION: But they say if the U.S. agree in a peace treaty with them, they may abandon the nuclear test. What’s your reaction to that?
MS. NULAND: Starting with the Leap Day deal that the North Koreans have abrogated, we were beginning a conversation again about a step-by-step process that could convince the Six Parties, could convince the international community that this new North Korean leadership was interested in coming back into compliance with its international obligations. Those – was a small first step, and unfortunately now we’re going backwards. So it’s really up to the DPRK to demonstrate that it wants a better relationship with all of us and that it wants to put its energy into peace and stability and taking care of its people rather than expensive weapons.
QUESTION: And last question --
QUESTION: Haven’t they already done that? Haven’t they demonstrated their interest already?
MS. NULAND: Demonstrated their interest?
QUESTION: Or lack of interest?
MS. NULAND: Unfortunately, they are demonstrating a lack of interest, yes.
QUESTION: Okay. And then can you just (inaudible), you said no launching, no testing no nothing. I mean, what is that – no nothing? They can’t do anything? (Laughter.) I mean, what if they decide they’re going to free all political prisoners and have democratic elections tomorrow? I mean, is that – that’s bad, too?
MS. NULAND: What they can and should do is take care of their people, open their country, begin to reform the system, and demonstrate to the international community that they’re prepared to meet their international obligations. And they haven’t done any of those things. So what I meant by “no nothing” was no provocative nuclear actions of any kind.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up.
MS. NULAND: Keeping me on my toes.
QUESTION: On this – at the coming U.S.-China S and ED, what’s the U.S. expectation from China on North Korea issue, specifically?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think we said very clearly that we have encouraged China to continue to use all of its influence with the DPRK and particularly with the new young leader to encourage a positive course and to discourage the negative course. So I’m sure that we will be exchanging views on North Korea and getting a better sense of how the Chinese side analyzes the situation, what messages they’ve been willing to send, able to send, and what pressure they think they can bring to bear, because it’s absolutely essential we all work together here.
Please, Michel.
QUESTION: On Iran? Iran has warned today that the new U.S. sanctions targeting its access to surveillance technology were negative and could affect its crucial talks next month with the P-5+1 in Baghdad. Do you have any reaction to that?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start by saying that the sanctions that the President announced yesterday were designed to address a different set of concerns that we have with regard to Iran’s behavior, and that’s Iran’s behavior with regard to their own citizens, with regard to the dignity, human rights, standard of living for their own citizens. So frankly, putting sanctions on companies that help Iran spy on their own citizens and having complaints about that begs the question as to why the Government of Iran thinks it needs to spy on its own citizens and block their access to the internet in the first place. So these – this is a set of sanctions that are designed to support the humans rights, freedoms, dignity of the Iranian people.
QUESTION: But do you expect these sanctions to affect the upcoming negotiations in Baghdad – or talks?
MS. NULAND: Well, our hope is that we will have a productive round in Baghdad. We discussed very clearly in Istanbul what it’s going to take to continue to move forward. So it’s really up to Iran. But frankly, what we have done with the President – the sanctions that the President announced yesterday, don’t even have anything to do with the nuclear file. They have to do with our separate concerns about the human rights situation.
QUESTION: Can I just ask a question on these sanctions? The net effect – I mean, one could argue about the effect of these sanctions, whether they actual do anything, whether these companies or institutions actually have any assets that can be blocked, or whether any Americans were doing business in the first place, but that’s not – well, my question is: With the exception of one, the internet provider in Iran, all of these entities and the one individual in Iran and Syria were already under numerous layers of other sanctions that did exactly the same thing. So I’m just wondering, there was no net effect on the IRGC, on the intelligence ministries, on the head of the Syrian intelligence directorate, was there?
MS. NULAND: Well, I think --
QUESTION: I mean, it didn’t do anything new to them. They were already under sanctions that did exactly what these sanctions do.
MS. NULAND: Frankly, I’m not sure that your premise is right, Matt, that there was no – nothing new, that this was an additional layer and all of these same folks and entities had already been sanctioned. I think the larger point here, though, is to express our concern about the circumvention, the importing of foreign technology to be used against your own citizens to deny them access to the internet, to deny them the ability communicate freely.
So regardless of whether it’s an additional layer on top of the same people and entities, the political point here is to express our concern about what these governments, whether they’re Syrian – the Syrian Government or the Iranian Government, are doing to block access to the internet, to block the ability of their people to communicate, to chill the environment for civil discourse and for civil society.
QUESTION: Doesn’t that happen in quite a few countries? In Equatorial Guinea, in Zimbabwe, in --
MS. NULAND: It happens in a number of countries and the Secretary --
QUESTION: Saudi Arabia.
MS. NULAND: -- there are number of countries that as we – as the Secretary has spoken out on many, many times, that seek to limit the right of their citizens to free speech, to free association, to the internet, and we will continue to speak out. But there are particular governments who are now in the business of acquiring the most sophisticated Western technology they can find and targeting it back on their own citizens and squeezing them, in human rights terms, with it. So this is an area of increasing concern.
QUESTION: So that would be the standard then for which countries would in the future those sanctions would apply to, whether they’re acquiring (inaudible)?
MS. NULAND: Again, I think we’re going to take this on a case-by-case basis. But in this case, the President was making the point, and we were making the point more broadly that these two governments are particularly egregious in this area as, if you will, state-sponsors of censorship.
QUESTION: Victoria, could you explain something regarding the board – the atrocity prevention board that the President announced on the sanctions?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Now, is it -- how is the State Department involved? I mean, since we know that Samantha Power is going to lead that effort. Who’s from the State Department? Who will sit on that board?
MS. NULAND: The State Department representative on the board is Under Secretary of State Maria Otero.
QUESTION: Maria Otero. Okay.
MS. NULAND: And the first meeting of the board was yesterday.
QUESTION: Right.
MS. NULAND: And the board is designed to get together this group of very experienced people to look at how we can, as a government, do more to support accountability and to stop atrocities.
QUESTION: Okay. And one related issue: Last week it was announced – the Open Government Initiative?
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: Is that in any way connected to this – there’s going to be a center of – a connection with this board?
MS. NULAND: Well, some of the people who work on the Open Government Partnership are the same people who work on this atrocities board – as you said, Samantha Power, Under Secretary Otero. But the initiatives are not linked.
What I would say is that when we announced at the Friends of the Syrian People meeting in Istanbul that we were standing up this atrocities clearinghouse for Syria, that’s an example of the kind of initiative that this group of people on the atrocities board brought to bear. They were the sort of idea factory for that idea, and it’s the kind of thing that, assuming that it works well in a Syrian context, we can replicate in other contexts.
Yeah.
QUESTION: New topic?
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please.
QUESTION: Do you have – does the State Department have any additional information on the two Cuban actors who were granted temporary visas and have since disappeared?
MS. NULAND: To my knowledge – and frankly, this is yesterday information and I didn’t have an update from today, so if it’s not right, we’ll get back to you – but neither we nor the film festival has any further information about where the two actors are.
QUESTION: So that hasn’t changed, then, --
MS. NULAND: I do not believe that has changed since yesterday. Okay.
QUESTION: Another subject?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Pakistan. As far as Secretary Grossman’s visit to Pakistan is concerned, and also last week Secretary Panetta told the Pentagon press that the Haqqani Network is the most dangerous, and is also now going back and forth from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Afghanistan to Pakistan. Is that going to be a topic? Because this is the main concern or main issue between the two countries and the security in Afghanistan is concerned.
MS. NULAND: Well, I don’t have any travel to announce today, Goyal, but I think you know that we’ve been pretty clear. Secretary was clear, Secretary Panetta was clear last week, that we have concerns about the Haqqani Network in – with regard to the most recent incident in Afghanistan. And as the Secretary said in Brussels, we will continue to try to work with Pakistan because this is a threat to both of us.
QUESTION: And finally, are you planning to include Haqqani Network in the Reward for Justice or any other sanctions against this network?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, we have sanctions on individual members of the Haqqani Network, and we’re continuing to look at what more we can do there.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: A follow-up on Pakistan?
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Yesterday, State Department announced Grossman – Marc Grossman visit to three different countries, but Pakistan is not included. And there are some media reports in Pakistan that Pakistani official are getting ready to meet with him, and talk about all issues, including reopening of a NATO supply line. And they also talk about the trilateral core group meeting, including Afghanistan. So do you have any update of his visit? Is he going to Islamabad? Do you confirm that?
MS. NULAND: I think I just said that I don’t have any travel to announce today, but as you know, both Afghanistan and Pakistan fall within his purview. But I don’t have anything to announce today.
Okay?
QUESTION: No. I just want --
MS. NULAND: Sorry.
QUESTION: -- to go back to the WikiLeaks question. When you said that your position had not changed as to whether this – whether the release of these documents have done damage to the national security, what – can you be more – what does that mean? You say that it did damage?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you be more explicit about how it did damage?
MS. NULAND: I think we were quite explicit at the time, and I’m not going to come back to it today.
QUESTION: Well, no, at – well, at the time, you said that it had the potential – well, not you personally; it was your predecessor – but had the potential to do damage and that there was the concern in the – in this building in particular that ambassadors or embassies would be less than forthcoming about what they wrote in cables coming back, knowing that they had been – that it had been compromised.
Has there been any evidence? Is this building concerned or is there evidence that shows that this building is not getting full accounting, full reporting, honest, candid reporting from its embassies abroad in the wake of WikiLeaks?
MS. NULAND: Our embassies abroad continue to do a superb job of working with governments and societies where they are accredited and giving us a good, strong picture of what’s going on. That doesn’t change the fact that there was enormous turbulence in many of our bilateral relationships when this happened, and that there have been impacts on individuals. As you know, we’ve talked about that at the time.
QUESTION: Right. But when you say enormous turbulence in bilateral relationships, has – what has – what can you – what is there that --
MS. NULAND: I don’t think I’m going to go any further than we went at the time. We had concerns from many of our interlocutors.
QUESTION: Well, I know you had concerns --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- but that – but concern is – that does not that mean that there’s – that something has been damaged?
MS. NULAND: I think we’ve got an ongoing lawsuit, and I’m not going to go any further right now.
QUESTION: Well, I’m just curious, though. If the – do you see – has the U.S. ability to conduct its foreign relations been compromised or damaged because of WikiLeaks? Can you point to one or two examples of how that – of how this has done harm to the U.S. national security or U.S. --
MS. NULAND: Matt --
QUESTION: -- ability to conduct diplomacy?
MS. NULAND: -- given the fact that we have an ongoing legal case, I don’t think I’m going to comment any further on this set of issues today.
QUESTION: Well, fair enough, but --
MS. NULAND: Michel, did you have something else?
QUESTION: -- you do understand this is exactly what you’re being asked to produce in court.
MS. NULAND: I understand. And --
QUESTION: And if you’re saying that, “Yes, it did damage, but I’m sorry, I can’t tell you what the damage is because it’s a secret,” that’s what – is that what you’re saying?
MS. NULAND: What I’m saying is there’s ongoing legal work now, and if there are legal responsibilities of this building, we’ll do it in a court of law, not here.
QUESTION: Well, but in terms of the one thing that you did answer, you – there isn’t any evidence that this has affected embassies’ ability or – to report back honestly and accurately about what’s going on in their host countries. Is that correct?
MS. NULAND: I’m not going to give a grade to our embassies. We expressed our concern at the time. Those concerns were very clearly stated. I’m not going to get into evaluating, from this podium, what’s come back, what hasn’t come back. We’ve got an ongoing legal case.
Michel.

QUESTION: One clarification still on this, please.

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: I thought the concern was less that embassies would not report stuff back in cables but that their interlocutors would not tell them stuff in the first place because they no longer had faith that the U.S. Government could keep their conversations or communications private, given the vast leak of cables. So I think the question might be better posed as: Has the State Department discerned a diminution in the candor of its foreign interlocutors as a result of this gross breach of confidentiality?

MS. NULAND: Again, we said what we wanted to say at the time on this case. We now have this case in the courts, and I just don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be commenting any further.
Michael, did you have something else? Yeah.

QUESTION: Yeah. Any new assessment about the UN observers’ work in Syria?

MS. NULAND: As I said yesterday, we’re continuing to watch this day by day. I think the concern remains that we only have a small number of monitors in, which means that they can stay in some of these towns for only a short time. They were in Zabadani; they were in parts of Hama and Homs in the last couple of days, but we don’t have enough yet to be able to leave them there. And there are concerns that no sooner do they leave when violence restarts. So this is something we’re just going to have to watch going forward.
Please.

QUESTION: There was a bomb that exploded today in Marjeh, which is a densely populated area within Damascus. Do you have any comment on that?

MS. NULAND: Well, we were just getting reporting on this as I was coming down. Obviously, any acts of violence of that kind are reprehensible.
Please.

QUESTION: Does the State Department have any comment on Egypt’s decision not to register, I think it’s eight NGOs, pro-democracy NGOs, including the Carter Foundation?

MS. NULAND: I have to say that we are – we don’t have a full picture of what has happened and what hasn’t happened with regard to these NGOs. So we are in the process of trying to figure it out, and we’re seeking clarification from the Egyptian side.
QUESTION: Okay.

MS. NULAND: Okay. Thanks, everybody.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING

Victoria Nuland
Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington, DC
April 2, 2012
TRANSCRIPT:

12:44 p.m. EDT
MS. NULAND: Happy Monday, everybody. I’ve got one thing at the top and then we’ll go to what’s on your minds. We want to call attention to the fact that April 1st, yesterday, the seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i community marked a – the anniversary of their cumulative total of incarceration of 10,000 days in Iranian prison for their beliefs. We condemn Iran’s ongoing persecution and arrests of Baha’i community members, and we continue to be deeply concerned by the harassment and intimidation of all religious minorities in Iran, including its significant Sunni and Sufi populations, Christians like Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, the Zoroastrians, and others. And we renew our call on the Iranian authorities to release the seven Baha’i leaders and immediately guarantee all religious communities the right to practice their religion freely.
QUESTION: I’m sure we’ll get back to Iran in a minute, but I want to begin with Syria, because I’m a little confused. I wasn’t working yesterday, but I’ve tried to read up on what happened. But I don’t know exactly what the U.S. – what the Secretary committed the U.S. to doing. The 12 million – or the new aid that she announced, which brings it to 12 million, is that correct? That’s all in humanitarian aid, and none of it goes towards this fund which is going to pay the Free Syrian Army? Is that correct?
MS. NULAND: Shall we take a moment and go through all of the outcomes --
QUESTION: Well, no. I don’t want to go through. I just --
MS. NULAND: -- or you just want to go through the money outcomes?
QUESTION: Well, I’m trying to figure out exactly what the U.S. is – what the Administration is doing differently now than it was before yesterday.
MS. NULAND: Okay. So let’s go through some of the results from the meeting of the Friends of the Syrian People yesterday. If you didn’t get a chance to see it, I call your attention to the Secretary’s press conference in Istanbul, where she went through all of these things. But let me just do it again for your purposes.
We’ve been talking about working along four lines – first of all, strengthening sanctions; second, increasing humanitarian support; third, working with and strengthening the opposition in Syria; and fourth now, beginning to help the Syrians to establish dossiers of accountability with regard to the atrocities that have been committed.
So on each of these, first with regard to sanctions, a number of countries, including the United States, announced new targeted sanctions on individuals. And the Friends of the Syrian People also yesterday established a Sanctions Working Group. The goal of this is to look across the lines at what various countries have committed to, to look at how sanctions are being implemented, to help countries implement them increasingly effectively, to shout out when countries are not supporting the general sanctions direction of the Friends of the Syrian People, and that – and also to try to broaden the number of countries who are putting sanctions on the regime. We have a number of countries in the Friends of the Syrian People who don’t have much of a tradition of using sanctions as a tool of foreign policy. A number of them have asked for help in how you implement sanctions, how you track whether they are being followed, so this will be, we hope, more effective.
And as you heard the Secretary say publicly yesterday in some of her TV interviews, we do believe that these sanctions are beginning to have a profound effect, and we’re seeing some cracks within the regime as well as a result of the pressure individuals are under as they find it harder to travel, to move their money, et cetera.
The second is the humanitarian. On the humanitarian side, as you know, many of the Friends of the Syrian People countries have been contributing to humanitarian relief that is delivered by UN humanitarian organizations – Red Cross, Red Crescent, et cetera. Yesterday, the Secretary announced an additional contribution on the U.S. side of 12 million in humanitarian aid, bringing the U.S. total contribution in humanitarian aid – this is food, medicine, et cetera – to almost 25 million, and we put out a fact sheet yesterday on exactly what we’re doing there.
The third line, support for the Syrian opposition. First and foremost, on the political side, I think you know the Secretary, President, other U.S. principals have been calling for the SNC to broaden its outreach to as many communities as possible within Syria and to issue a very clear statement of its goals and intentions for a transition to a democratic Syria. So they put out – as you know, a week ago, they met in Istanbul, and then they published on Saturday – we also pushed this – a copy of this to some of our travelers; if you need to see it we can pass it to you. On Saturday-Sunday, they published what they are calling the Covenant for a Future Syria, I think is the way they described it. But it goes through very clearly their aspiration to have a Syria that is based on rule of law, that is based on a new constitution that is ratified democratically, to have elections, et cetera, et cetera, and also states very clearly their intention to be for a Syria for all Syrians, to protect the human rights of all communities, et cetera.
So that was a very good step. As the Secretary said yesterday, when we met with the Syrian National Council, what we were seeing there is that they are having some success expanding their membership. We now have not only members who have long lived outside of Syria, but we have a number of new members, some of whom the Secretary met with yesterday, who are freshly out of Babr Amr, other parts of – Homs, Daraa, et cetera, and they are now contributing their insight to the group. So it is broadening in scope.
The Secretary also reiterated that we have been supporting the needs of the civilian opposition with communications support, medical support, that we are now looking at how we can expand that. We had a number of consultations on this trip, she did both in Saudi Arabia and in Istanbul, with other countries about the kinds of needs that the civilian opposition has. We haven’t put a public dollar figure on that. There are a number of reasons for that. Partly, we’re still working through all of the needs. But some of this has been moving.
But one of the things that was very much confirmed by the Secretary’s meetings with the opposition leaders, both those who are formally members of the SNC and those who are just affiliated, and particularly with those who are freshly out of Syria, is that one of the biggest issues that they face is communicating among themselves – communicating inside Syria, communicating even in the same city. The woman that she met with from Homs made clear that when Homs was under shelling attack, they didn’t even know what was happening on the other side of the city, let alone be able to talk to opposition leaders in cities across Syria, and also to connect the external opposition with the internal opposition.
So this is something that we are very much committed to and that we will be continuing to work on. Britain and a number of other countries have also indicated their support. Other countries made clear that they will be providing a different kind of support. They will be providing support directly to the Free Syrian Army. I won’t speak to them, but as the Secretary made clear yesterday, this is something that was very much welcomed by the SNC.
The last line here is the accountability line. So the Syrian opposition is trying now to keep good records of the atrocities that have been witnessed. There is a lot of international experience in how you build accountability dossiers that can be used later in trials. Whether they are domestic trials or whether they are ICC trials is an issue, obviously, to be decided by the Syrian people. But we announced this – after consulting with a number of countries, we announced this accountability hub center initiative, and we put out a fact sheet on that today. That will do a number of things. It’ll train Syrians in how to keep these records. It’ll will provide a safe and secure storage place for the records. It’ll start connecting a number of the groups internationally that do this, including the UN. And the message that we want to send with this is that people committing atrocities, particularly regime figures, but frankly anybody committing atrocities inside Syria, should know that justice will find you eventually.
QUESTION: So wait, wait. Hold on – I think – I – congratulations, by the way. I think, A, that was – you may have set two records.
MS. NULAND: The longest answers? Yeah.
QUESTION: One was the longest answer ever uninterrupted.
MS. NULAND: Good. Good. That was my goal.
QUESTION: And secondly, the longest answer that didn’t answer the question. (Laughter.)
MS. NULAND: Go ahead, Matt.
QUESTION: What is the Administration doing differently today than it – which was my question, remember?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Back 10 minutes ago when – before you started? The question was: What is the Administration doing differently today than it was before Sunday?
MS. NULAND: It is supporting the sanctions working group to help tighten the --
QUESTION: Which you did before that, though, correct?
MS. NULAND: Well, every nation was involved in individual sanctions. We were not working together as intensely to try to strengthen them, to try to find the holes, to try to help countries that want to do more that don’t know how. We also obviously increased our own sanctions. We increased our humanitarian aid. Okay? That’s the second thing. We made clear in consultations with other countries and in working with the SNC that we are looking at how we can increase the nonlethal assistance that we provide to the civilian opposition. We consulted with countries that are doing other things to make sure that what we are doing and what they are doing is well-coordinated and worked with the opposition on how all of those things can work. And we stood up this accountability center.
QUESTION: But one, I remember the sanctions – this coordination of sanctions was discussed in Tunis as well back in the first --
MS. NULAND: Not in terms of a formal working group and at that --
QUESTION: All right. Two, you were providing --
MS. NULAND: -- and having staffs working on it permanently.
QUESTION: Two, you were providing humanitarian assistance before. Now, you’re just providing more, right?
MS. NULAND: We’re doubling it now. Yeah.
QUESTION: Three, you are providing communications equipment to the opposition? That is something that you were doing before, no?
MS. NULAND: We were doing it in a very modest way, and now we are looking at what more we can do, and we are trying to key it specifically to the needs that we’re hearing about.
QUESTION: Okay. So can you be more specific? When you say you were doing it in a modest way before, what does that mean? What – I mean, does that mean people were being given cell phones, computers? What was going on before, and what’s different about it now when you talk about more focused or directed – how is it going to be different than what was the modest program before?
MS. NULAND: Well, let me start with the goal here. As the Secretary said yesterday, the goal is to help the opposition communicate with itself, communicate with the outside world, to help it to organize better and to help it to have better situational awareness so it can evade a regime attack. So you can imagine that getting into precise specifics about exactly what we’re providing to whom and how we get it in there would defeat the purpose of helping them evade regime efforts to disrupt their communications, which have – which is precisely the goal here. So I’m not – we’re not going to talk publicly about exactly what this means, neither the kinds of equipment nor where it goes. What I will say is that we had a pretty modest program through MEPI, as we do in many countries. We will now be expanding this in scope.
QUESTION: Has that actually happened, or is it still in the process of happening?
MS. NULAND: It is beginning to happen.
QUESTION: Victoria.
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you tell us why the term “clearing house”? Has this been used in this context before? I’m talking about the language, the term --
MS. NULAND: The accountability. Yeah.
QUESTION: Accountability clearing house.
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: What is -- because I think the Arabic language, we don’t have a similar term, “clearing house.”
MS. NULAND: Well, I think what we were trying to convey here is that while our expectation is that there will be a small bricks-and-mortar center for this, probably in Turkey, it’s bigger than that, because there is a huge virtual web-based component where our goal is to build networks among organizations that have – keep accountability records, whether they are human rights NGOs or whether they are the UN agencies that do this, and to provide a way, web-based, for Syrians who are bearing witness to get their information in.
So when we say “clearing house,” that’s designed to convey this kind of hub-and-spoke relationship, but also to train Syrians outside and inside in how you store these kinds of things securely, because you can’t just throw stuff up on the internet and hope that it won’t be compromised. These kinds of records, particularly if you want people to come forward with very sensitive material, they have to be assured that it’ll be protected and that they won’t make their own personal situation worse by bearing witness.
QUESTION: So this will be a physical structure somewhere?
MS. NULAND: The hope is that there will be a small bricks-and-mortar structure for training, for coordination, but it’ll be a much larger effort in a virtual sense.
QUESTION: Okay. And a quick follow-up on topic of aid. When you say communication and when you say we welcome aiding by others, perhaps, the Free Syrian Army or the Syrian Free Army, are you advocating a militant aspect to this revolt now?
MS. NULAND: What I said was --
QUESTION: Has there been a marked change in your position?
MS. NULAND: What I said, and what the Secretary said yesterday, was that the Syrian National Council very much welcomed these initiatives. From a U.S. perspective, one of the things that was important on this trip was we had a chance to coordinate with a number of the countries that are providing different kinds of assistance than we are so that we can ensure that this is mutually supportive.
QUESTION: As I understand you correctly, you still officially oppose any kind of increase in violence or the committing of violence by different opposition groups, be it by the opposition groups or the regime, because you want the violence to end rather than increase; correct?
MS. NULAND: Of course we want the violence to end. We want an immediate ceasefire.
Please.
QUESTION: These communication materials you mentioned, who are you going to deliver exactly? It’s going to be civilians or it’s going to be FSA elements within Syria?
MS. NULAND: Our support will be for the civilian opposition. Again, I’m not going to talk about the details for obvious reasons because we don’t want to – we want this to be effective; let’s put it that way.
QUESTION: You stated before that you are not exactly happy with the coordination between SNC and the FSA after this latest Istanbul conference. How do you assess this?
MS. NULAND: I don’t think I’ve ever spoken, or we’ve ever spoken, to coordination between the groups. We are – what we have seen – and the Secretary spoke to this yesterday – is that the SNC, which began as a group primarily made up of longtime exiles from Syria, is now becoming more of an umbrella organization. And there are – both in terms of its membership – that you see folks who are – have recently fled Syria, joining – there were people at this conference under the SNC umbrella yesterday who we all had a chance to speak to who had been out for a week, for a month, for six weeks, and are able to provide a real perspective on what is needed and what will help. They also have very close contacts, more effective contacts, back into Syria, which is helping the SNC.
But the SNC is also adopting an approach where there’s the organization itself, but it’s also providing an umbrella for those who are not ready to necessarily sign up with the SNC, but want to be affiliated. So what this covenant does is it allows groups who don’t necessarily want to call themselves SNC to nonetheless say we support these goals and principles as outlined in the covenant.
QUESTION: One more question relates to Istanbul conference. Were you able to meet with the Kurdish part, Kurdish National Council, or – it appeared that their delegation walk out last week.
MS. NULAND: We – there were some – as you know, the Secretary’s senior advisor on this issue, Fred Hof, was at the conference the week before. He’s had a number of contacts all through the week with the Kurdish group. They continue to talk to the SNC about some of their issues. And again, when we talk about the SNC becoming more of an affiliated structure, this is part of what we’re talking about, that they are – even if some of these Kurdish groups haven’t signed up to the SNC, they’re nonetheless in dialogue and trying to work through principles.
QUESTION: I just have a couple quick questions.
MS. NULAND: Yeah, Andy.
QUESTION: First, on the accountability clearinghouse --
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: -- is it possible or likely that the Syrian Government could avail itself of these services to put forward its own arguments about atrocities that armed opposition may have undertaken?
MS. NULAND: Well, it would strike me as unlikely that the Assad regime would want to avail itself of the structure that grows out of the Friends of the Syrian People. But it is – the accountability clearinghouse is designed to receive information about atrocities of any kind committed by any group, so it’s --
QUESTION: So there isn’t any sort of barrier to them?
MS. NULAND: It’s – correct.
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. NULAND: It’s an equal-opportunity clearinghouse.
QUESTION: Okay. And the second one is on the proposal, or fact of various other members of the Friends of the Syrian People bankrolling some of the salary costs for the FSA. Was this an option that was presented to the United States and rejected, that you guys decided no, we don’t want to do that? And if so, why, if you think, broadly, as a member of this broader group, it’s a good idea?
MS. NULAND: It didn’t go that way. This was an initiative of some specific countries on which we were briefed.
QUESTION: And does the United – I mean, you presumably do back this as a good idea in that it’s a Friends of the Syrian People sort of – part of this broader initiative. Why is it a good idea?
MS. NULAND: Again, this was something that was put forward at the meeting to the SNC. As we’ve made clear, as the Secretary’s made clear, we are going to contribute in the ways that we’ve talked about. Other countries are going to contribute in the ways that they deem most appropriate. What’s most important is that the Syrian opposition get the help that it needs.
QUESTION: But isn’t there – is there any concern that by – in having this happen through a sort of Friends of the Syrian People process, that you are leaving yourselves open to the Assad regime accusations that you’re essentially funding an uprising against his regime, that you’re funding --
MS. NULAND: Again, this is not an initiative of the Friends. It doesn’t appear in the communique. It’s something that was made known in the context of the conference, but it’s a bilateral initiative, or an initiative of a few countries to the SNC.
QUESTION: But the point – I mean, is the Administration comfortable with the idea that some of its friends and allies are going to be paying – essentially paying mercenaries that fight the Assad regime?
MS. NULAND: Again, we’ve – the SNC made clear that this is very welcome. We are coordinating closely with these countries to make sure --
QUESTION: Well, I understand, but --
MS. NULAND: -- that our efforts are mutually reinforcing. I’m not going to give it a grade one way or the other.
QUESTION: Well, no, no, no, but – we’re not asking for --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: We’re not asking for a grade. We’re asking whether you think it’s – whether the Administration thinks it’s a good idea for these countries to do that.
MS. NULAND: Again, they are making their own sovereign decisions about what they think is important. We have not discouraged this initiative, and we are coordinating closely with them.
Please.
QUESTION: Okay. You haven’t – you have not discouraged the initiative?
MS. NULAND: Correct, correct.
QUESTION: Could I ask a quick follow-up --
MS. NULAND: Please.
QUESTION: -- on that? On the clearinghouse itself, on the secretariat, let’s say, if it has a secretariat, will we have organizations like the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, sent out there to vet whatever data and information that would come in?
MS. NULAND: If you look at the factsheet that we put out --
QUESTION: I did, yeah.
MS. NULAND: -- it talks about a steering group, right, which includes association with these other international organizations. Again, this is not designed to be the only place where accountability can be kept. It’s designed to be an enhancement to current, ongoing UN-NGO efforts at accountability. It’s designed to be a resource for Syrians and to be affiliated with all the other efforts.
QUESTION: I understand, but it will have an international dimension or a component where you have these organized --
MS. NULAND: No, of course, yes, and it’ll have links to all those organizations, yes.
QUESTION: On the clearinghouse --
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: -- is it at all a response to the recent criticism that there’s been human rights abuses committed by the opposition?
MS. NULAND: Primarily, this is an initiative to ensure that regime elements, who are continuing not only to obey the Assad orders to fire on their own people, but are also committing gross abuses themselves – some of this horrible reporting we’ve seen about the killing of children, about the impressing of young people, about the travel bans on men, about the mining – all of that stuff can be documented. But as I said in response to Andy’s question, obviously, it’s an opportunity to, if there are abuses that can be documented on the other side, there’s a place to catalogue them. But most importantly, we’re trying to send a political message here that those who are still carrying out his bloody orders, there are people bearing witness to that and they will be held to account. And folks anywhere who are committing atrocities need to know that justice will find them.
QUESTION: Do you hope that it will be a deterrent in the opposition?
MS. NULAND: That’s exactly the hope and the hope that it will --
QUESTION: But a deterrent for the opposition. For example, on Libya --
MS. NULAND: A deterrent for anyone who would commit atrocities in Syria.
QUESTION: Last week --
MS. NULAND: Are we still on Syria?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Please.
QUESTION: Last week, you said the world is more united against Syria regime. What is your understanding of China’s absence to the Friends of Syria meeting again?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, China was invited to attend this time and declined not to attend. I’ll refer you to the Chinese with regard to their decision there.
QUESTION: So – do you think the world is more united against – to the regime?
MS. NULAND: There’s no question. I mean, starting with the Security Council presidency statement, which China joined. Yeah.
QUESTION: So are you disappointed that China is not – didn’t --
MS. NULAND: It’s China’s choice whether it wants to attend the Friends group. We’ve made clear that the door is open.
QUESTION: Speaking about the UN Security Council --
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: Kofi Annan’s told them a couple – a little while ago that the regime is ready to withdraw from civilian – withdraw troops from civilian areas by April 10th or on April 10th. Is that at all okay with you?
MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, after the Security Council meeting, Ambassador Rice, in her capacity both as presidency of the council this month and speaking in her U.S. hat, had a comment on --
QUESTION: I missed that.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. So --
QUESTION: What did she say?
MS. NULAND: I actually didn’t see the precise words. I spoke to her people, because we were coming out concurrently. But my understanding is that – and if I’m not right, then whatever she said is binding in terms of our response, but – that as you know, the Secretary and the Friends had called for a real timeline, that Kofi Annan has set a timeline now. Obviously, we all hope that the implementation will be as rapid as possible – will be more rapid than April 10th and that we will judge him by his actions, not by his words.
QUESTION: Right. But I mean this gives him another eight days – I mean, more than a week.
MS. NULAND: Again, we all want to see this happen immediately, and we will judge him by his actions.
QUESTION: Do you expect that – a week ago, you and the Russians were coming closer and closer. But today, Lavrov, the foreign minister, said that we don’t accept the idea of a timeline or a shelf life for this initiative by Kofi Annan. Do you expect that there will be some sort of animosity between you two?
MS. NULAND: Well again, I didn’t see what Lavrov had to say. It probably was just in the --
QUESTION: Well, in a press conference today, he was very clear on the issue of a timetable.
MS. NULAND: Well, we feel very strongly, as did all 80 of those countries that were represented yesterday, that we can’t allow Annan – we can’t allow Assad to do what he’s done time and time again, make promises and break them, that the time – as the Secretary said yesterday, that the time for excuses is over. So we were very firm, and the Secretary made absolutely clear again and again that a timeline is necessary.
QUESTION: Do you believe that the Russians are giving Assad a cover -- that they’re
stalling?
MS. NULAND: Again, we are determined that there not be cover created by the situation.
QUESTION: So (inaudible) one week if this deadline is correct and it’s going to be implemented. What is the plan B? Surely should be some plan for a short time. What kind of steps are you willing to take if Assad, again, doesn’t do what he promised to?
MS. NULAND: Well, I’m obviously not going to prejudge where we’re going to be on April 10th, but I think if you look at the outcomes of the Friends of the Syrian People meeting, it’s very clear that our intention is to maintain as much pressure – build the pressure through all of these lines that we talked about on the regime. So --
QUESTION: On Egypt.
MS. NULAND: Yeah. Please – still on Syria? In the back. Yeah.
QUESTION: Yeah. All I want to say is just to follow on something Matt, I think, was getting at.
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Setting aside what you think about the (inaudible) plan, in particular, it seems pretty clear that the Saudis are stepping up their role in Syria and some of the Gulf countries too. Does the Administration worry at all that the conflict might start to be seen, even if it isn’t in fact, start to be perceived as a conflict between the Saudis, the Gulf countries, and the regime rather than between the people of Syria and the regime? Is that a concern at all?
MS. NULAND: Well, we had a chance to have broad consultations, as you know. The Secretary saw – we were in Riyadh on Saturday. The Secretary had a chance to talk to all of the GCC members about this. There is no daylight between us, that the number one goal here is to increase the pressure on Assad until he stops, and that we’ve got to do all that we can here. Countries are making their own decisions how to do that. What’s important is the coordination among us.
The additional thing I would say here is that there is no doubt that all of the countries, all 82 countries, join the SNC in our commitment that this new Syria that we seek, this democratic Syria we seek, has to be a Syria for all Syrians, not to replace one ruling clique with another ruling clique, that what we are seeking is a democratic Syria where all ethnic groups are welcome, are part of the political process, have their rights and their freedoms protected. And the Gulf countries made statements to that effect that was – those principles were in the statement that the GCC plus U.S. issued on Saturday.
Please.
QUESTION: New subject?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: A couple of questions. Victoria, have you been in touch with your allies in Azerbaijan and Israel over the reports of Israeli access to airbases in Azerbaijan on the Iranian border?
MS. NULAND: I think Mark spoke to this on Friday. We don’t have any information to indicate anything new on this front.
QUESTION: So since --
MS. NULAND: Yeah, please. Please.
QUESTION: What is going on with this P-5+1 meeting? Is it happening on the 13th in Istanbul, as someone who you know, we all know very well, said? Or is it not happening? Because she seems to be the only one who’s saying it’s going to happen on that time – at that time and that place.
MS. NULAND: We have made, as a P-5+1, a proposal to have this meeting on April 13th, 14th in Istanbul. There seems to be some issue as to whether the Iranians have accepted that, but we will be there if they are ready to accept those terms.
QUESTION: Okay. So you’re going to – so someone’s going to show up. Wendy Sherman or Bill Burns or whoever is going to be there on the 13th and 14th with a sign that says, “Welcome Iran.”
MS. NULAND: Well, obviously --
QUESTION: And if they don’t show up it’s their fault? Is that the idea? (Laughter.)
MS. NULAND: I mean, it’s simply been interesting to us that we are getting different signals out of Iran as to whether all of this is locked down. But we are – and we’ve been waiting for some time for the Iranians to – in all of their components – to confirm that they’re ready. But we are ready if they are ready at that date and venue.
QUESTION: Okay.
MS. NULAND: Okay?
QUESTION: On Egypt?
MS. NULAND: Yes.
QUESTION: There’s been a lot of talk in the Egyptian media recently that one of the presidential candidates, Abu Ismail -- Hazem Abu Ismail’s mother has American citizenship and that under Egyptian electoral law this would disqualify him, because both of your parents are supposed to be only Egyptian nationals and nothing else. Recently, this presidential candidate himself has talked to the election commission in Egypt, which says that it’s investigating the matter.
So my question is: Has the U.S. Embassy in Cairo received any questions on this matter from the Egyptian election commission to verify this and if there’s – if this is something that you could verify or not?
MS. NULAND: Wow. That sounds like one I’m really not going to wade into. I’m going to send you to our Embassy in Cairo as to whether they’ve had any inquiries from the election commission. Frankly, we try very hard to stay out of these kinds of issues.
QUESTION: But this specifically has to do with somebody’s citizenship. Is this something that you could confirm or deny?
MS. NULAND: Can we verify citizenship?
QUESTION: Yes.
MS. NULAND: Again, I will refer you to our Embassy in Cairo as to whether we’ve had any inquires of that – in that regard.
Please.
QUESTION: On Afghanistan --
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: Al Jazeera has had a series of --
QUESTION: Can we stay on Egypt?
MS. NULAND: You want to stay on Egypt? Yeah, I’m sorry. Let’s do Egypt, and then --
QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the new Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Al-Shater? He claims that he has the support of the United States of America.
MS. NULAND: Well, the Secretary spoke to – she was asked this question yesterday --
QUESTION: Oh, I’m sorry. I missed it.
MS. NULAND: -- and she spoke to the principles that we expect to govern these elections, which are the same principles that the Egyptians themselves went to Tahrir Square to have.
QUESTION: Okay. But let me tell you what he said today. He said he does enjoy support of the international community, implicitly saying the United States of America. Do you support --
MS. NULAND: We’re certainly not going to be – as we don’t anywhere in the world – endorsing any individual candidate. We want the Egyptian people to make their decision.
QUESTION: But do you look at the Brotherhood as a buffer against the Salafists, for instance?
MS. NULAND: Again, I’m going to refer you to what the Secretary had to say about the principles that we espouse for this election.
Please.
QUESTION: (Off mike.)
MS. NULAND: Yeah.
QUESTION: So Al Jazeera found in a series of reports from Kunar province in Afghanistan that the Taliban has instituted a policy of persuading Afghans who have joined the security forces or the police to switch sides and join them. They’ve also have – are now playing the role of vice and virtue police, scrutinizing what people wear, their appearance, making women stay at home, et cetera. In lights of these revelations, is it the right strategy to continue negotiating with the Taliban, even indirectly, and to hand over control to the Afghan security forces?
MS. NULAND: Well, all of the things that you cite are not new in terms of what those Taliban who insist on fighting the Afghan constitution, fighting Afghan security forces, terrorizing the Afghan people have been up to. So our policy remains that those Taliban who want to continue to have their way by force, to try to overthrow the Afghan constitution, to fight the people of Afghanistan, fight the freedoms and human rights that they have attained, we are going to support the Afghans in meeting them on the battlefield.
However, we are also, as we’ve made clear, willing to support a process of reconciliation with those Taliban who are willing to renounce violence and get into talks. But we have to, as a next step, as we’ve made clear for a couple of weeks – given the multiple signals that we’ve had out of the Taliban and the multiple voices, the next step will be for those Taliban who want to sit down to issue a statement that renounces violence and makes clear that they are committed to a real peace process.
And then as we’ve said, at the end of the day, this process will only succeed if it results in a conversation with people who are ready to completely renounce violence, break ties with al-Qaida, support the constitution of Afghanistan in all of its manifestations, including the rights for women, minorities, and all Afghans.
QUESTION: Are you saying that talks are not ongoing?
MS. NULAND: As – you know what we’ve been saying forever, that we are at a preliminary stage of trying to support an Afghan-Afghan process. It’s been hard to get that going, but the door is open, but only if the Taliban are prepared to renounce violence.
Scott.
QUESTION: Colombia?
MS. NULAND: Colombia.
QUESTION: Move today to take possession of the last of the FARC hostages by the Colombian Government so reaction to that and any hope for what would happen next?
MS. NULAND: Yeah. I saw some reporting that this last sort of move was happening today. I think if you don’t mind, Scott, we will respond to that one tomorrow when this operation is completed.
Okay. Please.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) back to my subject, so if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that this building does not possess enough valid information that backs these claims of Israeli access in Azerbaijan airfield and that is why you’re not going to follow up on this report, you’re not calling your allies --
MS. NULAND: I’m going to send you to the Azerbaijanis for whatever they may be talking to the Israelis about. I don't have any information to indicate that the reports that are out there have any basis in fact.
QUESTION: Are you aware of more --
MS. NULAND: What?
QUESTION: Are you aware of more than one report?
MS. NULAND: That one reporting is --
QUESTION: So it’s not plural? I mean, as far as you know?
MS. NULAND: I mean, I’ve only – I’ve seen the one. I don’t know if there are more out there.
Please.
QUESTION: Thank you, Victoria. Do you have anything on the result of U.S. and the North Korea delegation meeting in German -- Aspen meeting?
MS. NULAND: I think this was a track-two meeting. There was no government meeting, if that’s what you’re asking. There may have been some Track II encounter between North Koreans and Americans, but there was no government meeting.
I’m getting the high sign from Jonathan. As you know, the President’s going to go out with the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico shortly, so we want to get off the air before that. Let’s take two more.
QUESTION: On Russia, last week, this whole thing with Ambassador McFaul kind of rose up. Mark said on Friday that you guys were going to go in to the Russians and express concerns about his safety or at least raise the situation with them. I’m wondering if you did, if you – if that has happened, and if it has, what their response was.
MS. NULAND: Well, just to be a little bit clearer, we have for some time now been raising concerns about harassment, not only of Ambassador McFaul, but of Embassy personnel. We have been making clear at all levels, frankly, that we expect our Ambassador, we expect our Embassy to be able to conduct their work free from harassment, free from intimidation. The Russians have consistently, on the government side, pledged to investigate individual incidents. And we are working with them on those issues.
QUESTION: Right, but there was – after he – what was said last week was that – or on Friday was that the specific problem of his schedule becoming public had raised new concerns, and I’m wondering if those – if you’re aware if those have been – if those were raised.
MS. NULAND: Those have been raised.
QUESTION: They have.
QUESTION: Turkey, Iran?
MS. NULAND: Let’s just do – can I just take Andy and just --
QUESTION: Just a quick one on Myanmar. We’ve seen the – we saw the White House statement on --
MS. NULAND: Right.
QUESTION: I’m wondering if you have anything further on the elections, and specifically, do you feel that the results of these elections – how will the conduct and result of these elections play into the U.S. consideration of sanctions?
MS. NULAND: Well, as we have said from the beginning, we are going to match action with action, so we are in the process of completely evaluating the results of the elections. I think that you saw the Secretary make clear, as we were congratulating the Burmese people and as we were congratulating the winners, that nonetheless we need to continue to make progress in the electoral systems and make sure that any irregularities here are investigated. But I don’t have anything to announce here in terms of our next steps, in terms of action for action, but we’ll be looking at that.
And the last one here, and then we got to go.
QUESTION: Are you hoping – Secretary spoke to this – the Turkish decision to cut exporting – imports on oil from Iran by a fifth. My question is: Is this enough for Turkey to get away from – escape from U.S. sanctions? Are you expecting any more from Turkey?
MS. NULAND: Well, the Secretary did say how encouraged we are. We had a chance to talk to the Turkish Government about this. We now need to continue the discussions bilaterally, and we will be doing that in terms of what impact this might have, so we have to have some further conversations at the technical level.
Okay? Thank you all very much.
(The briefing was concluded at 1:23 p.m.)