Press Release From the US Department of State regarding the US Daily Briefing

8/2/2019 Press Release From the US Department of State regarding the US Daily Briefing

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Victoria Nuland

Spokesperson

Daily Press Briefing

Washington, DC

March 21, 2012

INDEX FOR TODAY'S BRIEFING

ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS Quartet Envoys Meeting in Brussels MALI Possible Military Coup / Evaluating Situation RUSSIA Special Envoy Tauscher Consultations / U.S.-Russia Cooperative Agreement on Missile

Defense

FRANCE Shouting in Toulouse / Commend Work of French Authorities / Possible Afghan Suspect SYRIA Presidential Statement / Political Dialogue Lead to Political Transition / Support for Arab

League Concept / Six Point Plan / Working on Multiple Tracks / Positions of Russia and

China BURMA Election Observers / ASEAN / Journalists IRAN P-5+1 Meeting Exemptions / 180-Day Period / Continuing Conversations with Countries


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Iranian Christian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Detention ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS Secretary Clinton's Call with President Abbas

TRANSCRIPT:

12:40 p.m. EDT

MS. NULAND: Good afternoon, everybody. Sorry that we kept changing the time today.

The timing upstairs changed a little bit so we had to adjust. And then, as you know, the

boss did all the work this morning, so Im not sure we have much to add. Why dont we

go to whats on your minds.

QUESTION: Yeah. Im just curious if you have if the Quartet envoys meeting in

Brussels is finished, and if it is, if theres anything to report out of it.

MS. NULAND: I dont have anything yet on the meeting. My understanding is that they

are still at it, but I need to confirm that as well. But we will certainly get you something

as soon as we can.

QUESTION: Great. That was it.

MS. NULAND: Okay. Anything else?

Please.

QUESTION: In Mali, it looks like that military coup is underway in Mali and that some

military are occupying the headquarters of TV and radio Bamako. Are you in touch

with your Embassy? Do you have any information?

MS. NULAND: We are, but we are still trying to evaluate the situation on the ground, so

well have something for you when the situations a little bit clearer to us.

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. NULAND: Sergei.

QUESTION: Different subject?MS. NULAND: Please.

QUESTION: Can you share the results of the Special Envoy Tauschers trip to Moscow?

Has anything been achieved as a result of these talks?

MS. NULAND: Well, as you know, the Special Envoy Tauscher was in Moscow I

think it was 13-15 March for the latest round of consultations with her counterpart,


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Deputy Foreign Minister Riabkov. This is was further to our effort to try to work on a

U.S.-Russia cooperative agreement on missile defense. Our sense is that it was a

productive round of talks, but obviously, theyre in the middle of live diplomacy, so Im

not going to get into any further details.

QUESTION: Something --

MS. NULAND: Please.

QUESTION: Something else?

MS. NULAND: Shaun, yeah.

QUESTION: The a prosecutor today in France a follow-up on the shooting in

Toulouse a prosecutor said that the suspect in the killings had been arrested in

Afghanistan and was returned to France by U.S. authorities. Is there something that is

there any information that the U.S. has on that, or any comment on it?

MS. NULAND: Well, first of all, again, to express our deepest sympathies with the

families of the victims for this horrific attack and to commend the work of French police

and security officials who are trying to bring this to apprehend the suspect and restore

public order there. The circumstances around this particular individuals background

appear to be a little bit murky. I dont know if you saw, Shaun, but just before we came

out, the Afghan Government just issued a statement indicating that they had nobody by

that name registered in an Afghan prison. So frankly, I think we need to let the French

police do their work, bring this to an end, and then well all know a little bit more about

this individual.

QUESTION: Can I just ask you about Syria? I know the Secretary spoke (inaudible), but

she mentioned political transition, I think, at some point. And I just wanted to ask you, is

that your interpretation of what this six-point plan actually spells out?

MS. NULAND: Well, have you had a chance to read the presidential statement that --

QUESTION: I have, yeah.

MS. NULAND: Yeah, so she was essentially reiterating the point in the presidentialstatement that speaks to the expectation that when the violence has ended, that there will

be a political dialogue leading to a political transition. I think she used the identical words

as are in the councils statement expressing the expectations of all of the council

members.


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QUESTION: And does that in your view, does that transition entail the Assad regime

or President Bashar Assad stepping down and something different taking his place?

MS. NULAND: Well, I think our view has been, and the Secretary spoke to this when

she was in New York, we have supported the Arab League detailed concept. The

Secretary the Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan is, obviously, in live diplomacy now

with the various parties in Syria as to how precisely this might happen. Clearly, our

expectation is that we would not see President Assad continuing to run Syria at the end of

a democratic transition process.

QUESTION: Is that detailed concept? Is that actually what its called?

MS. NULAND: No, he so the --

QUESTION: That sounds some kind of new formal jargon that people are throwing

around, is it? The detailed concept --

MS. NULAND: No, we have the six-point --

QUESTION: -- to replace the failed roadmap idea, political horizon?

MS. NULAND: What we have is the a six-point plan from Kofi Annan. His

representatives are in Syria now trying to flesh out how this might work in practice.

QUESTION: Yeah, I know. Is that what hes going to call it, the detailed concept?

MS. NULAND: I cant speak to what hes going to call it.

QUESTION: Is (inaudible) have any position on how long this fleshing-out process

could or should take?

MS. NULAND: Well, again, obviously, the most urgent thing is to stop the violence as

soon as possible. So thats the first priority. I think we need to hear how this technical

team does and what Kofi Annan thinks the horizon is.

QUESTION: Do you I mean, the Secretary has urged President Assad to take this path.

How long do you think it will take before you are able to judge whether hes taken this

path or not?

MS. NULAND: Again, I cant, from at this moment, weve just had this strongstatement from the council. I think we need to give Kofi Annan a little space to make it

work now.

QUESTION: Can I just make this one point clear? Would you please tell him not to call

it the detailed concept if thats really what because that would just --

MS. NULAND: Ill tell him that you, Mr. Lee, would find that --


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QUESTION: Well, I think that the entire world would appreciate not having that kind of

a slogan. Thank you.

QUESTION: Could I just ask you about do you have any understanding why theres a

call for a ceasefire and a two-hour pause in the fighting, which would seem to kind of

overdo it? If theyre not fighting at all, you dont need a pause in the fighting, right?

MS. NULAND: Well, I think hes obviously trying to work on multiple tracks. The

aspiration here is that the violence would end completely. But in the context of trying to

work that through, we also, obviously, as soon as we can, need at least these

humanitarian pauses to begin to be able to provide relief. But again, Im going to refer

you to him and his team for exactly where he might be on all those things.

So, still on Syria? Michel.

QUESTION: Yeah. Do you expect President Assad to accept the presidential statement?

MS. NULAND: I think the Secretary spoke to this today, that that is our expectation, that

he will take this opportunity thats been put to him, because if not, hes going to face

increasing pressure and isolation.

Please.

QUESTION: Yes. In criticizing President Assad, Foreign Minister Lavrov said, and I

quote, No one invited him to Moscow. How do you assess this, what they do you

consider it as a softening of Moscow position towards Syria?

MS. NULAND: Well, weve been talking for about a week and a half here, since the

Secretary had a chance to talk to Foreign Minister Lavrov in New York, that we felt that

our positions were converging with regard to what needs to be done in Syria, and that we

were hopeful that Kofi Annan could play a productive role in bringing the council

together. So what you see today with the presidency statement is a united statement from

the council, all 15 members, including Russia and China, endorsing the Annan plan and

talking about what needs to be done. So thats obviously a strong statement and

something that we had hoped for and been working for for some time, and something thatAssad now needs to pay attention to and do the right thing.

QUESTION: You had previously described the positions of Russia and China as being

on the wrong side of history. Are they now on the right side of history?

MS. NULAND: Well, the Secretary obviously spoke to this today, that we had wanted

for a long time for the council to speak with one voice. So it is a good step, a positive step


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that we now have that together, that we are all pulling in the same direction around a

concrete plan and supporting the joint special envoy.

QUESTION: But do you see this as an admission by them that they were on the wrong

side and now theyve corrected rectified that or --

MS. NULAND: Im not going to --

QUESTION: -- was the correct path somewhere in between?

MS. NULAND: Im not going to give them a grade one way or the other. Whats most

important here for the people of Syria, for the future of Syria, for our hope that we will

someday, sooner rather than later, see a peaceful, democratic Syria, is that the council is

together, that the international community is together.

QUESTION: You were more than willing to give them a failing grade before, though.

QUESTION: Right.

QUESTION: Now youre not willing to give them a passing grade?

MS. NULAND: This is an excellent step in terms of the unity of the council.

Please.

QUESTION: Change of subject?

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: The Burmese Government today announced that it will allow independent

election observers from the U.S. and EU. Whats your view on that? And is U.S. sending

any election observers to Burma, and how many?

MS. NULAND: Well, Burma has invited the United States to send two election

representatives and three journalists to observe on Election Day, April 1st, the

parliamentary bi-elections. Our understanding is that theyve also invited other countries,

as you said, and other members of ASEAN. This is a welcome first step. As you know,

when the Secretary was there, she encouraged the Burmese Government, and we have

with every visit since, to open the system to international observation, as other ASEAN

countries do and is done around the world.A full-scale international observation effort would typically include quite a bit of pre-

Election Day observation, systematic coverage on Election Day, post-election follow-up,

and professional monitors from nongovernmental organizations. So we will obviously

take up this opportunity to monitor, we will coordinate with ASEAN and other observers

to try to maximize the impact that our observers can have, but we would obviously


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encourage the Burmese Government to try to bring this monitoring effort as closely as

they can to international standards.

QUESTION: And these election observers would be officials from the U.S. Government

or from the private --

MS. NULAND: I think were still looking at what makes most sense in that context.

QUESTION: When you talk about a full-scale international observation mission, youre

talking about something for a general election. This is a bi-election. How many seats are

up for grabs?

MS. NULAND: I think its about a quarter of the parliament. Different countries have

offered observation for different kinds of elections, for parliamentary elections as well as

for general elections. I think the point here is that this is a good first step. Burma hasnt

allowed international observation before, but it does fall short of international complete

transparency on an election, and we hope theyll continue to keep the system open, and

open it further.

QUESTION: And who is they invited three journalists. Are you going to decide which

journalists go?

MS. NULAND: I think that would normally not be something that we would do.

QUESTION: No, it wouldnt be.

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: Doesnt that kind of display a kind of fundamental lack of understanding,

perhaps, on the part of the Burmese Government of the way things work?

MS. NULAND: Yeah. I mean, our we suffice it to say that our Embassy in Rangoon

is talking to the Burmese about who might want to come and about how visas might be

apportioned because this is the question. It has to do with I mean, generally, you all

make your own decisions, and its a matter of the visas that are granted, so --

QUESTION: Right, but do you know if thats been clarified at all by them to you in

Rangoon or in --MS. NULAND: It has not.

QUESTION: -- Nay Pyi Taw or --

MS. NULAND: Its one of the issues were working on now.

QUESTION: Is the figure of two U.S. observers is that, do you feel, sufficient to get a

good picture of whats going on?


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MS. NULAND: Again, I think I spoke to the fact that this is a good first step, but its

that there are a number of other things that one would want to see for complete

observation. I think what were going to try to do now is work with ASEAN so that we

can maximize the impact that we can all have together while continuing to encourage the

Burmese to be as open as possible about these elections, but --

QUESTION: So we wouldnt necessarily expect to see the U.S. Government asking

directly for more headcount?

MS. NULAND: Again, I think this has just come to us as an invitation. Were in the

process of consulting with them and consulting with ASEAN on what makes sense.

Sergei.

QUESTION: On Iran?

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: How close is the P-5+1 in Iran to scheduling the next round of talks?

Foreign Minister Lavrov mentioned yesterday something about April. Is that your

understanding as well, that this might happen in April?

MS. NULAND: Well, our P-5+1 representatives met together, and I think Russia was

represented there as well in Brussels yesterday. Under Secretary Sherman represented the

United States. As you know, the EU has been negotiating with the Iranians on both the

date and the venue. Our understanding is that those negotiations continue and they will

announce something from Lady Ashtons office when those negotiations are completed.

Please.

QUESTION: Also on Iran, just a logistics question about the exemptions announced

yesterday. When does the 180-day period actually start for the countries announced?

MS. NULAND: My understanding is that it started thats a good question, when does it

start? It starts the day that they are that the paperwork goes to the Hill. My

understanding is it ends on September 16th

, if thats helpful to you.

QUESTION: Okay.MS. NULAND: So I dont know how you count from 180 days backwards from

September the 16th

to get the but as you know, when you make these determinations,

theyre for a hundred and eighty days, and then they have to be looked at again.

QUESTION: Sure.


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MS. NULAND: But the end date would be September 16th

when theyd have to be

looked at again.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: And when do you expect to take a decision of the rest of the 12 other

countries, including India, China, Turkey, (inaudible) --

MS. NULAND: I think that depends on the progress of those countries. You know where

we are, that wed like to see all of the countries that trade heavily in Iranian crude reduce

their numbers. So as we see the kind of progress that we saw with the EU and with Japan,

then well look at doing more of these. But conversations continue with those

governments.

QUESTION: And is the 15 to 22 percent the benchmark you expect from these 12

countries?

MS. NULAND: Well, let me refer you to what Ambassador Pascual said in his hearing

yesterday. He made and we also had, as you know, a background briefing yesterday.

The circumstances in Japan were particularly acute after the earthquake, tsunami, and the

loss of their nuclear power plants, and even in those extreme conditions where one could

argue their dependence might have gone up, they were able to cut by 15 to 20 percent.

So one would hope that countries can do as much as they possibly can. We all have the

same goal here, which is for these sanctions to really pinch Iran and make it think twice

about its nuclear weapons program, and convince it to come clean and take best

advantage of these negotiations that we are going to be having to demonstrate that its

program is peaceful. So the more countries can do, the more we have the impact that we

desire.

QUESTION: How much you have asked India to do?

MS. NULAND: You know that Im not going to talk about our specific negotiations with

individual countries, but we are continuing to have productive discussions with India, and

they have some choices that theyll need to think about making.QUESTION: More broadly on this issue, can you explain what the utility would be to

impose sanctions on countries like Japan, South Korea, India, these importers, to penalize

their banks? What good would that do?


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MS. NULAND: Well, I think from the beginning, the issue has been to ensure that the

impact of this legislation has the intent that the Congress wanted, which is to pressure

Iran to come back into compliance --

QUESTION: Well, frankly it seems --

MS. NULAND: -- with its international obligations, and we have been intent in our

negotiation with all of our allies and partners to work with them to minimize the impact

on them and on their economies and to maximize the impact on Iran.

QUESTION: But say a country like South Korea, which is one of your closest allies in

the Asia Pacific, if they are unable or unwilling to reduce they did not get an

exemption, they are one of the countries that is still threatened with these sanctions

what would be the utility to the United States of punishing one of its closest allies in the

world?

MS. NULAND: Well, the conversations with South Korea continue. We the goal here

in our dialogue with South Korea, and they understand this completely, is for them to

also make the kind of progress, and they want to make the kind of progress that

punishment, as you put it, will not be necessary. So thats the root of the dialogue. We

want the impact to be on Iran, not to be on our allies, and were going to keep working on

it.

QUESTION: Right. Exactly. So what good would the punishment do?

MS. NULAND: Again, we are not at that stage, so Im not going to comment on what

could or couldnt happen. We are intent now on putting our effort into having as many

countries as possible, and particularly allied countries, be able to meet these high

standards and have an impact on Iran. And there are things that countries can continue to

do to reduce their impact sorry their imports from Iran.

Were also, as you know, working to provide working with countries who might be

able to offer alternative sources of supply. So some of these countries have been into

arrangements with Iran because that, in the past, might have appeared to them to be themost reliable route. Our view is its neither reliable nor a good idea. So the degree to

which other countries can compensate, we are working with those countries and were

trying to make matches as well.


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QUESTION: I just its strange though that youre in these discussions to help these

countries avoid possible sanctions, but you cant say why you would even consider

sanctions against South Korea or another country like that.

MS. NULAND: Again, the concern is that all countries should do as much as possible to

wean themselves of Iranian crude. That at a time when were trying to convince Iran to

definitively demonstrate that their program is not a weapons program, we have to

maximize the pressure. And the lifeline to the Iranian regime is its crude oil supplies. So

this legislation has had the effect of crystallizing minds and causing countries to look

hard at their Iranian relationship around the world. Countries have made very, very

significant progress already, as the Secretary was able to certify, and its having a very

important impact on Iran, and were seeing that.

So this is actually leading us to the leading us in the right direction in terms of trying to

solve this diplomatically so that we dont in the time and space that we have. And thats

something that everybody wants.

Okay.

QUESTION: Also on Iran?

MS. NULAND: Yeah. Please, Scott.

QUESTION: What more can you give us on the Iranian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, who

is in detention? You had a statement on that when that happened. There are some

American Christian groups that have organized a Twitter campaign, both and English and

Portuguese, actually, in hopes of getting the Brazilian Government to weigh in in Tehran

on his case.

MS. NULAND: Well, we obviously continue to have concerns about the fate of

Christian pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who faces the threat of execution solely because of

his religious beliefs. We call again on the Iranian Government to release him. We also

welcome the efforts to secure his release from other countries, as you said. Brazil has

spoken out against this, and spoken out against his mistreatment in the Human RightsCouncil in Geneva. So the more voices that we have and the more pressure we have on

Iran, the better.

QUESTION: Do you know anything about this planned march, international march on

Jerusalem?

MS. NULAND: I do not. We can --


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QUESTION: Ill send it along.

MS. NULAND: Yeah. Okay? Thanks.

Michel.

QUESTION: One more. Secretary Clinton has talked to President Abbas today. Do you

have anything about this conversation?

MS. NULAND: I have to apologize to you. I didnt get a chance to get a readout on the

call. I assume it was following up on the Presidents call, which, as you know, we read

out a couple of days ago to encourage him to continue to work towards a negotiated

solution, to think about coming back to the table, to work along the lines that the Quartet

envoys are working on now, to share with him our commitment to security and support

for Palestinian institutions. But let me get a formal readout for you.

QUESTION: Actually, could you just to go back on that same subject, is this next

Quartet meeting the principals meeting in April thats coming up is that something

that the Israelis and Palestinians might be invited to as well?

MS. NULAND: I dont know the answer to that. I think it we may not have decided at

this point, but let me see what we have on that for you, Matt, as well.

Okay. Thanks everybody.

QUESTION: Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:02 p.m.)

Documents

Press Release From the US Department of State regarding the US Daily Briefing