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02/15/2023 07:06 PM EST
Ned Price, Department Spokesperson
Washington, D.C.
2:19 p.m. EST
MR PRICE: Good afternoon.
QUESTION: Good afternoon.
MR PRICE: Happy Wednesday.
QUESTION: Happy Wednesday.
MR PRICE: I just have one announcement at the top, and then we’ll turn to your questions.
[] We are deeply concerned by the reported arrests of multiple political figures, business leaders, and journalists in Tunisia in recent days.
We respect the aspirations of the Tunisian people for an independent and transparent judiciary that is able to protect fundamental freedoms for all. We are engaged with the Tunisian Government at all levels in support of human rights and the freedom of expression.
It is a core U.S. principle that people around the world should be able to express themselves without fear or reprisal. All governments have a responsibility to uphold this basic tenet.
With that, Matt.
QUESTION: Great. That’s it?
MR PRICE: That is it.
QUESTION: Oh, okay. You don’t want to say anything about the trip, because the announcement just came out?
MR PRICE: We just announced it, and my colleague will have an opportunity to speak to it in some detail at 3:30.
QUESTION: Well, okay.
MR PRICE: So I will leave that to her.
QUESTION: But that’s two – almost two hours from now – or from now – an hour – hour, hour and 10 minutes from now. So can you be anymore specific about the kinds of meetings that he’ll have in Munich and Germany and Türkiye and in Greece?
MR PRICE: We will walk through all of this in some detail in the next 70 minutes, so I will leave it to my colleague to do that.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, then —
MR PRICE: Great.
QUESTION: Unless you made any reservations in Palm Springs on the —
QUESTION: May I go to —
MR PRICE: (Laughter.) Go ahead.
QUESTION: Armenia’s foreign minister visited Türkiye in the wake of today’s – in the wake of the earthquake, and Armenia’s help. What is your reaction on its implications particularly for the peace efforts in the region? Overall, how do you view that trip?
MR PRICE: []Well, I will leave it to those two governments to speak to their engagement. Our message to both Armenia and Azerbaijan, to the parties themselves, but also to the entire region is the need to find a way to de-escalate tensions to put this back on a path towards a comprehensive and lasting peace. We have been engaged in that effort; we’ve been engaged in that effort bilaterally, we’ve been engaged in that effort multilaterally, and we’ll continue to do everything we can as the United States directly with the parties, through multilateral institutions and groupings, to advance that cause. It is our hope that other countries will send precisely the same message, but I’m not in a position to speak to the messages that other countries are sending.
Janne.
QUESTION: It’s a – Armenia, Türkiye – like, how do you view the role of earthquake diplomacy, quote/unquote, in terms of those two countries didn’t have a relationship before? So do you find it – do you welcome that? Or what do you —
MR PRICE: []Well, we certainly welcome countries around the world stepping up and showing up for the people of Türkiye, for the people of Syria who have been devastated by these massive earthquakes that struck on February 6th. A number of countries have demonstrated a generosity of spirit that will be necessary if we are going to be able to address the full consequences and implications of these massive earthquakes. The United States has attempted to lead by example. So far, we have already contributed or announced $85 million in support from the U.S. Government to the response in Türkiye and in Syria. The Secretary, as Matt just alluded to, will have an opportunity to travel to Türkiye in the coming days, he’ll have an opportunity while there to witness some of what the U.S. Government is doing, and I think he’ll also be in a position to speak to what more the United States will be prepared to do for our Turkish allies and for the people of Syria in the days to come.
Janne.
QUESTION: A follow-up on this.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR PRICE: Sure. We’ll, I’ll come right back to you.
QUESTION: Yeah, on the earthquake.
MR PRICE: Sure.
QUESTION: So how much of the $85 million went to Syria? I mean, you said the 85 million to Türkiye and Syria. Could you —
MR PRICE: So Said —
QUESTION: Do you have any more specifics?
MR PRICE: Said, this is a response that is still in motion. And in some ways, it’s difficult to disaggregate what goes to Türkiye and what goes to Syria because much of our operation is based in Türkiye. When we have talked about the massive amounts of equipment and supplies, the 200 members of the search and rescue teams, 170,000 pounds of specialized equipment, the other capacities that we have put in place in Türkiye in the first instance, oftentimes that is to facilitate cross-border humanitarian support for the people of Syria. So I’m not sure we can break it down precisely when it comes to the 85 million. And I will also say that that was our initial contribution, and —
QUESTION: And I have a couple more questions on —
MR PRICE: Yeah.
QUESTION: — Syria. Now, in the area, your ally, the YPG, are they coordinating with the Government of Syria, with the regime of Syria? And are you aware of any coordination between them in terms of search and rescue?
MR PRICE: I’m not in a position to speak to that. You would need to speak to the elements you mentioned regarding their operations. What we are committed to doing is to seeing as much humanitarian assistance flow to the people of Syria as the international community can accomplish. And I think you’ve seen, Said, the United States speak to the contributions that we have made both in terms of funding, in terms of personnel, in terms of equipment that, again, will facilitate a response on both sides of the border, just as over the past 12 years we have supported the people of Syria to the tune of some $15 billion. We’ve led the global response in terms of the humanitarian response in terms of the humanitarian emergency that has transpired in Syria in recent years.
The fact that as soon as those tremors started on February 6th in the earthquake and the aftershocks struck there were aid organizations, independent aid organizations on the ground ready to go to conduct search and rescue operations, to pull people from the rubble, to save as many lives as possible – those groups were there in large part because of the generosity of the American people and the United States Government over the past 12 years. That generosity, that commitment to the people of Syria, we’re just going to double down on that in the coming weeks and months.
QUESTION: And lastly, today the Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, a close friend of the United States and so on, was in Syria and met with President Bashar al-Assad. Do you have any comment on that? Did they – did Jordan coordinate with you? Did they let you in on what transpired and so forth?
MR PRICE: I don’t have a comment on that. I would of course refer to our Jordanian partners to speak to that. The fact is our focus right now is on the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people. We are encouraging all parties to set aside divides so that we can focus on getting humanitarian support to the people of Syria who need it most.
As we’re focused on the humanitarian imperative, we’re also mindful of the history here. There is not a single entity that has done more to devastate the Syrian people than the Syrian regime. So as we weigh the humanitarian imperatives ahead of us, we’re very mindful of the humanitarian predicament the Syrian people are in. We are also mindful of precisely why they are in such dire humanitarian straits.
QUESTION: And on the drone, the Americans shot a drone over Syria. Can you comment on that?
MR PRICE: I will leave it to my colleagues at —
QUESTION: An Iranian drone.
MR PRICE: I will leave it to my colleagues at the Department of Defense to comment on that. I understand they have issued a statement on that. I will just say it speaks to the fact that we are committed to protecting our people, to protecting our interests. That is a commitment we have and it’s a commitment we’ll make good on.
Janne.
QUESTION: Thank you, thank you. I have two questions. Thank you, Ned. The United States congressional foreign committee pointed out that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea as threatening countries to United States, and said that they should be reserved a priority. The former President Bush called North Korea as the axis of evil. However, President Biden did not mention North Korea’s threatening behavior in his State of the Union address this year. Does the Biden administration regard the North Korean issue as less important than Ukraine, China, and Taiwan issues?
MR PRICE: []Janne, all of these issues are important. We don’t have the luxury of being able to prioritize. But in some ways, all of these same issues are made of the same cloth. All of these challenges that we face, very different challenges that we face from the PRC, from Iran, from Russia, from the DPRK, in some ways this all boils down to the rules-based order and the role the United States and our partners and allies and the rest of the world has played over the course of some 70 or 80 years now to build a rules-based order, a rules-based order that is codified not in anything the United States wrote or anything that our partners alone wrote, but that’s codified in the UN Charter, that’s codified in international law, that is codified in elements that all of the countries you just cited have signed on to.
So whether it’s Russia’s unprovoked, brutal aggression against Ukraine, whether it is the PRC’s attempts to change or undermine the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, whether it is Iran’s provision of support to malign actors that in turn destabilize the Middle East, or whether it’s the DPRK’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs – all of these in different ways pose a challenge to the rules-based order. Everywhere and anywhere it comes under assault, the United States and countries around the world are standing up for that rules-based order. It’s what we’re doing in Ukraine. It’s what we’re doing in the context of the DPRK too.
QUESTION: Yeah, one more. Regarding the discharge of radioactively contaminated water from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, South Korea and the international community are very concerned about Japan’s decision to release contaminated water into the sea and arising issues. What is the United States position on this?
MR PRICE: []We strongly support the nuclear safety and security standards championed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, or the IAEA, and we welcome Japan’s continued openness and close coordination with the international community as Japan prepares to disperse the treated water in a manner that appears to be in line with the internationally accepted nuclear safety standards. We are aware that the Government of Japan examined several options related to the management of the treated water currently being stored on site at the Fukushima – Fukushima installation. In this unique and challenging setting, Japan has weighed the options and effects; it has been transparent about its decision-making in doing so; and it appears to have adopted an approach in accordance with globally accepted nuclear safety and security standards. We look forward to the Government of Japan’s continued coordination with the IAEA as it monitors the effectiveness of this approach.
Leon.
QUESTION: Yeah. Sorry to change regions. Robert Malley is in Oman, or was – I’m not exactly sure of his schedule. Could you tell us, give us an idea of what kind of meetings he had there, give us a readout on what topics were broached and all that? And unrelated, presumably, but there are reports out there that there have been talks in Oman between Iran and Ukraine at a level – I don’t know at which level, but there are reports out there saying that there was at least one meeting between Iranians and Ukrainians in Oman. Any thought about that?
MR PRICE: []To the second part of your question, that’s not one I could comment on; I would, of course, need to leave it to the Omanis or the Ukrainians in this case to speak to any engagements. But more broadly, much more broadly, Oman has played a constructive role across the Middle East and across regions in the past. It has been a bridge-builder between countries that don’t always see eye-to-eye, and that may be putting it too mildly.
Rob tweeted this morning that he had a very good set of meetings in Oman. They discussed a number of issues related to Iran. Rob Malley is, of course, the special envoy for Iran, so you can imagine that all of his engagements will be primarily focused on Iran. To the point I made earlier about the instrumental role Oman has played in helping to solve challenges, helping to bridge divides, Oman did play a very useful and important role in the decision on the part of the Iranian regime to release Baquer Namazi. They were very supportive of part of our longstanding persistent efforts to see all of our wrongful detainees freed and to help effectuate the release from Iranian custody of Baquer Namazi not all that long ago.
So we thank Oman for the role it has played. We continue to consult closely with Oman on challenges near and far, and Rob’s engagement there was a part of that.
QUESTION: Could you – just to follow up on that, could you be a little bit more specific as to what exactly he would be looking for in those talks in Oman vis-à-vis Iran?
MR PRICE: Unfortunately not. Unfortunately not. []But again, when Rob travels around the world, Iran is always top of the agenda. It is questions of Iran’s nuclear program, it’s a question of the other challenges that Iran poses to the rules-based order that I mentioned to your colleague a moment ago, it’s a question of the repression and violence that we’re seeing on the part of the Iranian regime towards its own citizens. It’s a question of the provision of support that Iran is providing Russia in the form of UAVs that Russia is in turn using against the people of Ukraine, and it is always a question of our wrongfully detained American citizens. As I mentioned before, Oman has played an important role in helping us to resolve one of those cases recently, and the detention, the wrongful detention of our citizens is always going to be at the top of the agenda.
QUESTION: Ned, I will follow up on your answer to Said. When he asked about the Jordanian foreign minister visit to Damascus, you said we called on everyone to set aside divides. Who you are calling here, the opposition or – and can you please explain and clarify what’s the U.S. position on this – on these visits? They are visiting Damascus also; they are focus – they are saying they are focusing on humanitarian side as well. So do you support that? Do you support the engagement with Assad regime under the humanitarian aspect?
MR PRICE: []Here’s what we support: We support countries around the world doing all that they possibly can to get as much humanitarian assistance into Syria as quickly as we collectively can. Here is what we don’t support: We don’t support normalization of relations with the Assad regime. This goes back to the second part of my answer I gave to Said. We are urgently mindful of the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people right now in the wake of the earthquake. We are also mindful of the history, and we are mindful of precisely why the Syrian people are in such a perilous predicament that the earthquake has compounded in just devastating ways. And that’s the responsibility primarily of Bashar al-Assad and his regime.
So we – every time this issue comes up, we continue to convey to our partners around the world that now is not the time for normalization of relations. The only context in which we would encourage normalization or improvement of relations would be were the Assad regime to fulfill the political guidelines, the political roadmap that has been spelled out in UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Until and unless that happens, our approach to the Assad regime itself will remain the same, but I would stress: We want to see humanitarian assistance get to all parts of Syria where it’s needed. It does not matter to us whether it is regime-held areas, whether it’s opposition-held areas. What matters most to us is that humanitarian assistance is getting to those who need it as quickly as that can be managed.
QUESTION: Are you ready to engage with Assad for humanitarian purposes?
MR PRICE: We are ready to engage with partners around the world for humanitarian purposes. We believe we can do that most effectively given the approach that – using the approach that we’ve adopted over the past dozen or so years. Our assistance is continuing to flow, not through the regime but to the independent humanitarian organizations that have been present on the ground for much of the past 12 years, the humanitarian organizations that were able to respond so swiftly to the earthquake precisely because we had been funding them to the tune of billions upon billions of dollars over the course of the past 12 years.
We are not changing our approach to the Assad regime. The humanitarian situation on the ground is our overriding focus on the moment. It is the humanitarian situation that has been made all the more dire and urgent by the earthquake, but it is a humanitarian situation that didn’t emerge on February 6th. It’s a humanitarian situation that in large part has its roots in the Assad regime’s treatment of its own people.
QUESTION: One more question on Iran. Are you exchanging message with the Iranian – messages with the Iranian now regarding the revival of the JCPOA?
MR PRICE: []We are not. We are not. The JCPOA has not been our focus for a number of months now. Our focus has been on three things: on making clear to the Iranian regime that it should stop targeting and killing and repressing its own people; making clear to the Iranian regime that it should stop providing security assistance in the form of UAV technology to Russia; and making clear to the Iranian regime the priority we attach to the safe and prompt return of the Americans it has continued to wrongly detain.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR PRICE: Anything else on this?
QUESTION: Syria?
MR PRICE: Sure, go ahead.
QUESTION: As you well know, there is five crossing point on the border in Türkiye and Syria, I think, plus Bab al-Hawa. There is a conflicting report about whether all of them are open now or some of them. Did you ask Türkiye or work it out with Türkiye to open all those crossing point?
MR PRICE: []So you’re referring to the cross-border transit points that we’ve talked about over the past couple days. The UN has been engaged on this. Martin Griffiths has engaged directly with relevant stakeholders, including relevant stakeholders inside of Syria. As a result of that UN engagement, two additional border checkpoints have been opened in recent days. It’s our understanding that additional convoys of trucks have been able to use at least one of those border checkpoints over the past couple days.
Our focus remains, as I said before, on the need to keep aid flowing into Syria at the – as quickly and as in – with as much aid as we can muster. That’s what matters most to us. It’s – the overriding imperative is to provide assistance to the Syrian people. We also want to ensure that as these border checkpoints are now on the table, that they cannot be turned off on a whim. And we believe that a Security Council resolution codifying the opening of additional border checkpoints in a Security Council resolution would do just that.
In the meantime, we’re going to continue to monitor the flow of this aid to see to it that the parties are living up to their commitments and will continue to consult very closely with our partners on that.
QUESTION: Are you going to go to the Security Council for that, Ned?
MR PRICE: So again, we believe that the most effective means by which to ensure that these checkpoints can’t be shut down by a change of heart on the part of the Assad regime or a whim by any particular actor in Syria is to codify these border crossings in a UN Security Council resolution. That’s something we are discussing with our partners, but in the interim, we’re monitoring the flow of aid across these checkpoints. We hope to see that flow continue. And we’ll decide the next steps in coordination with our partners from there.
QUESTION: Thanks, Ned. Can you confirm reports that the U.S. had been tracking the Chinese spy balloon ever since it took off from the Chinese south coast?
MR PRICE: I’m not in a position to speak to that. That is a question for my colleagues at the Pentagon to —
QUESTION: Any reactions to China threatening today that it will take actions against U.S. entities following the latest U.S. sanctions against China following the balloon incident?
MR PRICE: []My only point on that would be that the United States is always going to take responsible, prudent, and appropriate actions to protect our people, to protect our interests. That is precisely what this government did in response to the PRC violating our sovereignty, violating international law by sending a high-altitude surveillance balloon deep into the heartland of the United States. This is not the type of program that the United States is conducting over China. The PRC’s attempts to accuse us doing the same, it is just more misinformation, disinformation. It is just not true.
Yeah, go ahead.
QUESTION: After yesterday’s press briefing, Professor James Cavallaro said that he had deleted his tweets because he was, quote, “addressing concerns the State Department had raised during the vetting process about public expressions of my personal views.” Which of his views did you raise concerns about during the vetting process?
MR PRICE: []Look, I’m not going to speak to the vetting process for any particular individual, including this individual. I’ll just make the point – and this is something I know you’re familiar with – his social media commentary covered many issues, not just Israel. I know that’s been the focus of much of the commentary, but it went well beyond that. Some of his commentary, as I alluded to yesterday, was inappropriate, was deeply inappropriate. Once that information came to light, we lost confidence in this individual and his ability to serve as a successful nominee.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)