Wednesday, July 16, 2014
ATTORNEY TO PAY ALMOST $4 MILLION FOR ORCHESTRATING PRIME BANK INVESTMENT SCHEME
FROM: U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Florida-Based Attorney Ordered to Pay Nearly $4 Million in Court Judgment of Prime Bank Investment Scheme Case
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a federal judge has ordered a Miami-based attorney to pay nearly $4 million in a consent judgment of an SEC case against him for orchestrating a prime bank investment scheme. The money will be returned to harmed investors.
Bernard H. Butts Jr. was charged by the SEC in September 2013 for acting as an escrow agent for a supposed international trading program that raised approximately $3.5 million from investors. However, the program didn't really exist, and Butts instead doled out investor funds to enrich himself and others. The SEC obtained an emergency order in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to freeze the assets of Butts and his companies Bernard H. Butts Jr. PA and Butts Holding Corporation before investor proceeds could be fully dissipated.
The Honorable Jose E. Martinez issued an order dated July 10, 2014, requiring Butts and his companies to pay $1,691,608 in disgorgement and $96,232.99 in prejudgment interest as well as a penalty of $2,059,284.19. Butts and his wife Margaret A. Hering also must pay an additional $100,000 in disgorgement and $4,570.82 in prejudgment interest.
The SEC will return the money to investors through a Fair Fund. More than $1.9 million already has been deposited from accounts belonging to Butts and his companies into the registry of the court following the asset freeze instituted at the SEC's request last year. And the court's order requires the transfer to the court of more than $2 million separately seized by the U.S. Secret Service from accounts belonging to Butts and his companies. The SEC will then submit a plan to the court for distribution of these collected funds back to investors.
Butts has consented to be barred from the securities industry or offering penny stock, and agreed to be suspended from practicing as an attorney on behalf of any entity regulated by the SEC.
For additional information, please see Litigation Rel. No. 22792 (Sept. 9, 2013).
AG HOLDER DELIVERS REMARKS AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY FOR 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Attorney General Holder Delivers Remarks at Howard University for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Civil Rights Act
~ Tuesday, July 15, 2014
I am also mindful, as we gather today, of the leader we lost this past Friday. John Seigenthaler was a passionate journalist, a lifelong defender of the First Amendment, and a fierce civil rights advocate. He was a top aide to my predecessor as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, and later served as his pallbearer. He risked his life alongside the Freedom Riders and called forcefully for civil rights protections at a time when most Southern journalists turned a blind eye. He was a remarkable man and a singular voice for the cause of justice; a guiding light and an inspiration to many – including me. I count myself as extremely fortunate to have known John Seigenthaler, and extend my heartfelt condolences to his family. He will be dearly missed. But his critical work goes on.
It’s a privilege to be among so many distinguished guests, including fellow members of the President’s Cabinet; Howard faculty and administrators; accomplished trailblazers in the fight for civil rights; and young people who will carry on the work we commemorate – and build on the singular achievement we celebrate – here today.
Half a century ago this month – with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others at his side – President Lyndon Johnson marked an inflection point in a struggle that predated our Republic when he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was a struggle that had begun more than three centuries earlier, in 1619, with the arrival of roughly 20 captive Africans in Jamestown, Virginia. And it continued through the expanding colonization of North America.
By 1763, the colonial population included roughly 300,000 Africans, the overwhelming majority of whom were slaves. Yet it wasn’t until a century later that our greatest president issued an Emancipation Proclamation providing a legal framework for the eventual release of many slaves – and secured the Thirteenth Amendment, which finally struck this evil from our Constitution. Even then, Jim Crow laws and other measures were engineered to keep millions of African-Americans effectively in bondage, slavery by another name, for a century more. And intimidation and violence were routinely employed to prevent them from becoming educated, to keep them from voting, and to stop them from mixing with the white majority.
Finally, 60 years ago this May, when Chief Justice Earl Warren led a unanimous Supreme Court to declare, in Brown v. Board of Education, that segregation was unconstitutional, our nation took an important step to reconcile not only two races, but two histories – two Americas – that had been intensely separate, and profoundly unequal, since long before the American Revolution. And ten long years after that – as long-simmering injustice gave way to activism and principled action – the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was adopted to forever enshrine American equality into American law.
This historic measure barred discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, and national origin. It instituted critical employment protections. It outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, including schools and workplaces, and prohibited unequal application of voter requirements. In so doing, it greatly expanded the mandate of the Department’s Civil Rights Division, which to this day is committed to enforcing the Civil Rights Act and upholding the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans – particularly society’s most vulnerable members. The new statute also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as well as the Community Relations Service, which assists vulnerable populations and promotes healing in times of disorder and distress.
Securing this law was an extraordinary undertaking – born of a consensus wrought by decades of hard work and profound sacrifice. It required two great presidents – John F. Kennedy, who called on us to confront a moral crisis and fulfill a national promise; and Lyndon Johnson, who took action, after President Kennedy’s assassination, to make that promise real. It required a Congress with the fortitude to stand up to those who defended a way of life founded on bigotry and oppression. It required leaders of conviction – from Medgar Evers to Dr. King; from John Lewis to Andrew Young – who were willing to risk, and even to give, their lives in order that others might live free. And most of all, it required men, women, and even children of tremendous courage – and unwavering faith – to endure the unendurable and advance the cause of justice.
These are the heroes whose legacy we celebrate on this milestone anniversary. These are the pioneers on whose shoulders we now stand. And these are the trailblazers to whom we pay grateful tribute this morning.
Of course, like all who are old enough to remember those days – when northern cities erupted and Mississippi burned – I will never forget the turmoil, and the violence, that characterized the Civil Rights Era. I will never forget watching, on a black-and-white television in my childhood home in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York, as countless people – rich and poor, black and white, famous and unknown – braved dogs and fire hoses, billy clubs and baseball bats, bullets and bombs, in order to secure the rights to which every American is entitled.
These extraordinary citizens streamed into Birmingham and marched on Washington. They stood up in Little Rock and sat-in in Greensboro. They faced riots in Oxford and walked through a schoolhouse door in Tuscaloosa. They dared, during America’s “long night of racial injustice,” to dream of a more equal society. And they risked everything they had to make it so.
This was the fight that, half a century ago, brought nearly a thousand students to Mississippi for a voter registration campaign called Freedom Summer – as the battle for civil rights was waged in the halls of Congress and thundered across the streets of America. Inch by inch, the nation as a whole moved slowly forward towards equality. But Mississippi and other states continued to stand in stubborn, racist opposition. Registrar offices instituted voting tests and other measures that made it almost impossible for black men and women to go to the polls and vote. Citizens – and even sworn police officers – fought racial equality and threatened African Americans who dared step into voting booths. Newspapers published the names of registered black voters so they could be targeted – and terrorized – by those who harbored hatred. Yet hundreds of young people came to Mississippi – in defiance of these threats and in the face of deadly violence – to help extend our democracy’s “most basic right” to people of color.
In the ten weeks of Freedom Summer, more than 65 buildings were bombed or burned. Hundreds of civil rights workers were beaten and arrested. And three brave young men – Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner – were brutally murdered.
Yet violence did not send the activists running, as its perpetrators had hoped. Instead, it galvanized them – and the nation. More and more brave Americans joined the cause – both residents of these communities and students of all races from across the country. When they saw that African-Americans were being deprived of quality educational opportunities, they established Freedom Schools to teach black history, to facilitate discussion, and to encourage political activism.
These young people devoted themselves to the hope – as Michael Schwerner’s widow, Rita, once wrote – that they could pass on to the next generation “a world containing more respect for the dignity and worth of all men than that world which was willed to us.” The senseless murders of Rita’s husband and his two colleagues, one black and one white, in a case that became known as Mississippi Burning, and which remains open to this day – captured headlines and sparked outrage across the country. Their tragic deaths moved public opinion, spurred cautious politicians to take long-overdue action, and intensified support for the Civil Rights Act. But their efforts also made possible the Voting Rights Act of 1965; the Fair Housing Act of 1968; and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, along with countless other movements for progress. And although Michael and Rita Schwerner never had the chance to have children of their own, their work – and the efforts of their friends and fellows – left a better world for me, for my children, and for millions more.
As we mark this anniversary, I am especially mindful that, without the Civil Rights Act, the protections it codified, or the monumental progress that followed, few of us would be here this morning. And without the sacrifices of countless activists and citizens, I would not stand before you as Attorney General of the United States, proudly serving in the Administration of our first African-American President.
I am just as mindful that none of this progress was preordained. We know from our history that advances toward equality and inclusion have never been inevitable. Every step forward has been hard-won. The words of our founding documents were not automatically imbued with the force of law. And our nation’s future continues to be defined, and its destiny determined, by men and women of both character and conviction; by courageous people who are unafraid to stand up for what they know to be right; and by patriots who never shrink from the responsibility to draw this country ever closer to its highest ideals.
Like you, my colleagues – at every level of today’s Department of Justice – and I are determined to do everything in our power to further these efforts, to protect and expand the work of those who have gone before, and to extend America’s promise to new generations and populations that have been too long disenfranchised, overlooked, and oppressed. Half a century after its passage, the Civil Rights Act continues to provide an arsenal of singularly useful tools in waging this struggle. And as we speak, the Justice Department is using provisions of this important law both aggressively – and innovatively – to confront civil rights challenges old and new.
Earlier this year, our Civil Rights Division relied on the 1964 Act to reach a $99 million employment discrimination settlement with the New York City Fire Department – the largest such employment settlement to date – ensuring that all applicants can fairly compete for jobs, and that New Yorkers are protected by the best-qualified among them. In 2012, the Department used provisions of the Act to address harassment against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students in a Minnesota school district, establishing a model for other districts to follow. We are currently employing other provisions to fight for gender equality in education and in the workplace. And we’re finding that, in a variety of cases and circumstances – from ensuring that schools provide safe and equal opportunities to all of our sons and daughters, to guaranteeing access to state courts for those with limited English proficiency – the Civil Rights Act offers powerful enforcement authorities to address contemporary challenges and safeguard vulnerable people.
Beyond the Act itself, the Justice Department has worked with our partners throughout the Administration – most notably the Department of Education, led by Secretary Arne Duncan, and the Department of Labor, led by Secretary Tom Perez, who not long ago led – and, in fact, helped to revive – our own Civil Rights Division, ushering in what I’m confident will be considered an era of historic achievement for the Division. Alongside these other agencies, we have worked hard to build on the spirit of the law by winning new legislation – and judicial rulings – that extend the promise of equality to others. We’ve secured additional protections for women, Latinos, Asian Americans, American Indians, and people with disabilities. And we’ve achieved historic progress in ensuring the civil rights of LGBT individuals across the country – so they can finally receive the equal opportunities, equal protection, and equal treatment they deserve.
All of this is important, life-changing work. It speaks to the timelessness of the Civil Rights Act itself, the continuing relevance of its core provisions, and the need to keep expanding upon the safeguards it provides. But it also shows that our work is far from over. Significant challenges remain before us. And each one of us – every American – has a great deal more to do.
Although we can be proud of the progress that’s been made even within our lifetimes, we cannot accept these advances as an indication that our work is complete, that our long journey has been successfully concluded. Progress is not an end; it is a measure of effort and of commitment. As we speak, in far too many neighborhoods, far too many people of color and far too many LGBT individuals are denied credit and housing. In the workplace, far too many women are deprived of the opportunity to perform equal work for equal pay, earning on average only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. In our education system, students of color are far more likely than white children to attend poorly-funded schools. In the criminal justice system, African-American men are routinely subjected to sentences averaging 20 percent longer than those served by white men convicted of similar crimes. And when it comes to our most treasured democratic institutions, many vulnerable populations – including young people, the elderly, and communities of color – are now facing a range of new restrictions, leveled under the dubious guise of voter fraud prevention, that create significant barriers to the ballot box.
If these and other conditions – from lower social and economic mobility, to reduced educational opportunities, to unequal justice and unfair outcomes – were felt so acutely by the majority of Americans, I believe our national dialogue, and our responses to these problems, would be very different. As it stands, our society is not yet colorblind; nor should it be, given the disparities that still afflict and divide us. We must be color brave and must never forget that all are made better and more prosperous if all are given equal opportunities.
That’s why, today – together – we must resolve once again to act not out of self-interest, but out of national interest. We must take into account not only the considerable steps forward we’ve seen over the last 50 years, but the entirety of the experience that people of color have faced. And we must never hesitate to confront the fact, the undeniable truth, that in too many places across this nation that I love – and have served throughout my life – that the echoes of injustices stretching back nearly four centuries continue to reverberate. These echoes from times past are still heard by too many.
In addressing these lingering effects, there is a need for personal responsibility. Too many individuals act in ways that are negligent or counterproductive. But there is also a need for societal responsibility; for collective engagement and common effort. We must be willing to acknowledge the problems we face, to talk frankly about inequality, and to examine its causes and its impacts and, most importantly, to act to eradicate it. And we must look at our great nation, and reflect on its history, with clarity and with honesty – with open eyes and deep understanding of who we have been, who we aspire to be, and who we are today.
This is the key to perfecting our Union – and formulating policies that will lead to a better, brighter future for all of our citizens. This is what drives the Obama Administration’s sweeping efforts to ensure that every American has the chance to succeed based on his or her skills, talent, and potential – not by the circumstances of their birth. But this is something we’ll never be able to do on our own.
Today, I am calling on Congress to renew the spirit of the Civil Rights Act – by updating fair housing and lending laws to address discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and marital status; by strengthening workplace protections to prohibit pay discrimination against women and to finally end discrimination against LGBT individuals; by ensuring equal access to education and promoting nondiscriminatory learning environments; and by passing updated voting rights legislation that will enable every voter, in every jurisdiction, to exercise – unencumbered – the rights that so many have fought and died to defend.
After all, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an attempt – and a highly successful one – to confront fundamental questions that had bedeviled this nation since its inception, and that justifiably generate controversy even today. This morning, we are reminded that carrying on this work; advancing the cause of justice; and ensuring the civil and human rights of every person – no matter where they come from, who they are, or who they love – continues to constitute our most solemn obligation.
The true greatness of this country lies in our limitless capacity for innovation and invention – for rebirth and renewal; for forging greater societies and reaching new frontiers. As a people, we have never been content to tie ourselves to an unjust status quo, no matter how many individuals may find it acceptable. We challenge; we question; we struggle; we quarrel. We bind ourselves to the ongoing quest for a better future. And ultimately, we move forward together – as one nation, indivisible – driven by our pursuit of a more perfect Union and determined, come what may, to achieve it.
That, at its core, is what defines us as Americans: a people born of revolution and tested by civil war. A nation founded on equality but built by those in chains. A country first imagined, centuries ago, by imperfect people driven by a near-perfect vision – a vision conceived by patriots who dared to reach beyond themselves and defended later by activists who fought for equal justice – and who challenge us, even today, to make this promise real.
To them – as to generations yet to come – we owe our best efforts and our deepest resolve. We must take up this challenge and implement this vision. And we must build, in their honor, a world that is worthy of their passion, their sacrifice, and their humanity.
Like you, I have no illusions that this task will be easy. But as I look around this crowd today – of passionate men and women, dedicated to truth and devoted to service – I am confident of our ability to reach that promised land. I thank you for your commitment to progress and to the pursuit of justice. And I look forward to all that we must, and will, accomplish in the months and years ahead. As a nation, as the beloved community, as a united people, we shall overcome.
Thank you.
SECRETARY KERRY'S PRESS AVAILABILITY IN VIENNA, AUSTRIA
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Press Availability in Vienna, Austria
Press Availability
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Vienna, Austria
July 15, 2014
In today’s world, it’s an understatement to say that diplomacy is difficult. But diplomacy is our preference for meeting the challenges that we do face all over the world, knowing even as we do that solutions are rarely perfect and nor do they all come at once. But that has never deterred us from pursuing the diplomatic course, and that is exactly what we are committed to doing and doing now.
President Obama has made it a top priority to pursue a diplomatic effort to see if we can reach an agreement that assures that the Iranian nuclear program is exclusively peaceful. In that effort, we have built a broad coalition of countries, including our P5+1 colleagues, to ensure that the international community is speaking with one voice. Despite the difficulties of these negotiations, I am confident that the United States and our partners in the P5+1 remain as squarely focused as ever on testing whether or not we can find a negotiated solution to this most pressing international security imperative.
Over the past few days, I have had lengthy conversations with Foreign Minister Zarif about what Iran is willing to do and what it needs to do to not only assure the community of nations, but to adhere to what the foreign minister himself has said repeatedly are Iran’s own limited objectives: not just to declare that they will not obtain a nuclear weapon, but to demonstrate in the actions they take beyond any reasonable doubt that any Iranian nuclear program, now and going forward, is exclusively for peaceful purposes.
In these conversations, and indeed over the last almost six months since the Joint Plan of Action took effect, we have made progress. We have all kept the commitments made in the Joint Plan, and we have all lived up to our obligations. We have all continued to negotiate in good faith. But after my conversations here with both Iran and with our P5+1 partners in particular, it is clear that we still have more work to do.
Our team will continue working very hard to try to reach a comprehensive agreement that resolves the international community’s concerns. I am returning to Washington today to consult with President Obama and with leaders in Congress over the coming days about the prospects for a comprehensive agreement, as well as a path forward if we do not achieve one by the 20th of July, including the question of whether or not more time is warranted, based on the progress we’ve made and how things are going.
As I have said, and I repeat, there has been tangible progress on key issues, and we had extensive conversations in which we moved on certain things. However, there are also very real gaps on other key issues. And what we are trying to do is find a way for Iran to have an exclusively peaceful nuclear program, while giving the world all the assurances required to know that Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon.
I want to underscore: These goals are not incompatible. In fact, they are realistic. But we have not yet found the right combination or arrived at the workable formula. There are more issues to work through and more provisions to nail down to ensure that Iran’s program will always remain exclusively peaceful. So we are going to continue to work and we’re going to continue to work with the belief that there is a way forward.
But – and this is a critical point – while there is a path forward, Iran needs to choose to take it. And our goal now is to determine the precise contours of that path, and I believe we can.
With that, I’d be happy to take a few questions.
MS. HARF: The first question is from Jo Biddle of the AFP. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. You said that you’re returning to Washington for further consultations with President Obama, but you did say that the July 20th deadline is still on the table. How confident are you that you can get an agreement by July 20th? And if we’re talking about an extension, have you any idea how long that could be?
And I wanted to ask you about reports that – today quoting Mr. Foreign Minister Zarif that the Iranians are proposing a freeze on a nuclear program for a few years in return for being later treated as a country with a peaceful nuclear energy.
SECRETARY KERRY: I’m sorry. That got garbled in – take – hold the mike a little bit away.
QUESTION: Sorry.
SECRETARY KERRY: A little bit away, sorry.
QUESTION: There was a report in The New York Times today, an interview with Foreign Minister Zarif, in which he suggested that the Iranians have proposed freezing their nuclear program for a few years in return for being treated later as a country with a peaceful nuclear civilian energy program. Does this meet any U.S. demands or is this one of the real gaps that you’re still talking about?
And if I may, can I just ask you about the crisis in Gaza as well? Did you talk with Foreign Minister Zarif about this? Are you asking the Iranians to use their leverage with Hamas? And what could the United States do to try to achieve an implementation of a ceasefire which Hamas appears to have rejected? Thank you very much.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, with respect to the issue of July 20th, yes, it’s obviously still on the table and we’re still working, and we’re going to continue to work. The team will be here. They’ll continue to meet. And I will, as I said, go back to Washington to talk to the President and also our team back there in order to assess where we think we are with respect to the progress that we have made.
As I said, we have made progress, and there is work still to do, and we believe there is a path forward, so let’s see what happens in the next hours and days. I’m obviously prepared to come back here if we have the team say to me that there’s a reason to do so, but I have no plans to do so as I leave to go back to Washington to consult with the President.
With respect to the issue of the – what was in The New York Times and the question of a gap or no gap, I am definitively not going to negotiate in public. I’m not going to comment on any stories with respect to substance one way or the other. The real negotiation is not going to be done in the public eye; it’s going to be done in the private meetings that we’re having, and it is being done there. And I might add these are tough negotiations. The Iranians are strong in their positions. They understand what their needs are, we understand what ours are. Both are working in good faith to try to find a way forward.
And as I said, I think we’ve made some progress. Obviously, there’s more work to do. We’ll assess where we are in the next few days and make judgments at that point in time. And we don’t do this, obviously, exclusively. We are part of a team, the P5+1. Our partners, all of them, weigh in equally in this decision, and we need to be consulting as we go forward.
With respect to Gaza, let me say a few words. I cannot condemn strongly enough the actions of Hamas in so brazenly firing rockets in multiple numbers in the face of a goodwill effort to offer a ceasefire in which Egypt and Israel have joined together, and the international community strongly supports the idea of a ceasefire, the need – the compelling need to have a ceasefire. At the same time, there are great risks in what is happening there and in the potential of an even greater escalation of violence. We don’t want to see that – nobody does – and nor does Israel.
But Israel has a right to defend itself, and it is important for Hamas not to be provoking and purposefully trying to play politics in order to gain greater followers for its opposition, and use the innocent lives of civilians who they hide in buildings and use as shields and put in danger. That is against the laws of war and that’s why they are a terrorist organization. So we need to remember what is at stake here, and we will continue to work for a ceasefire.
Now at the moment, one of the reasons I’m going to Washington and not to Egypt, just to answer possibly another question ahead of time, is because there was this offer on the table, and we believe that it was important to give this offer an opportunity. And I still think perhaps reason could prevail if the political wing can deal with the military wing and Egypt can have some leverage. Let’s see what happens.
But we are prepared, as the United States is always prepared – and President Obama has said this again and again – to do everything in our power to help the parties come together to work to create a climate for genuine negotiations to be able to deal with the issues that truly separate these parties, and we stand prepared to do that. I am prepared to fly back to the region tomorrow if I have to, or the next day or the next, in order to pursue the prospects if this doesn’t work. But they deserve – the Egyptians deserve the time and the space to be able to try to make this initiative work, and we hope it will.
We urge all parties to support this ceasefire, and we support and we ask all the members of the Arab community, as they did yesterday at the Arab League meeting in Cairo, to continue to press to try to get Hamas to do the right thing here, which is cease the violence, engage in a legitimate negotiation, and protect the lives of people that they seem all too willing to put to risk.
MS. HARF: Our next question is from Lou Charbonneau of Reuters.
QUESTION: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, I wanted to return to the issue of Iran first. The Supreme Leader of Iran last week had a major speech in which he spoke of Iran needing the equivalent of what some see is as many as 190,000 older-generation centrifuges over the long term, a kind of massive industrial scale. How did you respond – how did you react to this speech? And in your meetings here with the Iranians, have you seen any sign of a new and substantial flexibility on the Iranian side since your Washington Post op-ed two weeks ago, enough progress that could, in theory, justify an extension?
And then I wanted to add on a question about Libya, where the situation is quite alarming. The UN is pulling out its staff and there has been shelling of as many as 90 planes at the airport. Thanks.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, with respect to the Supreme Leader’s speech on the 190,000 centrifuges, that’s not a new figure. It didn’t come as a surprise to me or to others. And what it is is it’s a reflection of Iran’s current ambitions with respect to a nuclear power program, and it reflects a long-term perception of what they currently have in their minds with respect to nuclear plants to provide power. It is not something, I think, that’s meant – and I think it was framed that way, I believe, in the speech.
Obviously, that’s not – I’m not going to get into what we’re talking about in numbers or whatever, but we have made it crystal clear that the 19,000 that are currently part of their program is too many, and that we need to deal with the question of enrichment. And so all I will say to you is that we will continue to press.
Now I do want Iran to understand, I want the Supreme Leader to know, that the United States believes that Iran has a right to have a peaceful nuclear program under Article IV of the NPT – there’s no question about that – a peaceful program. And what we are now working on is: How do you guarantee that what they do have is in fact purely peaceful and that it adheres to the stated intentions of the Supreme Leader and other leaders of Iran never to have a nuclear weapon?
Now, the Supreme Leader has issued a fatwa. We take that very seriously. The fatwa issued by a cleric is an extremely powerful statement about intent. But it is our need to codify it. We can’t take any declaration because that’s not what a negotiation nor a nuclear agreement is about. It’s about verifiable, specific steps by which parties that have disagreed can agree that they know each of them what they’re doing and how they’re living up to their responsibilities. And that’s what we’re seeing in this particular effort.
So Iran can have a peaceful nuclear program and they know how to get there. It’s by living up to the demands of the international community, the United Nations Security Council; the IAEA questions need to be answered, the additional protocol needs to be adhered to; and a specific set of verification and transparency measures need to be put in place among other things that make the promises real. That’s the nature. It’s not specific to Iran. Any country would be in the same place and need to do the same thing, as they do with respect to any kind of agreement.
Libya: We are obviously deeply concerned about the level of violence in Libya, and every single day in the State Department, we make assessments about the level of violence, about our personnel who are there, about our Embassy, about the overall nature of the violence. And that is why President Obama has appointed a special envoy, David Satterfield, a diplomat with a great deal of experience who most recently filled in in Egypt. And he has been working very closely with Jonathan Powell, the British special envoy, and with other special envoys – France, Italy – all of them focused on how we can transition Libya away from this militia violence, which is what is threatening the airport at the moment. It is not violence that has broken out every single day, all day. It’s mostly fighting at night and it is not threatening broadly every interest within Libya, but it is dangerous and it must stop. And we are working very, very hard through our special envoys to find the political cohesion, the glue that can bring people together to create stronger capacity in the governance of Libya so that this violence can end. And we’ll continue to stay very, very precisely focused on it.
MS. HARF: And our final question is from Amir Paivar of BBC Persia.
QUESTION: Thank you very much, Secretary Kerry. Many Iranians wonder – I would like to be very specific – why the U.S. and the world powers would not accept Iran maintain, say, 10,000 centrifuges. And here, I’m not haggling over numbers, but if the other terms of the deal are secure, numbers capped, degree of enrichment low, inspections intrusive – if trust is an issue, they say, both Iran and the United States have their checkered history when it comes to nuclear capability.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, as I said earlier, when you start asking about specific numbers of centrifuges and so forth, you get into a zone of public disclosure that is just not helpful to the negotiations at this point in time. So I’m not going to talk about a specific number, what number might work, not work, what we will accept, won’t accept. All of those questions belong at the negotiating table, and that’s where they are.
But let me just say, in general terms, this is not an issue of trust. This is an issue of factual process by which you can verify on a day-to-day basis what is happening. Now why do we need to do that? Why are there P5+1 at the table? Why is China joining with Russia, joining with the United States, joining with Germany, France, and Britain – all of them together at the table demanding the same thing, as well as the rest of the world through the United Nations Security Council and the resolutions?
This is not a fabricated issue. The reason that trust has to be built and a process of transparency and accountability has to be created is because over the years, a secret program has been pursued in a deep, under-the-ground, mountaintop facility that was concealed for a long time until it was discovered, and levels of enrichment have been going on on a regular basis and serious questions raised about weaponization in that context.
Now we’re working to answer those questions, and I want to – Foreign Minister Zarif is a tough negotiator. He knows how to fight for what he is fighting for. But he’s been clear, as we have been clear, about what we need to do to try to arrive at a fair, reasonable way to meet both parties’ rights and interests in this situation. And I believe that, as I said, we’ve made progress, and I think both of us can see ways in which we could make further progress and hopefully answer those questions.
But I’m not going to get into why Iran might have done that or who pushed who in what direction or what mistakes were made in the past. You can go back to the 1950s and find lots of things that have happened that have given rise to the relationship we’re in today. What we want to do is try and see if that’s changeable, put that to the test. The first test is to answer the questions and come up with a formula that says to the world this is a peaceful nuclear program, and it cannot be used to make weapons and we know that to a certainty. The test is: Can we know whether or not Iran is able to and is or might be building a nuclear weapon?
Now we’re going to continue to do what we are doing here. We’re going to work hard to try to find this agreement. This is not just important to the United States, Iran, and the P5; it’s important to the world. And it is important for us to try to work hard in order to see if we can find success, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.
MS. HARF: Great. Thank you, everyone.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all. Appreciate it very much. We’ll see you again at some point, I’m sure.
U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT CONTRACTS FOR JUNE 15, 2014
FROM: U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
CONTRACTS
ARMY
General Atomics - Systems Integration, LLC, San Diego, California, was awarded a $38,781,663 modification (P00019) to contract W58RGZ-13-C-0124 to acquire continued operations, sustainment, and integration of two deployed Highlighter fixed wing aircraft. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Army) funds in the amount of $8,873,018 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is July 13, 2015. Work will be performed in San Diego, California; Bridgewater, Virginia; and Afghanistan. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.
Northrop Grumman, Huntsville, Alabama, was awarded an $18,258,765 modification (P00107) to contract W31P4Q-08-C-0418 for the Integrated Air and Missile Defense S280 transition from the baseline M1085 mounted Command Post Platform Shelter to an M1148 Load Handling System Family of Medium Tactical Vehicle mounted S-280 Shelter. Fiscal 2014 research, development, testing and evaluation funds in the amount of $18,258,765 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 30, 2015. Work will be performed in Huntsville, Alabama. Army Contracting Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, is the contracting activity.
Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company, LLC, Oak Brook, Illinois, was awarded a $17,027,415 modification (P00003) to contract W912DS-13-C-0045 for dredging shoaled material. Fiscal 2014 other procurement funds in the amount of $17,027,415 were obligated at the time of the award. Estimated completion date is Sept. 7, 2014. Work will be performed in New York harbor along Newark Bay Port Elizabeth Channel, Newark Bay north and south areas, and along Kill Van Kull in the vicinity of Constable Hook and Anchorage Channel. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York, New York, is the contracting activity.
U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND
Federal Express Charter Programs Team Arrangement of Memphis, Tennessee, was awarded an estimated $57,810,843 modification (P00012) to previously awarded contract HTC711-13-D-CC02. The modification brought the total cumulative face value of the contract to $1,176,792,312. Team members include: Air Transport International LLC, Wilmington, Ohio; Atlas Air, Inc., Purchase, New York; Delta Air Lines, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia; Federal Express Corporation, Memphis, Tennessee; Polar Air Cargo Worldwide, Inc., Purchase, New York; and MN Airlines, LLC, doing business as Sun Country Airlines, Mendota Heights, Minnesota. Work will be performed at worldwide locations with an expected completion date of Sept. 30, 2014. Fiscal 2014 transportation working capital funds will be obligated on individual task orders. This was a competitive acquisition and 28 offers were received under the initial procurement. The U.S. Transportation Command Directorate of Acquisition, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, is the contracting activity.
NAVY
BAE Systems Land and Armaments, Weapons Systems, Minneapolis, Minnesota, is being awarded a $43,245,218 cost-plus-fixed-fee modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-12-C-4221) for research and development activities associated with Integrated Power Systems power load modules, to be used for electromagnetic railgun pulse power containers design, and for the fabricating and testing of prototypes. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (75 percent); Minneapolis, Minnesota (15 percent); and Dayton, Ohio (10 percent), and is expected to be completed by December 2016. Fiscal 2014 research, development, test and evaluation (Navy) funding in the amount of $14,502,272 will be obligated at award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity.
BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair, Norfolk, Virginia, is being awarded a $29,773,261 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-11-C-4403) for the USS San Jacinto (CG 56) fiscal year 2014 drydocking selected restricted availability. Work will be performed in Norfolk, Virginia, and is expected to be completed by January 2015. Fiscal 2014 operations and maintenance (Navy) funding in the amount of $28,857,059 will be obligated at time of award and will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Norfolk Ship Support Activity, Norfolk, Virginia, is the contracting activity.
Walsh Construction Co. II, LLC, Chicago, Illinois, is being awarded a $26,947,000 firm-fixed-price contract for the construction of electrical capacity and cooling towers at Naval Support Activity Bethesda. The work to be performed provides for the construction of electrical upgrades to improve the capacity of the power distribution infrastructure. The proposed new construction includes the demolition and reconstruction of three existing cooling towers, and the construction of a fourth cooling tower cell to accommodate future loads. Work will be performed in Bethesda, Maryland, and is expected to be completed by January 2016. Fiscal 2013 military construction (Navy) contract funds in the amount of $26,947,000 are obligated on this award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was competitively procured via the Navy Electronic Commerce Online website, with 12 proposals received. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Washington, Washington, District of Columbia, is the contracting activity (N40080-14-C-0158).
General Atomics, San Diego, California, is being awarded a $10,267,000 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N68335-09-C-0573) for the integration and installation of the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System CVN 78 shipboard software and support. Work will be performed in San Diego, California (79 percent), and Waltham, Massachusetts (21 percent), and is expected to be completed in October 2015. Fiscal 2011 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $10, 267,000 are being obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Lakehurst, New Jersey, is the contracting activity.
MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY
Lockheed Martin Mission System and Training, Moorestown, New Jersey, has been awarded a $20,000,000 option exercise modification (P00148) to previously awarded contract (HQ0276-10-C-0001) for support of advanced concept initiatives by the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (ABMD) Program Office to identify technology for introduction into present and future ABMD Baselines and upgrades. The modification brings the total cumulative face value of the contract to $1,808,932,405. Work will be performed at Moorestown, New Jersey, with an expected end date of Dec. 15, 2015. Fiscal year 2014 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $500,000 are being obligated at time of award. The Missile Defense Agency, Dahlgren, Virginia, is the contracting activity.
DEFENSE LOGISTICS AGENCY
Merchants Food Service, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, has been awarded a maximum $7,220,745 fixed-price with economic-price-adjustment contract for full line food distribution for Louisiana and Mississippi areas. This contract was a sole-source acquisition. Location of performance is Mississippi, with a Nov. 15, 2014, performance completion date. This is a four-month bridge contract with no option periods. Using military services are Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. Type of appropriation is fiscal 2014 defense working capital funds. The contracting activity is the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (SPE300-14-D-3015). (This contract was awarded on July 11, 2014.)
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
READOUT: PRESIDENT OBAMA'S MEETING WITH CONGRESSIONAL MEMBERS ON PROMOTING EXPORTS
FROM: THE WHITE HOUSE
Readout of the Obama Administration’s Meeting with Members of Congress and their Constituents on Promoting Exports
Today, senior Administration officials met with Members of Congress and their constituents to discuss policies, Administrative initiatives, and legislative efforts to help businesses increase exports and create jobs in their districts. The Members and their constituents shared some of the best practices that business owners in their communities have put forward to increase their own exports, and Administration officials, Members, and their constituents discussed how the Administration can best partner with Members and businesses moving forward. Participants also discussed the critical importance of reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank and securing trade agreements to help American businesses grow their markets abroad.
Members of Congress who attended the meeting included:
- Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington
- Representative Elizabeth Esty of Connecticut
- Representative Denny Heck of Washington
- Representative Scott Peters of California
Senior Administration officials who attended the meeting included:
- Secretary Penny Pritzker, Department of Commerce
- Ambassador Michael Froman, United States Trade Representative
- Anne Wall, Deputy Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs and Senate Liaison
U.S. CONGRATULATES IRAQI PEOPLE ON ELECTION OF A PARLIAMENTARY SPEAKER
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
U.S. Congratulates Iraqis on the Election of a Parliamentary Speaker
Press Statement
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Washington, DC
July 15, 2014
We congratulate the Iraqi people on the election of a new parliamentary Speaker and two Deputy Speakers. The election of a Speaker is the first step in the critical process of forming a new government that can take into account the rights, aspirations, and legitimate concerns of all Iraq’s communities.
We urge Iraq’s leaders to follow this achievement with rapid formation of a new government pursuant to Iraq's constitutional timelines. We further urge the international community to support Iraq's democratic political process, which reflects the aspirations of the nearly 14 million Iraqis who voted for new representatives from all parts of the country. These representatives are now charged, through the Iraqi parliament, to form a new government with leaders who reflect a broad national consensus.
As I said in Baghdad, this is a moment when the stakes for Iraq’s future could not be clearer as much depends on the ability of Iraq’s leaders to come together and take a united stand against ISIL. Iraq faces an existential threat and Iraq’s leaders need to confront that threat with the urgency that it demands. As they do, the United States will remain a steadfast partner in support of their fight for the democratic process and against ISIL.
We urge Iraq’s leaders to follow this achievement with rapid formation of a new government pursuant to Iraq's constitutional timelines. We further urge the international community to support Iraq's democratic political process, which reflects the aspirations of the nearly 14 million Iraqis who voted for new representatives from all parts of the country. These representatives are now charged, through the Iraqi parliament, to form a new government with leaders who reflect a broad national consensus.
As I said in Baghdad, this is a moment when the stakes for Iraq’s future could not be clearer as much depends on the ability of Iraq’s leaders to come together and take a united stand against ISIL. Iraq faces an existential threat and Iraq’s leaders need to confront that threat with the urgency that it demands. As they do, the United States will remain a steadfast partner in support of their fight for the democratic process and against ISIL.
NSF REPORTS OCEAN MICROBES HAVE DAILY CYCLES OF ACTIVITY
FROM: NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Ocean's microbial megacity: Like humans, the sea's most abundant organisms have clear daily cycles
Coordinated timing may have implications for ocean food web
In every drop of water, hundreds of types of bacteria can be found.
Now scientists have discovered that communities of these ocean microbes have their own daily cycles--not unlike the residents of a bustling city who tend to wake up, commute, work and eat at the same times.
Light-loving photoautotrophs--bacteria that need solar energy to help them photosynthesize food from inorganic substances--have been known to sun themselves on a regular schedule.
But in new research results published in this week's issue of the journal Science, researchers working at Station ALOHA, a deep ocean study site 100 kilometers north of Oahu, Hawaii, observed species of bacteria turning on cycling genes at slightly different times.
The switches suggest a wave of activity that passes through the microbial community.
"I like to say that they are singing in harmony," said Edward DeLong, a biological oceanographer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and an author of this week's paper.
"For any given species, the gene transcripts for specific metabolic pathways turn on at the same time each day."
The observations were made possible by advanced microbial community RNA sequencing techniques, which allow for whole-genome profiling of multiple species at once.
DeLong and colleagues deployed a free-drifting robotic Environmental Sample Processor (ESP) as part of a National Science Foundation (NSF) Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education (C-MORE) research expedition to Station ALOHA.
Riding the same ocean currents as the microbes it follows, the ESP is equipped to harvest the samples needed for this high-frequency, time-resolved analysis of microbial community dynamics.
What the scientists saw was intriguing: different species of bacteria expressing different types of genes in varying, but consistent, cycles--turning on, for example, restorative genes needed to rebuild solar-collecting powers at night, then ramping up with different gene activity to build new proteins during the day.
"It was almost like a shift of hourly workers punching in and out on a clock," DeLong said.
"This research is a major advance in understanding microbial communities through studies of gene expression in a dynamic environment," said Matt Kane, a program director in NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences, which co-funds C-MORE with NSF's Directorate for Geosciences.
"It was accomplished by combining new instrumentation for remote sampling with state-of-the-art molecular biological techniques."
The coordinated timing of gene firing across different species of ocean microbes could have important implications for energy transformation in the sea.
"For decades, microbiologists have suspected that marine bacteria were actively responding to day-night cycles," said Mike Sieracki, a program director in NSF's Directorate for Geosciences.
"These researchers have shown that ocean bacteria are indeed very active and likely are synchronized with the sun."
The mechanisms that regulate this periodicity remain to be determined.
Can you set your watch by them?
DeLong said that you can, but it matters whether you're tracking the bacteria in the lab or at sea.
For example, maximum light levels at Station ALOHA are different than light conditions in experimental settings in the laboratory, which may have an effect on microbes' activity and daily cycles.
"That's part of why it's so important to conduct this research in the open ocean environment," said DeLong.
"There are some fundamental laws to be learned about how organisms interact to make the system work better as a whole and to be more efficient."
Co-authors of the paper are Elizabeth Ottesen, Curtis Young, Scott Gifford, John Eppley, Roman Marin III, Stephan Schuster and Christopher Scholin.
The research also was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
-NSF-
Media Contacts
Cheryl Dybas,
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT TRI-MISSION VIENNA MEETING WITH STAFF/FAMILIES
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at the Tri-Mission Vienna Meeting With Staff and Families
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Vienna, Austria
July 14, 2014
So if anything, this is a great honor for us to be with you, Mr. Secretary, and of course with this combined staff of S staff coming from Washington with you and the Vienna missions staff. If there’s a great opportunity – I learned – I’m an old staff guy. The Secretary knows this. And if I learned an important lesson, it’s that you can determine the leadership of a principal, of a leader, by the staff that are around them. I know that Dan and Alexa and I have been amazingly well-served by the people in this room who work for us, and that you have served by your staff, and together they make an incredible combination.
So for all of you, you made the three right decisions. One, you worked hard and you worked well with each other; two, you showed the Secretary that Mission Vienna is exactly the right place to come to get a job done, which it better be, because I think we’ll see him again and again. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY KERRY: I know you’re just saying it to get a job. (Laughter.)
AMBASSADOR MACMANUS: Well, I’m working on that.
And the third thing is the staff was smart enough to keep the three ambassadors away. So we’re happy to be here; we’re happy to join all of you in welcoming our leader, our boss. We all get up in the morning and say, “I work for the Secretary of State.”
SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, yeah. (Laughter.)
AMBASSADOR MACMANUS: Now you can say when you get up in the morning, “Me, I work for John Kerry.” (Laughter.) Mr. Secretary, welcome.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you, Joe. I’ll take it all, I’ll take it all. (Applause.)
(In German.) Nice to see you all. (In German.) It’s nice to be with all of you. And one thing that’s for certain after that introduction: With the name Macmanus, you know there’s a lot of blarney there too. (Laughter.) And you just heard some of it, but anyway.
I am really happy to be here in this incredible city, and especially with the three missions that we have here. I’m deeply appreciative for the work that all of you do. I’m very grateful to Dan, Dan Baer, and all of the work that the folks at the OSCE have done. It’s been so critical to our ability to be able to try to have a hand in working things out in Ukraine, among other places and other things, but that’s been the most recent crisis. And Dan has been there every single minute and helpful, and the folks there on the front lines have been really making a difference. As he just said to me, I talk to Lavrov, Lavrov and I work it out, and we dump it on Dan and other people to figure out after that. (Laughter.)
And Alexa, thank you so much for your leadership of the flagship mission, in a sense – our representation in the country, to the country. We appreciate that, and I expect to see you out on your bike tomorrow morning early with me. (Laughter.) She’s a – I’ve been told by everybody – I’ve been warned don’t ride with her, because she’s going to crush you. (Laughter.)
AMBASSADOR WESNER: John can keep up.
SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, not at all. Not at all.
But we went out for a ride this morning. Actually, I had a wonderful time. I went out in the complete peace and quiet of about four motorcycles and 15 cars, all – (laughter). It was really fun, and I rode through the streets and by – hit all this fabulous architecture, obviously, and history. And then across the bridge and down onto the island, and we rode up and down the island, which is really beautiful. So I think we’ve got to plan more trips here, staff. Where the hell are you? It’ll be fun.
And Joe – this guy is very, very special to the Department, as all of you know. And we are in the middle of the – in talks about nuclear proliferation and reining in Iran’s program, which is really tough negotiation, I will tell you. And the IAEA plays such a central role, not just there but all over the world, in holding people accountable. And he’s done a tremendous job, so much so that I am dragging him back to Washington to the Department to be the executive secretary for me. He’s worked there with Condi Rice, worked there with Hillary Clinton, and he does such a good job that he keeps getting called back, I’m afraid. But thank you, Joe, for (inaudible). (Applause.)
And is Charlie Slater here, by any chance? Charlie. Charlie’s worked for 36 years for the Department here, right?
PARTICIPANT: Yes, sir.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you. Everybody wants to say thank you (inaudible). Thank you very, very much. (Applause.)
And Marianne Spitzer. Is Marianne Spitzer here? Marianne, 40 – how many years?
PARTICIPANT: Forty-three.
SECRETARY KERRY: (In German.), right?
PARTICIPANT: Yeah.
SECRETARY KERRY: Incredible. Thank you very, very much. We thank you. (Applause.) Thank you.
And then I understand that Jodie, Julia, Josh, and Jennifer – do we have Jodie, Julia, Josh, and Jennifer? They’re probably all over at – you are obviously Josh, not --
PARTICIPANT: Actually, I’m Jodie, sir. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY KERRY: Oh, you are? (Laughter.) I screwed that up. (Laughter.) Okay. Well, I want to thank you. Will you tell the others – they’re probably off with my team, but they’ve been the key link to my team. And obviously, your name has to begin with J to work for Wendy Sherman or something. I don’t know. Thank you for what you guys have done. Our team could not survive here without all your effort, and I really appreciate it. Thank you. (Applause.)
It’s really special to be back here. I have to tell you, years ago – it’s too long, too quickly, I will tell you – I was in Budapest for a conference when I was a senator, and I had my kids with me. Then – I can’t really – I think they were about 15 and 11 or something like that, and we took the boat back from Budapest up the river to Vienna and spent a couple days here. Really had a very, very special time, and it’s wonderful to come back here. I know western Austria a lot better than I know the east because I was lucky enough as a kid to have a dad who was in the Foreign Service who was passionate about skiing, and so he dragged me to the mountains of the Tyrol and Vorarlberg. I got to fall in love with the place.
But it’s fun to be back, even though it’s very brief and I’m in and out. It gives me a chance to be able to say to you on behalf of President Obama and myself a very deeply felt and real thank you for what you do. This is tough work – not as tough in Vienna – (laughter) – as it is in a lot of other places I’ve been recently like Kabul or Cairo or other very difficult parts of the world. And many of you have spent time in those places, which is part of the reason you’re here now.
But it’s – I just did live conference from Kabul the other night with this group of moguls who assemble in Ketchum, Idaho, Sun Valley every year, the so-called Allen Conference. And it’s a lot of media moguls, people like Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller and whole bunch of names well known in the media world. And Charlie Rose was doing this interview with me, and he asked me about sort of the world, where we are now. And I will tell you, I had to explain all of – that America is not retreating, we are not disengaging. There is a very disingenuous narrative that is being pushed by some people in the course of politics to try to somehow fault President Obama for the Arab Spring or for the aspirations of people in Syria who’ve been met by a brutal dictator and so forth.
But I am confident – and I’m particularly confident as former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as well as a 29 member – year member of that committee – never have I seen the United States of America as engaged on as many fronts that are as critical to us at a time where the world is in as much conflict and turmoil and transformation as it is today. This is a tough time, complicated time. What happens with Russia in helping us to get chemical weapons out of Syria is affected by what we do and respond to their aggression in Crimea and in Ukraine, and what happens in Egypt affects whether or not we can move forward with the peace in the Middle East or what happens on the border of the Sinai and what happens with Gaza and a ceasefire, and all of these things are interrelated.
And you see this sectarianism being released in parts of the world, which has been bottled up for years in the Cold War, in the press of dictatorships that were able to tampen these aspirations down, the former Yugoslavia and Tito classic example of that. And when the Iron Curtain fell, when the wall came down and the world changed, all of the sudden all of those forces had been released in a world where globalization is also changing everybody’s connection to each other. Everybody is connected to everybody all the time now, and the news is coming at you at such a volume, it’s hard for the average person to digest it and to make sense of it and understand where things are going.
It’s harder to build consensus, I will tell you, in politics than it ever was before. When I was a kid growing up, you could listen to Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson if you wanted to – (laughter) – I did – on what was it, four channels – ABC, CBS, NBC, and public television. That was it. That’s it. And so the whole country stopped and listened. And the next day at work around the coffee counter or the water cooler or whatever, that was the topic of conversation. Today people will go to the shopping channel or to HBO or whatever it is, and it’s hard to find an audience, and that makes it harder to communicate and harder to build a political understanding of the choices that we face.
So all of this I say not by way of prolonging my presence here, but just to tell you this is complicated, tough stuff, and made the more so by the fact that there are more economic powers than there ever were previously, feeling their oats, and lots of people who are jealous or angry or pressured or humiliated by one part of history or another, and we’re an easy target.
So I ask all of you to think about that every day as you do get up to go to work – not about John Kerry being your Secretary of State, but about what you’re doing, your work. And I really want to say thank you to you for this, because it’s not a lot of jobs in today’s world where you can get up in the morning and really make a difference in the lives of other people, make a difference for your country, have an impact on people. And whatever you do in here, it doesn’t matter who you are, whatever your role is, you are an ambassador, not just these folks up here. You are. You may be the only person sometimes some people will ever meet – less so here in a place like Vienna, but in a lot of posts that’s true, when they come for an interview for a visa or where they come in and they have a problem, so think about that. And think about how we take the values that we cherish so much about our country and protect our interests.
And for those of you who are local employees, I thank you particularly, because you have sort of joined us. You’ve become part of the family, even as you are a proud of and will always be a citizen of your own country, but you’re helping us in this mission, and we can’t possibly do this without you. So I thank you very, very, very much for that. (Applause.)
And (inaudible) have a chance just to shake a few hands and say hello to everybody. But as I leave here, just remember – I said this – I was privileged to speak to the graduating class of Yale this year, and it was particularly a pleasure because it happened to turn out to be, literally, I hate to say it, 48 years to the day that I was privileged to speak as a graduating senior to my own class. And I talked to them about sort of the world we’re in right now, but at the end I tried to remind them all, which I remind you of, we are – I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional we are – not because we’re not exceptional, but because it’s kind of in-your-face and a lot of other people are exceptional, a lot of other places do exceptional things.
But we are exceptional in a certain way that no other nation is. We are not defined by thousands of years (inaudible) of history. We are not defined by ethnicity. We are not defined by bloodline or by anything except an idea. And that idea was expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in our Constitution, the idea that people are created equal and that all people have a chance to aspire for greatness, for anything they want. Pretty amazing, right? So think about that. It’s the only country that is literally united and formed around and whose rule of law is based on that idea, one idea, and it’s pretty special. So thank you for representing it. Thank you. (Applause.)
JAPAN LOOKS TO REINTERPRET COUNTRY'S MILITARY ROLE
FROM: U.S. DEFENSE DEPARTMENT
Hagel, Onodera Discuss Reinterpretation of Japan’s Constitution
DOD
By Jim Garamone
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, July 11, 2014 – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has held his first meeting with his Japanese counterpart since the government in Tokyo announced it would reinterpret the country’s pacifist constitution to allow Japan to take on greater military responsibilities beyond self-defense.
Hagel met at the Pentagon today with Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera and in a joint press conference afterward said the United States strongly supports the move, calling the decision by Japan’s government bold and historic. If approved by parliament, Hagel said the change would enable the U.S. ally “to significantly increase its contribution to regional and global security and expand its role on the world stage.”
The United States and Japan will work together now to revise U.S.-Japan defense guidelines. “Today, we confirm that these new guidelines should be in place by the end of this year,” Hagel said. The revisions will allow Japan to participate more fully in such areas as ballistic missile defense, counterproliferation, counterpiracy, peacekeeping, and a wide range of military exercises.
The two countries also will be able to work more closely together on maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and other areas, Hagel said. “We can raise our alliance to a new level, and we intend to do that,” he said.
The two said they discussed what the United States and Japan will do to modernize the alliance to ensure it is prepared to address emerging threats and challenges. Onodera said he and Hagel also discussed security in the broader Asia Pacific region.
Hagel reiterated the longstanding U.S. position on a territorial dispute that the Senkaku Islands, also claimed by China, are under Japan’s administrative control and fall under the U.S.-Japan mutual security treaty.
“The United States opposes any attempts by any country to change the status quo through destabilizing unilateral actions, and we oppose any effort to restrict overflight or freedom of navigation,” Hagel said. China declared an air defense zone over the islands last year.
Both defense leaders stressed the importance of good relations with China.
P5+1 NEGOTIATIONS BRIEFING
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Background Briefing on P5+1 Negotiations
Special Briefing
Senior U.S. Administration Officials
Vienna, Austria
July 12, 2014
MODERATOR: Hello. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Vienna. Thank you for you flexibility today and for coming tonight. First, to start with ground rules. This is all on background as Senior U.S. Administration Officials. Most of you are familiar with our team up here. [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] will give some opening remarks and then we’ll open it up for questions. We have a bunch of folks up here who can answer them, including, I think most of you know [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two], and has been doing these talks for a long time as well, so – but all of that will be on background. No matter who it is, Senior Administration Officials. Please keep us honest on this.
So in a moment I’ll turn it over to [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] and then [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] will give some brief opening remarks and then we’ll do questions. When we do Q&A, please, even though we know most of you, identify yourself and your outlet so we make sure we all know who you are. So, with that.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for being here this evening and welcome to today’s backgrounder.
It’s been a very busy 10 days since we arrived in Vienna. We all have to stop and remember what day of the week it is. They’ve all sort of blended together, so I know for all of you, it’s been a difficult 10 days as well, because we try to keep it fairly buttoned up, so appreciate your patience.
We’ve had a mix of plenary sessions, expert meetings, bilaterals with all of the other countries here, and of course with Iran, and coordination sessions that are led by the High Representative of the European Union Catherine Ashton, who coordinates and leads these talks. Today, I want to say a few words about what we expect from Secretary Kerry’s visit here tomorrow and about what’s happened in the talks during this round, and then of course, I and my colleagues would be happy to take your questions.
The Secretary is coming to Vienna for consultations with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, EU High Representative Ashton, and other foreign ministers from the P5+1, whose schedules allowed them to be here at this time. He will talk with them about where the negotiations currently stand. He obviously will meet with Foreign Minister Zarif and assess Iran’s willingness to make the critical choices it will need to make if we have a chance of getting a comprehensive agreement. And he will see if progress can be made on the issues where significant gaps do remain.
He will then make recommendations to President Obama about next steps in the negotiation. You all have probably noticed there isn’t a whole lot of time left until July 20th, and this is clearly a critical time in these talks. So in many ways, you could consider this a check-in point by the ministers and all of the delegations, even those who cannot bring ministers here because of scheduling conflicts – the BRICS conference is about to start at the beginning of next week – are sending high-level representatives to add to their delegations.
A few additional points: We remain very united in the P5+1. Everybody has their national positions, of course, but when it comes to having one negotiating position for going forward, we have stayed quite united. The sessions that will take place tomorrow are not meant to be a formal ministerial. There will not be a formal plenary session, but rather, a chance for people to check in with their teams on the ground and with each other. As I noted, the Russians and Chinese both have important business to attend to in Brazil this week at the BRIC summit, which complicated their efforts to come, but are sending senior diplomats to Vienna for these meetings as well. So while I know it’s easy to write a story that the P5+1 is in danger of not being united, it’s simply not true.
Second, in terms of what has happened thus far in this round, we’ve made some progress. But on some key issues, Iran has not moved from their – from our perspective – unworkable and inadequate positions that would not in fact assure us that their program is exclusively peaceful, which, as I’ve said to you many times, we have two objectives: that Iran not acquire a nuclear weapon and that they assure the international community that their program is exclusively peaceful. And so far, on some key issues, Iran has yet to be able to take the decisions that are necessary to meet those objectives.
All you had to do is listen this week to the public comments coming from some in Iran’s leadership to see that we are still very far apart on some issues, and obviously, on enrichment capacity. The numbers we’ve seen them putting out publicly go far beyond their current program, and we’ve been clear that in order to get an agreement, that their current program would have to be significantly reduced. So this is one of the gaps, although, of course, not the only one that remains, but a key and core one.
And finally, as we said the other day, it’s worth remembering that this is not a negotiating – a negotiation between two equal parties. It’s certainly a negotiation among sovereign nations and we respect the sovereignty of every country. This is not, however, a mediation. This is the international community assessing whether Iran can come in line with its numerous nonproliferation obligations, to which it has been in violation for years.
To conclude, and then I’ll be happy to take your questions, we do believe there is a way forward here. What the Secretary and all of us will be doing over the coming days is to determine what that path might look like and how we can give all of us the best chance of solving this problem diplomatically, which is what President Obama hopes that all will be able to achieve.
With that, let’s move to your questions.
MODERATOR: Great. And again, and when I call on you, please identify yourself and your outlet.
Yes, go ahead.
QUESTION: Amir Paivar, BBC Persian. We were told that what the Iranian leadership says in public is something you are not focusing on as much as what you hear in the negotiation room. Are you being told the same numbers you referred to in the negotiation room as well?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What I think I’ll say to that is there is no question that we have heard about Iran’s aspirations for its nuclear program in very specific terms and very specific numbers. And that remains far from a significant reduction in their current program.
MODERATOR: Yes. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Ali Arouzi, NBC News. You say the Secretary’s coming here to gauge Iran’s willingness. Isn’t it getting a bit late in the day to gauge Iran’s willingness? And secondly, you said Iran has to make some very tough choices. The Iranian delegation has consistently said also that the United States needs to make some tough choices. Do you agree with that, and if so, what are the tough choices you have to make?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think that the United States has already made a number of very tough choices, and I think that’s evident in the Joint Plan of Action that was negotiated among the P5+1. In that, the President of the United States took, I think, a very bold decision to say that we would be open to discussing a very limited enrichment program to meet the practical needs of Iran.
He also agreed that we could sit down and negotiate a Joint Plan of Action, that we would make some limited sanctions relief available to Iran and some of their frozen assets in bank accounts around the world if they would take very concrete steps. Iran chose to take those very concrete steps, and we followed through in what our obligations were.
So I think the good news of the JPOA, it shows that in fact we can each take difficult decisions to try to reach an agreement. Now we’re talking about a comprehensive agreement and we’re talking about the very heart of Iran showing the international community, not just with its words, because of course we have the Supreme Leader’s fatwa and saying that Iran has never had an interest in having a nuclear weapon. Now we have to have concrete actions that are verifiable.
I think that everyone at the table has come with ideas. We have presented a number of proposals, concepts, ways forward, that we think are very thoughtful and acknowledge the tremendous scientific knowhow that Iran has, but at the same time really does mean that Iran must address the international community’s concerns. We’re talking about a decade of violations of obligations under the NPT, such that the UN Security Council has passed four resolutions and required international sanctions that have been imposed by the international community. So that’s really what’s at stake here.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: And I would just add that it is certainly late in the day in these negotiations, but it’s not too late for Iran to take the steps that are necessary to give the international community confidence.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Good point.
MODERATOR: Go ahead, Lou.
QUESTION: Thanks. Lou Charbonneau, Reuters. I wanted to maybe first follow up on the comment that [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] just made. And so if it’s not – there are only a few days left until July 20th, and here we’ve heard how large the differences are. Is one of the issues that will be discussed a possible extension of the talks? And, I mean, how workable is this? It does seem that some in Congress – we had a story yesterday that it seems like it would probably go through. And then the Brits have released a statement saying that Gaza will be discussed tomorrow, the situation there. And so I don’t know if maybe you could say a word or two on that.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So let me say a couple things and then Senior Official sitting to my right here might want to add something.
The ministers are not coming here to discuss an extension. The ministers are coming here, as we said in the statement about Secretary Kerry’s coming, to assess the situation, to see whether more substantive progress can be made while they are here, to see that in fact we get done everything we can possibly get done. If, at the end of that process, we have not come to a final agreement, then we will assess where we are and the Secretary will make recommendations to the President about next steps.
We have always said that if we can make some significant progress, that if we thought we needed some additional time, we thought the world would probably want us to take it, and to get to a final agreement. But what the ministers are coming here to do is to assess whether, in fact, we have made and are making and will make, in the eight days remaining, enough progress that it warrants, indeed, us continuing that work if we cannot get to a final agreement. And as you’ve noted, it’s difficult to do – not impossible, but it is difficult to do.
In terms of the issue on Gaza, these are foreign ministers. Whenever they show up anywhere, they discuss whatever is happening in the news and in the day. But they are coming here very focused on this negotiation. None of them are going to be here for a long, long time, so their first priority is going to be to see what they can do to move this negotiation forward and to make substantive progress. I would be very surprised if foreign ministers, wherever they show up, wouldn’t talk about the issues of the day.
QUESTION: A quick follow-up on that, if I may?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, and then --
QUESTION: For – just what you said about --
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, yeah.
QUESTION: So are you planning to work down to the wire, up to the 20th and now --
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: We have always said we would work till the last moment. We have always said so. I don’t know whether [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] wants to add something, particularly about Congress, because some of us have lived here in Vienna now for 10 days. Some people got to go home for a few days, but that person did spend some time chatting with members of Congress, so you might want to add something.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: I would just add two points. First, as we’ve made clear, the Secretary, Secretary Kerry, is focused on determining whether a comprehensive agreement can be reached in the next few days, and that’s going to be his focus when he’s here.
Now if that can’t happen by July 20th, both the Administration and Congress are on the same page, which is that we obviously have to consider all of our options. But we – it would be hard to contemplate things like an extension without seeing significant progress on key issues. And that’s what we’re going to be looking for here over the next few days. We’re going to be trying to get to a comprehensive agreement and then we’ll think about everything else as we go forward. And in that, I think Congress and the Administration are approaching this with the same perspective.
On Gaza, the one point I’d like to underscore is that Iran has a longstanding record of supplying weapons, rockets to various terrorist groups in Gaza, including Hamas; that those rockets are being used to fire at civilian areas; and that Iran has a responsibility to cease and desist from continuing to supply weapons of war that are fueling this conflict. And any opportunity that we get to communicate that message to them, we will take.
MODERATOR: Yes, George. Go ahead.
QUESTION: It’s kind of a – George Jahn, Associated Press. It’s kind of a peripheral issue, this whole issue of unity, but it pops up every so often, and Mr. Ryabkov today spoke to some Russian media and said, basically, our national interests trump unity. And they do have national interests with Iran that are quite strong and they’re trying to develop them even further. Why would he choose to make this comment at this point? Thank you.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: You’ll have to ask Mr. Ryabkov – (laughter) --
QUESTION: He’s --
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: -- why he – and he’ll be back here, I think, sometime tomorrow, I believe. But – he’s here already?
QUESTION: Yes, he’s already here.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Excellent, so then you – excellent. He was trying to get back sooner. He was in Brazil himself getting ready for the BRIC meeting, so I’m glad to hear he’s back. He’s a good colleague.
QUESTION: I have a follow-up question (inaudible).
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: But – so --
MODERATOR: Do you have any more you’d like to say?
QUESTION: Is that it?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What I would say is you’ll have to ask the Russians why they said what they said. All I can tell you is that we all have national interests; of course we do. But we have all been completely unified in the objective of this negotiation and the key issues that need to be pursued.
MODERATOR: Yes. David Sanger.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Please introduce yourself.
QUESTION: I’m David Sanger from The New York Times. The statement that you made earlier about the public statements that have been made by Iranian officials, I assume you were referring to the Supreme Leader’s comments a few days ago. What they seem to reflect was a fundamental argument by the Iranians that they still need to be able to move to industrial production; if not right away, then I think in this – in the talk, he said five years from now or sometime after that.
As you look at the fundamental differences right now – not the numbers, but the fundamental differences – is there still a view among the Iranians that industrial production is their key goal? And is it still your view that only, as you said, a very limited enrichment capability for a long period of time is your key goal?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Absolutely, our key goal is a very limited enrichment program. As you know, we believe that what would be best is no indigenous enrichment program at all, but if there is to be one, then it should be limited for a very long duration of time. And the United States is on record worldwide, believing that no one should have an industrial-scale enrichment program, that it’s not necessary, that fuel is available on the open market. You all know that we negotiate 123 agreements all over the world about what people’s programs – nuclear programs are going to look like, their civil-nuclear program, how they’re going to provide fuel for those programs.
QUESTION: But we have one in the United States.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Huh?
QUESTION: We have one in the United States.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Indeed we do, but we are one of the original NPT states, so for non-nuclear weapons NPT states, we have worked worldwide to really limit those who have indigenous enrichment.
Now the reality is that, as well, as you know, President Obama has been a leader in the world to decrease the number of nuclear weapons in the world, including our own, and hopes that sometime in the future – maybe not in my lifetime, I hope in the President’s lifetime – that in fact, we have no nuclear weapons.
So I don’t – I think where we are, David, in this negotiation, is we believe that right now, we are at a place where Iran is in violation of its NPT obligations and its obligations to the UN Security Council. For some period of time, they’re going to have to have a very limited, very constrained program that will have inspections, verification, monitoring, and a lot of limitations on what they can do. At the end of that duration, they will be, like any other non-weapons – nuclear non-weapons NPT state and will make their own choices.
QUESTION: When you said a limited period of time, how long a period of time?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you measure this in years, decades? What’s your concept?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: We’ve said always double digits, a long time.
MODERATOR: Great. The gentleman from Bloomberg on the far right, the non-Indira Bloomberg reporter. I know that’s a good title to have.
QUESTION: I’m happy to be called a gentleman, thank you. (Laughter.) And thank you, Mr. Sanger, because my question fits into that. Mr. Lavrov is going to a country tomorrow where Russia has announced it will be negotiating nuclear deals. Now the country he’ll be visiting tomorrow developed a indigenous enrichment program by military junta in secret using a technology, gaseous diffusion, that had exclusively been used for bombs. And that country, which is Argentina, announced 10 days ago that it was going to implement an industrial-scale 20,000 (inaudible) program.
So I know you don’t answer questions directly, but I would like to ask you, what can Iran, and the P5+1, for that matter, learn from the Argentine instance?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, look, every situation is sui generis to some extent, and there is a long history to where Argentina is today. What I would say is that we are looking at this instance and this particular situation where Iran has been outside of its obligations to the NPT and the UN Security Council for over a decade. And I think, quite wisely, Iran came to the negotiating table wanting to re-enter the international community, to meet its obligations, to become a normal nuclear non-weapons NPT state. It’s going to take them some time to get there. There are a number of things they need to do to be able to get there. But there is a path for them to do so, and quite frankly, to have a very modern, civil nuclear program that meets the needs of their people within constraints that will give the international community assurance that they will not obtain a nuclear weapon and that their program is exclusively peaceful.
Should they choose to do that, and I hope that they do because I think it’s in the interests of their own country to do so, though they will define those interests – not me, as they tell me all the time – if they do so, then I think the return for the country economically, politically, domestically, and in the world is quite substantial.
MODERATOR: Laurence Norman from The Wall Street Journal. I’ll introduce you.
QUESTION: Thanks, hi. Two – a couple of questions if I may. First of all, just a detail of how long people are going to be here for. You said they’re not coming for very long. Can we take from that that Mr. Kerry will be leaving on Monday definitely, or is that still in play?
And secondly, there’s a lot of focus on the enrichment issue, but you said at the beginning that there are some issues that have made some progress. I know you don’t know – I certainly know you’re not going to sit here and list them off for us, but can you give us a sense of whether you feel that those other issues are really – that we all know are really beginning to come together to take shape could be turned into a deal?
And just finally, you said double digits before. Just for the sake of a clean quote, can we say that the U.S. position is asking for at least 10 years as a duration of this accord?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think it’d be better to leave it just to double digits, even though I take your point. Trying to get a number is a good thing, but I’m not going to give you one.
Second, in terms of the Secretary’s schedule, those of you who have had the pleasure of traveling with the Secretary of State, for me to try to predict his schedule would be an insane feat on my part. I don’t think that, had you asked me in the beginning of the week whether the Secretary of State was going to be in Kabul today, I would have said yes. So if you ask me if he’s going to leave here – come here tomorrow and leave here tomorrow, I can’t tell you a thing.
All I can tell you is that the ministers are coming here for a check-in. They are not coming here to be the negotiators, to work text. They are here to see if they can help move substantial progress on the areas in which there are some serious gaps. And I think you all understand well enough, in a negotiation, that when parties know ministers are showing up, they’re going to wait to see what can be accomplished. And we hope that something can be further accomplished, because as [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] pointed out, we need to see some additional progress in this.
As to areas in where there has been progress, there has been some. There are areas in which the gaps have narrowed so that one can see if everything else fell in place, that that would probably fall in place. Remember we’ve talked about this Rubik’s Cube concept 100 times here. You can have every piece fall in place and that last one won’t go into the tumbler until everything else is in place. So one can see that there are places where there’s progress and you might get that final step taken if something else falls into place as well. It’s a negotiation.
QUESTION: Can I just follow that up (inaudible)?
MODERATOR: Yeah.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah.
QUESTION: Are they significant areas? Are these other areas where there’s been progress, are they significant keys?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: They can become significant areas once other pieces fall into place.
MODERATOR: Great. Laura Rozen.
QUESTION: Laura Rozen from Al-Monitor. Thank you for doing this. You all have had the chance to be in the room with the Iranians when they do show flexibility or there has been progress after weeks and weeks or – I’m sure of arguing over differences. Can you just give us a sense, not on the specific substance necessarily, but how do you see movement with them? Things that were intractable in conversations two weeks ago, how might it move? Because many of us are trying to wonder on these big things, because we understand both your positions very well, how might they move, or you might move? Thank you.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, look, when we came in here, we did not have a text. We have a text that we are working off of. There are brackets that remain in that text. But nonetheless, it has made some progress moving forward. Some of the brackets have been taken out. I think Baroness Ashton and her deputy Helga Schmid have worked constantly, very difficult. The Iranians are very good negotiators. Their English is quite good and we – as you all know, this is done in English and words mean a great deal. My lawyers tell me that every single day as we look over this.
So this is a process of discussion, but also of coming up with ideas, ways that one might get from here to there. Sorry I’m not giving you a whole lot, but doing the best I can.
QUESTION: Can I ask one follow-up?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah.
QUESTION: Because so much of what they’re arguing for in terms of industrial-scale enrichment and not having to be dependent on a foreign power to provide fuel for their power program at some point is a pride – I mean, kind of. And I noticed you using language today talking about their technological achievements. Are there ways that, recognizing their research potential or right, would be able to compensate them for a longer delay in this thing that’s very important to them?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Right. We’ll see. As I said, there are a number of ideas that are on the table, a number of ways forward. We’ve also talked in this room that this is a package; this is not about any one element. All the pieces have to come together to reach the objectives of making sure they can’t acquire a nuclear weapon and that their program is exclusively peaceful. I think that what we are talking about here is how you get from where we are today to normal, and that’s going to be a long duration of time because of past history, under a lot of constraints, but there will come a point, if Iran does make these choices, where they will be free to be like any other non-nuclear NPT state, non-nuclear weapons NPT state.
MODERATOR: Okay, let’s see, who haven’t I – Michael Wilner. Who haven’t I gone to yet?
QUESTION: Yes. Hi. Michael Wilner with The Jerusalem Post. My question is on the role of Congress, and I know I’ve asked you this before, but they don’t seem entirely thrilled with what they’ve gotten. No surprise there. They sent this week a letter; 344 members of Congress signed onto it. And what they said was that there is no such thing as nuclear-related sanctions that are designated in the laws that they’ve passed. Now, your colleague, Catherine Ashton, has said that her mandate is to negotiate specifically on only nuclear-related issues and that that doesn’t include ballistic missile issues or technology, it doesn’t include certainly terrorism-related matters. Do you agree with her on that and do you read the law differently? Is your understanding that the U.S. does demarcate nuclear-related sanctions?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What we have said to Iran and what was discussed in the Joint Plan of Action where we promised, working within our system which has checks and balances, that we would not – we would work with our Congress so that there would be no new nuclear-related sanctions, and we make a distinction between nuclear-related sanctions and sanctions on human rights, sanctions on terrorism, and they – those will all stay in place.
We are in consultations with Congress. Congress has played a very critical role in this negotiation. I do not believe that Iran would be at the table except for the leadership that Congress has shown on their concerns for these issues and for the sanctions that were passed in addition to the very critical UN Security Council resolutions which passed international sanctions, and the European Union’s actions, and individual countries’ actions around sanctions. I think Congress plays in that regard a critical and leadership role, and we see them as very important partners.
Both the letter from the House and the letter from the Senate really talk about wanting to ensure that partnership continues, that Congress will play an active role in anything that comes out of these negotiations, and we would absolutely agree that they will.
You want to add?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah, I would just add that I think we agree with Congress that sanctions are not an end in themselves; they’re a means to an end. And many of the sanctions that Congress has passed in partnership and consultation with the Administration have been designed to help produce progress at the negotiating table. We believe the Joint Plan of Action was the result of the strategy we developed. We believe that progress in these talks can be connected to that as well.
To say that there is not one single sanction that can be lifted in the context of a nuclear agreement, of course, is not a plausible position. Equally true to say that all sanctions get lifted in the context of a nuclear agreement is not plausible because there are, as my colleague said, terrorism and human rights-related sanctions that are quite specifically targeted at other behavior of Iran.
So ultimately, this is going to be a negotiation within these talks, and then consultation with Congress to determine what are effectively nuclear-related sanctions and what are not. And we believe that we can find a way forward on that that works for everybody.
MODERATOR: Yes, Paul Richter, the L.A. Times.
QUESTION: Hi. If the Secretary determines that Iran is not willing to go ahead, is that the moment when you begin discussing an extension, or does his determination mean the show has ended and there’s no purpose in further discussions?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, as I said, Paul, I think we’ve made some progress, and I think that we hope that the ministers being here will build on that progress, and that we can keep moving forward toward that comprehensive agreement. And as I said, it’s not impossible to complete it by the end of these eight days – difficult. But we certainly want to make substantial progress such that we can make an assessment about the best way forward from there.
I don’t want to prejudge what the Secretary will think or say or what he will recommend to the President of the United States. So this is the check-in. He will have direct discussions with Baroness Ashton. He will have direct discussions with his ministerial partners in the P5+1, with the senior diplomats who are coming here from Russia and China, and with Minister Zarif. And then he will assess where we are and give those of us who are here to continue negotiations – and I would include my colleagues who are sitting up here as well – as I think most of you know, Deputy Burns has returned here as well.
So we will see what is possible and then we will decide what’s the best way forward. But right now, we are entirely focused on seeing what additional substantive progress can be made.
MODERATOR: Let’s just do two more, I think. Who hasn’t had one? Hannah Kaviani.
QUESTION: Yeah, thank you. Hannah from Radio Free Europe. I want to go back,
unfortunately, to digits. You mentioned in your comments that Supreme Leader’s words last week basically shows where the gap is, and I wanted to see his position on the timeframe that Iran should have met its practical needs in its nuclear program, is also where it shows you the gap in your positions, or this timeframe that he mentions – not now, not two years, not five years – is something that can help you in the process of negotiations?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, there is no question, Hannah, that those statements that talk about what Iran’s aspirations are, but not necessarily aspirations that are met today, are – is important. And we certainly have noted that and we hope that that will be considered in working through an agreement for a period of time that is necessary to provide the assurances that the international community is looking for.
MODERATOR: Okay, let’s do one more. We’re going to go up here.
QUESTION: Yeah, if I may, a totally different subject.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Tell me your name and where you’re from.
QUESTION: My name is (inaudible). I’m with Suddeutsche Zeitung in Germany. So I would be interested if you can give us an idea what the Secretary and his German counterpart are going to talk about on the recent spy cases in Germany. I understand that the U.S. Government is not happy that the German Government has asked the highest-ranking intelligence official to leave the country. What is the Secretary going to offer to kind of smooth things, as has been said in Washington?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, our relationship with Germany is a very critical one and a very important relationship. We very much look forward to the conversation between Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Secretary Kerry tomorrow. They are close colleagues who consult frequently on every subject that’s taking place in the world, but tomorrow they will be focused on how they can get substantive progress in this nuclear negotiation.
MODERATOR: Great. Well, thank you all for coming. As a reminder, especially for those who walked in late, this is all on background: Senior U.S. Administration Officials. We’ll keep you posted on when we’ll have further backgrounders, and we’ll do a transcript tonight as well, and there’s no embargo. So with that, have a great rest of your evening.
So in a moment I’ll turn it over to [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] and then [Senior U.S. Administration Official One] will give some brief opening remarks and then we’ll do questions. When we do Q&A, please, even though we know most of you, identify yourself and your outlet so we make sure we all know who you are. So, with that.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Okay. Thank you. Thank you all for being here this evening and welcome to today’s backgrounder.
It’s been a very busy 10 days since we arrived in Vienna. We all have to stop and remember what day of the week it is. They’ve all sort of blended together, so I know for all of you, it’s been a difficult 10 days as well, because we try to keep it fairly buttoned up, so appreciate your patience.
We’ve had a mix of plenary sessions, expert meetings, bilaterals with all of the other countries here, and of course with Iran, and coordination sessions that are led by the High Representative of the European Union Catherine Ashton, who coordinates and leads these talks. Today, I want to say a few words about what we expect from Secretary Kerry’s visit here tomorrow and about what’s happened in the talks during this round, and then of course, I and my colleagues would be happy to take your questions.
The Secretary is coming to Vienna for consultations with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif, EU High Representative Ashton, and other foreign ministers from the P5+1, whose schedules allowed them to be here at this time. He will talk with them about where the negotiations currently stand. He obviously will meet with Foreign Minister Zarif and assess Iran’s willingness to make the critical choices it will need to make if we have a chance of getting a comprehensive agreement. And he will see if progress can be made on the issues where significant gaps do remain.
He will then make recommendations to President Obama about next steps in the negotiation. You all have probably noticed there isn’t a whole lot of time left until July 20th, and this is clearly a critical time in these talks. So in many ways, you could consider this a check-in point by the ministers and all of the delegations, even those who cannot bring ministers here because of scheduling conflicts – the BRICS conference is about to start at the beginning of next week – are sending high-level representatives to add to their delegations.
A few additional points: We remain very united in the P5+1. Everybody has their national positions, of course, but when it comes to having one negotiating position for going forward, we have stayed quite united. The sessions that will take place tomorrow are not meant to be a formal ministerial. There will not be a formal plenary session, but rather, a chance for people to check in with their teams on the ground and with each other. As I noted, the Russians and Chinese both have important business to attend to in Brazil this week at the BRIC summit, which complicated their efforts to come, but are sending senior diplomats to Vienna for these meetings as well. So while I know it’s easy to write a story that the P5+1 is in danger of not being united, it’s simply not true.
Second, in terms of what has happened thus far in this round, we’ve made some progress. But on some key issues, Iran has not moved from their – from our perspective – unworkable and inadequate positions that would not in fact assure us that their program is exclusively peaceful, which, as I’ve said to you many times, we have two objectives: that Iran not acquire a nuclear weapon and that they assure the international community that their program is exclusively peaceful. And so far, on some key issues, Iran has yet to be able to take the decisions that are necessary to meet those objectives.
All you had to do is listen this week to the public comments coming from some in Iran’s leadership to see that we are still very far apart on some issues, and obviously, on enrichment capacity. The numbers we’ve seen them putting out publicly go far beyond their current program, and we’ve been clear that in order to get an agreement, that their current program would have to be significantly reduced. So this is one of the gaps, although, of course, not the only one that remains, but a key and core one.
And finally, as we said the other day, it’s worth remembering that this is not a negotiating – a negotiation between two equal parties. It’s certainly a negotiation among sovereign nations and we respect the sovereignty of every country. This is not, however, a mediation. This is the international community assessing whether Iran can come in line with its numerous nonproliferation obligations, to which it has been in violation for years.
To conclude, and then I’ll be happy to take your questions, we do believe there is a way forward here. What the Secretary and all of us will be doing over the coming days is to determine what that path might look like and how we can give all of us the best chance of solving this problem diplomatically, which is what President Obama hopes that all will be able to achieve.
With that, let’s move to your questions.
MODERATOR: Great. And again, and when I call on you, please identify yourself and your outlet.
Yes, go ahead.
QUESTION: Amir Paivar, BBC Persian. We were told that what the Iranian leadership says in public is something you are not focusing on as much as what you hear in the negotiation room. Are you being told the same numbers you referred to in the negotiation room as well?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What I think I’ll say to that is there is no question that we have heard about Iran’s aspirations for its nuclear program in very specific terms and very specific numbers. And that remains far from a significant reduction in their current program.
MODERATOR: Yes. Go ahead.
QUESTION: Ali Arouzi, NBC News. You say the Secretary’s coming here to gauge Iran’s willingness. Isn’t it getting a bit late in the day to gauge Iran’s willingness? And secondly, you said Iran has to make some very tough choices. The Iranian delegation has consistently said also that the United States needs to make some tough choices. Do you agree with that, and if so, what are the tough choices you have to make?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think that the United States has already made a number of very tough choices, and I think that’s evident in the Joint Plan of Action that was negotiated among the P5+1. In that, the President of the United States took, I think, a very bold decision to say that we would be open to discussing a very limited enrichment program to meet the practical needs of Iran.
He also agreed that we could sit down and negotiate a Joint Plan of Action, that we would make some limited sanctions relief available to Iran and some of their frozen assets in bank accounts around the world if they would take very concrete steps. Iran chose to take those very concrete steps, and we followed through in what our obligations were.
So I think the good news of the JPOA, it shows that in fact we can each take difficult decisions to try to reach an agreement. Now we’re talking about a comprehensive agreement and we’re talking about the very heart of Iran showing the international community, not just with its words, because of course we have the Supreme Leader’s fatwa and saying that Iran has never had an interest in having a nuclear weapon. Now we have to have concrete actions that are verifiable.
I think that everyone at the table has come with ideas. We have presented a number of proposals, concepts, ways forward, that we think are very thoughtful and acknowledge the tremendous scientific knowhow that Iran has, but at the same time really does mean that Iran must address the international community’s concerns. We’re talking about a decade of violations of obligations under the NPT, such that the UN Security Council has passed four resolutions and required international sanctions that have been imposed by the international community. So that’s really what’s at stake here.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: And I would just add that it is certainly late in the day in these negotiations, but it’s not too late for Iran to take the steps that are necessary to give the international community confidence.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Good point.
MODERATOR: Go ahead, Lou.
QUESTION: Thanks. Lou Charbonneau, Reuters. I wanted to maybe first follow up on the comment that [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] just made. And so if it’s not – there are only a few days left until July 20th, and here we’ve heard how large the differences are. Is one of the issues that will be discussed a possible extension of the talks? And, I mean, how workable is this? It does seem that some in Congress – we had a story yesterday that it seems like it would probably go through. And then the Brits have released a statement saying that Gaza will be discussed tomorrow, the situation there. And so I don’t know if maybe you could say a word or two on that.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: So let me say a couple things and then Senior Official sitting to my right here might want to add something.
The ministers are not coming here to discuss an extension. The ministers are coming here, as we said in the statement about Secretary Kerry’s coming, to assess the situation, to see whether more substantive progress can be made while they are here, to see that in fact we get done everything we can possibly get done. If, at the end of that process, we have not come to a final agreement, then we will assess where we are and the Secretary will make recommendations to the President about next steps.
We have always said that if we can make some significant progress, that if we thought we needed some additional time, we thought the world would probably want us to take it, and to get to a final agreement. But what the ministers are coming here to do is to assess whether, in fact, we have made and are making and will make, in the eight days remaining, enough progress that it warrants, indeed, us continuing that work if we cannot get to a final agreement. And as you’ve noted, it’s difficult to do – not impossible, but it is difficult to do.
In terms of the issue on Gaza, these are foreign ministers. Whenever they show up anywhere, they discuss whatever is happening in the news and in the day. But they are coming here very focused on this negotiation. None of them are going to be here for a long, long time, so their first priority is going to be to see what they can do to move this negotiation forward and to make substantive progress. I would be very surprised if foreign ministers, wherever they show up, wouldn’t talk about the issues of the day.
QUESTION: A quick follow-up on that, if I may?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, and then --
QUESTION: For – just what you said about --
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, yeah.
QUESTION: So are you planning to work down to the wire, up to the 20th and now --
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: We have always said we would work till the last moment. We have always said so. I don’t know whether [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] wants to add something, particularly about Congress, because some of us have lived here in Vienna now for 10 days. Some people got to go home for a few days, but that person did spend some time chatting with members of Congress, so you might want to add something.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: I would just add two points. First, as we’ve made clear, the Secretary, Secretary Kerry, is focused on determining whether a comprehensive agreement can be reached in the next few days, and that’s going to be his focus when he’s here.
Now if that can’t happen by July 20th, both the Administration and Congress are on the same page, which is that we obviously have to consider all of our options. But we – it would be hard to contemplate things like an extension without seeing significant progress on key issues. And that’s what we’re going to be looking for here over the next few days. We’re going to be trying to get to a comprehensive agreement and then we’ll think about everything else as we go forward. And in that, I think Congress and the Administration are approaching this with the same perspective.
On Gaza, the one point I’d like to underscore is that Iran has a longstanding record of supplying weapons, rockets to various terrorist groups in Gaza, including Hamas; that those rockets are being used to fire at civilian areas; and that Iran has a responsibility to cease and desist from continuing to supply weapons of war that are fueling this conflict. And any opportunity that we get to communicate that message to them, we will take.
MODERATOR: Yes, George. Go ahead.
QUESTION: It’s kind of a – George Jahn, Associated Press. It’s kind of a peripheral issue, this whole issue of unity, but it pops up every so often, and Mr. Ryabkov today spoke to some Russian media and said, basically, our national interests trump unity. And they do have national interests with Iran that are quite strong and they’re trying to develop them even further. Why would he choose to make this comment at this point? Thank you.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: You’ll have to ask Mr. Ryabkov – (laughter) --
QUESTION: He’s --
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: -- why he – and he’ll be back here, I think, sometime tomorrow, I believe. But – he’s here already?
QUESTION: Yes, he’s already here.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Excellent, so then you – excellent. He was trying to get back sooner. He was in Brazil himself getting ready for the BRIC meeting, so I’m glad to hear he’s back. He’s a good colleague.
QUESTION: I have a follow-up question (inaudible).
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: But – so --
MODERATOR: Do you have any more you’d like to say?
QUESTION: Is that it?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What I would say is you’ll have to ask the Russians why they said what they said. All I can tell you is that we all have national interests; of course we do. But we have all been completely unified in the objective of this negotiation and the key issues that need to be pursued.
MODERATOR: Yes. David Sanger.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Please introduce yourself.
QUESTION: I’m David Sanger from The New York Times. The statement that you made earlier about the public statements that have been made by Iranian officials, I assume you were referring to the Supreme Leader’s comments a few days ago. What they seem to reflect was a fundamental argument by the Iranians that they still need to be able to move to industrial production; if not right away, then I think in this – in the talk, he said five years from now or sometime after that.
As you look at the fundamental differences right now – not the numbers, but the fundamental differences – is there still a view among the Iranians that industrial production is their key goal? And is it still your view that only, as you said, a very limited enrichment capability for a long period of time is your key goal?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Absolutely, our key goal is a very limited enrichment program. As you know, we believe that what would be best is no indigenous enrichment program at all, but if there is to be one, then it should be limited for a very long duration of time. And the United States is on record worldwide, believing that no one should have an industrial-scale enrichment program, that it’s not necessary, that fuel is available on the open market. You all know that we negotiate 123 agreements all over the world about what people’s programs – nuclear programs are going to look like, their civil-nuclear program, how they’re going to provide fuel for those programs.
QUESTION: But we have one in the United States.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Huh?
QUESTION: We have one in the United States.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Indeed we do, but we are one of the original NPT states, so for non-nuclear weapons NPT states, we have worked worldwide to really limit those who have indigenous enrichment.
Now the reality is that, as well, as you know, President Obama has been a leader in the world to decrease the number of nuclear weapons in the world, including our own, and hopes that sometime in the future – maybe not in my lifetime, I hope in the President’s lifetime – that in fact, we have no nuclear weapons.
So I don’t – I think where we are, David, in this negotiation, is we believe that right now, we are at a place where Iran is in violation of its NPT obligations and its obligations to the UN Security Council. For some period of time, they’re going to have to have a very limited, very constrained program that will have inspections, verification, monitoring, and a lot of limitations on what they can do. At the end of that duration, they will be, like any other non-weapons – nuclear non-weapons NPT state and will make their own choices.
QUESTION: When you said a limited period of time, how long a period of time?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you measure this in years, decades? What’s your concept?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: We’ve said always double digits, a long time.
MODERATOR: Great. The gentleman from Bloomberg on the far right, the non-Indira Bloomberg reporter. I know that’s a good title to have.
QUESTION: I’m happy to be called a gentleman, thank you. (Laughter.) And thank you, Mr. Sanger, because my question fits into that. Mr. Lavrov is going to a country tomorrow where Russia has announced it will be negotiating nuclear deals. Now the country he’ll be visiting tomorrow developed a indigenous enrichment program by military junta in secret using a technology, gaseous diffusion, that had exclusively been used for bombs. And that country, which is Argentina, announced 10 days ago that it was going to implement an industrial-scale 20,000 (inaudible) program.
So I know you don’t answer questions directly, but I would like to ask you, what can Iran, and the P5+1, for that matter, learn from the Argentine instance?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, look, every situation is sui generis to some extent, and there is a long history to where Argentina is today. What I would say is that we are looking at this instance and this particular situation where Iran has been outside of its obligations to the NPT and the UN Security Council for over a decade. And I think, quite wisely, Iran came to the negotiating table wanting to re-enter the international community, to meet its obligations, to become a normal nuclear non-weapons NPT state. It’s going to take them some time to get there. There are a number of things they need to do to be able to get there. But there is a path for them to do so, and quite frankly, to have a very modern, civil nuclear program that meets the needs of their people within constraints that will give the international community assurance that they will not obtain a nuclear weapon and that their program is exclusively peaceful.
Should they choose to do that, and I hope that they do because I think it’s in the interests of their own country to do so, though they will define those interests – not me, as they tell me all the time – if they do so, then I think the return for the country economically, politically, domestically, and in the world is quite substantial.
MODERATOR: Laurence Norman from The Wall Street Journal. I’ll introduce you.
QUESTION: Thanks, hi. Two – a couple of questions if I may. First of all, just a detail of how long people are going to be here for. You said they’re not coming for very long. Can we take from that that Mr. Kerry will be leaving on Monday definitely, or is that still in play?
And secondly, there’s a lot of focus on the enrichment issue, but you said at the beginning that there are some issues that have made some progress. I know you don’t know – I certainly know you’re not going to sit here and list them off for us, but can you give us a sense of whether you feel that those other issues are really – that we all know are really beginning to come together to take shape could be turned into a deal?
And just finally, you said double digits before. Just for the sake of a clean quote, can we say that the U.S. position is asking for at least 10 years as a duration of this accord?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I think it’d be better to leave it just to double digits, even though I take your point. Trying to get a number is a good thing, but I’m not going to give you one.
Second, in terms of the Secretary’s schedule, those of you who have had the pleasure of traveling with the Secretary of State, for me to try to predict his schedule would be an insane feat on my part. I don’t think that, had you asked me in the beginning of the week whether the Secretary of State was going to be in Kabul today, I would have said yes. So if you ask me if he’s going to leave here – come here tomorrow and leave here tomorrow, I can’t tell you a thing.
All I can tell you is that the ministers are coming here for a check-in. They are not coming here to be the negotiators, to work text. They are here to see if they can help move substantial progress on the areas in which there are some serious gaps. And I think you all understand well enough, in a negotiation, that when parties know ministers are showing up, they’re going to wait to see what can be accomplished. And we hope that something can be further accomplished, because as [Senior U.S. Administration Official Two] pointed out, we need to see some additional progress in this.
As to areas in where there has been progress, there has been some. There are areas in which the gaps have narrowed so that one can see if everything else fell in place, that that would probably fall in place. Remember we’ve talked about this Rubik’s Cube concept 100 times here. You can have every piece fall in place and that last one won’t go into the tumbler until everything else is in place. So one can see that there are places where there’s progress and you might get that final step taken if something else falls into place as well. It’s a negotiation.
QUESTION: Can I just follow that up (inaudible)?
MODERATOR: Yeah.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah.
QUESTION: Are they significant areas? Are these other areas where there’s been progress, are they significant keys?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: They can become significant areas once other pieces fall into place.
MODERATOR: Great. Laura Rozen.
QUESTION: Laura Rozen from Al-Monitor. Thank you for doing this. You all have had the chance to be in the room with the Iranians when they do show flexibility or there has been progress after weeks and weeks or – I’m sure of arguing over differences. Can you just give us a sense, not on the specific substance necessarily, but how do you see movement with them? Things that were intractable in conversations two weeks ago, how might it move? Because many of us are trying to wonder on these big things, because we understand both your positions very well, how might they move, or you might move? Thank you.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, look, when we came in here, we did not have a text. We have a text that we are working off of. There are brackets that remain in that text. But nonetheless, it has made some progress moving forward. Some of the brackets have been taken out. I think Baroness Ashton and her deputy Helga Schmid have worked constantly, very difficult. The Iranians are very good negotiators. Their English is quite good and we – as you all know, this is done in English and words mean a great deal. My lawyers tell me that every single day as we look over this.
So this is a process of discussion, but also of coming up with ideas, ways that one might get from here to there. Sorry I’m not giving you a whole lot, but doing the best I can.
QUESTION: Can I ask one follow-up?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah.
QUESTION: Because so much of what they’re arguing for in terms of industrial-scale enrichment and not having to be dependent on a foreign power to provide fuel for their power program at some point is a pride – I mean, kind of. And I noticed you using language today talking about their technological achievements. Are there ways that, recognizing their research potential or right, would be able to compensate them for a longer delay in this thing that’s very important to them?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Right. We’ll see. As I said, there are a number of ideas that are on the table, a number of ways forward. We’ve also talked in this room that this is a package; this is not about any one element. All the pieces have to come together to reach the objectives of making sure they can’t acquire a nuclear weapon and that their program is exclusively peaceful. I think that what we are talking about here is how you get from where we are today to normal, and that’s going to be a long duration of time because of past history, under a lot of constraints, but there will come a point, if Iran does make these choices, where they will be free to be like any other non-nuclear NPT state, non-nuclear weapons NPT state.
MODERATOR: Okay, let’s see, who haven’t I – Michael Wilner. Who haven’t I gone to yet?
QUESTION: Yes. Hi. Michael Wilner with The Jerusalem Post. My question is on the role of Congress, and I know I’ve asked you this before, but they don’t seem entirely thrilled with what they’ve gotten. No surprise there. They sent this week a letter; 344 members of Congress signed onto it. And what they said was that there is no such thing as nuclear-related sanctions that are designated in the laws that they’ve passed. Now, your colleague, Catherine Ashton, has said that her mandate is to negotiate specifically on only nuclear-related issues and that that doesn’t include ballistic missile issues or technology, it doesn’t include certainly terrorism-related matters. Do you agree with her on that and do you read the law differently? Is your understanding that the U.S. does demarcate nuclear-related sanctions?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: What we have said to Iran and what was discussed in the Joint Plan of Action where we promised, working within our system which has checks and balances, that we would not – we would work with our Congress so that there would be no new nuclear-related sanctions, and we make a distinction between nuclear-related sanctions and sanctions on human rights, sanctions on terrorism, and they – those will all stay in place.
We are in consultations with Congress. Congress has played a very critical role in this negotiation. I do not believe that Iran would be at the table except for the leadership that Congress has shown on their concerns for these issues and for the sanctions that were passed in addition to the very critical UN Security Council resolutions which passed international sanctions, and the European Union’s actions, and individual countries’ actions around sanctions. I think Congress plays in that regard a critical and leadership role, and we see them as very important partners.
Both the letter from the House and the letter from the Senate really talk about wanting to ensure that partnership continues, that Congress will play an active role in anything that comes out of these negotiations, and we would absolutely agree that they will.
You want to add?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah, I would just add that I think we agree with Congress that sanctions are not an end in themselves; they’re a means to an end. And many of the sanctions that Congress has passed in partnership and consultation with the Administration have been designed to help produce progress at the negotiating table. We believe the Joint Plan of Action was the result of the strategy we developed. We believe that progress in these talks can be connected to that as well.
To say that there is not one single sanction that can be lifted in the context of a nuclear agreement, of course, is not a plausible position. Equally true to say that all sanctions get lifted in the context of a nuclear agreement is not plausible because there are, as my colleague said, terrorism and human rights-related sanctions that are quite specifically targeted at other behavior of Iran.
So ultimately, this is going to be a negotiation within these talks, and then consultation with Congress to determine what are effectively nuclear-related sanctions and what are not. And we believe that we can find a way forward on that that works for everybody.
MODERATOR: Yes, Paul Richter, the L.A. Times.
QUESTION: Hi. If the Secretary determines that Iran is not willing to go ahead, is that the moment when you begin discussing an extension, or does his determination mean the show has ended and there’s no purpose in further discussions?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, as I said, Paul, I think we’ve made some progress, and I think that we hope that the ministers being here will build on that progress, and that we can keep moving forward toward that comprehensive agreement. And as I said, it’s not impossible to complete it by the end of these eight days – difficult. But we certainly want to make substantial progress such that we can make an assessment about the best way forward from there.
I don’t want to prejudge what the Secretary will think or say or what he will recommend to the President of the United States. So this is the check-in. He will have direct discussions with Baroness Ashton. He will have direct discussions with his ministerial partners in the P5+1, with the senior diplomats who are coming here from Russia and China, and with Minister Zarif. And then he will assess where we are and give those of us who are here to continue negotiations – and I would include my colleagues who are sitting up here as well – as I think most of you know, Deputy Burns has returned here as well.
So we will see what is possible and then we will decide what’s the best way forward. But right now, we are entirely focused on seeing what additional substantive progress can be made.
MODERATOR: Let’s just do two more, I think. Who hasn’t had one? Hannah Kaviani.
QUESTION: Yeah, thank you. Hannah from Radio Free Europe. I want to go back,
unfortunately, to digits. You mentioned in your comments that Supreme Leader’s words last week basically shows where the gap is, and I wanted to see his position on the timeframe that Iran should have met its practical needs in its nuclear program, is also where it shows you the gap in your positions, or this timeframe that he mentions – not now, not two years, not five years – is something that can help you in the process of negotiations?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, there is no question, Hannah, that those statements that talk about what Iran’s aspirations are, but not necessarily aspirations that are met today, are – is important. And we certainly have noted that and we hope that that will be considered in working through an agreement for a period of time that is necessary to provide the assurances that the international community is looking for.
MODERATOR: Okay, let’s do one more. We’re going to go up here.
QUESTION: Yeah, if I may, a totally different subject.
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Tell me your name and where you’re from.
QUESTION: My name is (inaudible). I’m with Suddeutsche Zeitung in Germany. So I would be interested if you can give us an idea what the Secretary and his German counterpart are going to talk about on the recent spy cases in Germany. I understand that the U.S. Government is not happy that the German Government has asked the highest-ranking intelligence official to leave the country. What is the Secretary going to offer to kind of smooth things, as has been said in Washington?
SENIOR U.S. ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Well, our relationship with Germany is a very critical one and a very important relationship. We very much look forward to the conversation between Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Secretary Kerry tomorrow. They are close colleagues who consult frequently on every subject that’s taking place in the world, but tomorrow they will be focused on how they can get substantive progress in this nuclear negotiation.
MODERATOR: Great. Well, thank you all for coming. As a reminder, especially for those who walked in late, this is all on background: Senior U.S. Administration Officials. We’ll keep you posted on when we’ll have further backgrounders, and we’ll do a transcript tonight as well, and there’s no embargo. So with that, have a great rest of your evening.
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