In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of Monday's press briefing by Department Spokesman (and Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) representative nominee) Ian Kelly:
- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Monday to discuss Afghanistan, Asia, and climate change. Later Monday she went to New York to receive an award at the Amsterdam News Educational Fund 100th Anniversary Gala and she also received the Eisenhower Award from Business Executives for National Security.
- Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg left for Athens Monday night to attend the OSCE foreign ministerial meeting. Clinton was supposed to go, but had to hang back because of Tuesday's rollout of the administration's new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy and her testimony before Congress on Wednesday and Thursday. Clinton will go to Brussels on Thursday afternoon for the NATO ministerial meeting.
- Clinton spoke with 10 foreign ministers on Thanksgiving about Afghanistan, but Kelly would not confirm that she asked French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for 1,500 new French troops there.
- Kelly said its now unlikely that State Department negotiators will be able to finish a follow on to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia by the time it expires Dec. 5. "I think that what we're saying now is that we're hoping to get this draft agreement by the end of December. I don't want to raise expectations necessarily that we're going to be able to work out everything by this Saturday," he said.
- The IAEA offer for Iran to have its uranium enriched outside of the country is "still on the table," Kelly said, despite that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said that talks with Iran over the proposal were at a "dead end." "if we don't get a positive response, we're going to start shifting our focus over to the other track, the track of pressure," Kelly said, not specifically endorsing the conventionally wise end of the year deadline.
- Kelly said he was not aware of statements by North Korea's leaders that they are planning to announce they will return to the Six Party Talks when Ambassador Stephen Bosworth goes to Pyongyang next week, despite reports in the Asian press.
- Kelly declined to comment on the news that Chelsea Clinton is engaged to her long time boyfriend Marc Mazvinsky.
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The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections. Most of its 3,500-plus staff are engaged in field operations, with only around 10% in its headquarters.
The OSCE is an ad hoc organization under the United Nations Charter (Chap. VIII), and is concerned with early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. Its 56 participating States are from Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and North America and cover most of the northern hemisphere. It was created during the Cold War era as an East-West forum.
http://www.osce.org/
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
ATHENS, 1 December 2009 - The dialogue on European security can be meaningful only if it is tied to concrete progress, the foreign ministers of the 56 OSCE participating States heard at the start of the 17th OSCE Ministerial Council in Athens today...
ATHENS, 1 December 2009 - The Heads of Delegation of the OSCE Minsk Group, Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister of France Bernard Kouchner, and Deputy Secretary of State of the United States James Steinberg...
