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10/06/2022 07:54 PM EDT
Vedant Patel, Principal Deputy Spokesperson
Washington, DC
2:13 p.m. EDT
[]MR PATEL: Good afternoon, everybody. And sorry that we are running just a smidge tardy.
As I promised, we have a special guest with us today. Today it is my pleasure to introduce Ambassador-at-Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nate Fick, who started just a couple weeks ago and had his swearing-in ceremony earlier this week, on October 4th, just in time to kick off Cyber Security Awareness Month.
Last year and over the course of his tenure as Secretary of State, Secretary Blinken has laid out an ambitious modernization agenda to help the State Department lead in the policy areas that will define the coming decades. Cyberspace and digital policy are at the top of that list, and this is the arrival of our first-ever ambassador-at-large to lead our new []Cyberspace and Digital Policy Bureau. And this is a key milestone in delivering on the Secretary’s agenda.
Ambassador Fick was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, has an impressive and impeccable record of leadership in both the public and private sector, and is an expert on many issue areas in the cyberspace and digital policy arenas.
I am pleased to have him here. He’s going to have some remarks for you, and then we’ll take a few questions, before he has to continue on with some meetings throughout the day. So Ambassador Fick, please. The floor is yours.
AMBASSADOR FICK: Thank you. Hi, everybody. I don’t know if you keep it like this in here to keep you brief or keep me brief, but it may have that effect. I hope we all have our flu shots. (Laughter.)
My name’s Nate Fick. I’m the new ambassador-at-large leading the Bureau for Cyberspace and Digital Policy. And as you heard, it is – this is my first week in the building. So I will play the new guy card shamelessly.
The – I couldn’t be more excited about this opportunity to lead State’s newest bureau, to lead an organization focused on integrating and elevating the United States approach to technology diplomacy with our partners and allies, and to uphold a vision for how we can all use technology to enrich our lives and uphold democratic values.
I bring to this some personal, visceral convictions. I was a Marine earlier in my career, after college. I served in Afghanistan right after 9/11 and in Iraq in 2003 and witnessed firsthand the costs when diplomacy fails. And so I have, again, a strong visceral conviction in the intrinsic value of diplomacy. I believe diplomacy should be our tool of first resort in all things. And cyber and digital policy is the next frontier of diplomacy. It’s not a silo; it’s not a set of issues limited to any one bureau; this is a substrate that cuts across every aspect of our foreign policy.
And Secretary Blinken and Deputy Secretary Sherman have made clear that that’s the case, that cyber and digital policy isn’t the work of only one bureau, and we need to make an understanding of digital policies a core piece of the department’s work and a core tool in the kits of our diplomats at every level.
So to succeed, we need to communicate what we’re going to do in the public, and so I am glad to have this opportunity to begin to talk with all of you on my fourth day here. So I look forward to finding new ways to highlight how we’re advancing this mission, and I’ll give you just one example from my first 10 days of how cyber and digital issues are already shaping the work of U.S. diplomacy. I was sworn in, got a passport, and got on a plane to Bucharest on three successive days in order to work with our U.S. delegation there in the days running up to the election last week for the secretary generalship of the International Telecommunication Union.
The ITU is 157-year-old organization that is responsible for settings standards that govern so many aspects of telecom, including things like 5G and fiber optic networks. And we had a very strong American citizen as candidate for secretary-general, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, and she won a landslide victory over her Russian opponent: 139 votes to 25, which I think gives her – we think gives her a strong mandate now to embark on her four-year term as secretary-general. And I know that she’s going to do a phenomenal job not only because she has the managerial and leadership experience inside the ITU, but also because of her commitment to connecting the unconnected, to closing digital divides, and advancing the principle of an open, interoperable, secure, reliable internet for people all around the world.
So there’s a lot to do, obviously, from countering malicious cyber activity and building resilience to promoting investments in secure telecom infrastructure and making sure that access to the internet is universally available in a way that advances human rights.
So I’m honored to work with a great team of experienced diplomats in the bureau. I look forward to building the relationships with my interagency partners. I look forward to working with our partners and allies around the globe.
And with that, I’m happy to take a few questions, as long as all of us can stand the temperature in here.
MR PATEL: Okay. So the ambassador will take a couple questions. Alex, you want to start us off?
QUESTION: Thank you so much, Ambassador. Thank you for being here. Congratulations on your new gig.
AMBASSADOR FINK: Thank you.
QUESTION: A couple questions on Russia. How do you assess the risk of Russian cyber retaliation, starting from Ukraine to the latest example of Russian-speaking, Kremlin-backed group attacking the U.S. states? Do you have an assessment on that and where is the response (inaudible)?
AMBASSADOR FINK: Yeah. I think again, a few days into this, I may have to keep some of my comments at the level of principles. But I think that the idea of extending deterrence into the cyber domain is an important one across many facets of American foreign policy, including Russia’s war in Ukraine.
I think that the degree of unity of purpose across the NATO Alliance that we’re seeing is encouraging. Cyber deterrence is a part of that. And it is – to some extent it’s working, right? We haven’t seen yet a ton of lateral escalation using cyber means outside Ukraine by the Russians. Inside Ukraine is – one of the interesting success stories of early days is the – kind of the effectiveness of public-private partnerships on the ground with software vendors that have, in some cases, hundreds of millions of systems deployed in Ukraine and the feedback loop between them and the U.S. Government on things like threat intelligence sharing and then pushing patches out to systems.
I lived this on the other side of the table in the private sector for a long time, and I’m not accustomed to seeing it work as smoothly and quickly as it is right now. So I feel like we’re learning at least on that front.
MR PATEL: Kylie, you had your hand up?
QUESTION: Yeah, just two questions. Just to follow up on that, you mentioned that deterrence is working in Ukraine when it comes to any –
AMBASSADOR FICK: Deterrence is working outside Ukraine.
QUESTION: Outside Ukraine.
AMBASSADOR FICK: Deterrence is working in Europe and across the NATO Alliance.
QUESTION: Okay. And so do you think that that deterrence is one of the reasons that we haven’t seen more offensive cyber operations from Russia in Ukraine, or do you think that that is just a decision on their behalf in terms of how they approach this war?
AMBASSADOR FICK: So again, Kylie, with apologies, kind of at the level of principles, since I’m pretty new, I think that there is a robust deterrence framework that’s part of the NATO Alliance, and I would attribute that, at least in part, for why there haven’t been widespread Russian cyber attacks outside Ukraine.
Inside Ukraine, I think that there actually has been some meaningful degree of malicious Russian cyber activity, at least that they’ve attempted. And I think that one of the reasons that it hasn’t had the impact that the Russians hoped it would have is because of this tight feedback cycle that’s happening between the software vendors and hardware vendors who have stuff deployed in Ukraine and their partnership with the U.S. Government and the Ukrainian Government and NATO to convey that – to accelerate that feedback cycle.
QUESTION: And just one more question. When it comes to U.S. offensive cyber capabilities and operations, are you pleased to see this administration working on what appears to be reining in the – reining in those cyber operations and the levels of checks that they have to go through on the U.S. side before they’re actually able to be carried out so that the State Department has more visibility?
AMBASSADOR FICK: I think that cyber operations are an important tool of national power. I think that getting into any of the details on that topic right now is a little bit beyond my scope in the first few days.
MR PATEL: Roj.
QUESTION: Thank you, Ambassador, and congrats. What can your bureau – what role can your bureau play in getting internet access to the Iranian people, or is there anything that your bureau can do with private companies or anything to get internet access to the Iranians?
AMBASSADOR FICK: I think there’s – I hope that there’s going to be a lot that we can do from an advocacy standpoint globally to advance our belief that the internet is – internet access, access to reliable, secure information – is something that every human being on Earth should have. It’s one of the principles that Doreen is fighting for as – will fight for as secretary-general of the ITU. I think there are a lot of ways that we can operationalize that, and under my leadership I hope the bureau will be a strong advocate for it.
MR PATEL: Said, and then Nike.
QUESTION: Ambassador Fick, congratulations. How does deterrence work? I mean, we know how nuclear deterrents work. We – like this country has so many weapons and the adversary has so many weapons, and so on. But in this case, what, do you show them – like you shut off some of your adversary’s facilities and so on to show your capability in terms of deterrence?
AMBASSADOR FICK: I think that there’s the old adage that history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. I think that everything that we learned about nuclear deterrence over the course of the Cold War doesn’t translate perfectly into this domain, but it does rhyme. Some of the principles remain the same. There are unique challenges around attribution, for instance. The – we don’t have an array of satellites that are tracking missile launch plumes and able to ascertain in real-time where they came from, right? That’s not how this domain works.
When you’re talking about a cyber attack that’s bouncing through – launched by one country and bounces through servers in six other countries before it hits its target, it becomes a more challenging problem. But again, I think that some of the principles that have served us well in history will continue to serve us well: principles like proportionality; principles like noncombatant immunity; principles like stating that it may not be only cyber retribution, right, that deterrence – real deterrence – requires marshalling every ounce of our national power – informational power, economic power, diplomatic power. So —
MR PATEL: Nike, go ahead.
QUESTION: Thank you. Congratulations, Ambassador, and thank you for the briefing. As the United States – as the U.S. midterm election’s approaching, what are you seeing from Russia, China, and Iran as far as cyber campaigns targeting on the midterms? And are you seeing other countries or non-state actors that are causing concern? Thank you.
AMBASSADOR FICK: So this is going to be a very near-term priority for me – working with our interagency partners to maintain the security of our elections and the elections in our allies and partners – but I am not far enough along to have more to say about it yet.
MR PATEL: I think the ambassador’s got time for one more question. Yes, one more – Abbie, go ahead.
QUESTION: How confident are you in the security of the State Department’s own systems, and will you be undertaking any effort to improve the security here?
AMBASSADOR FICK: So my wife asked me how many days it would take before somebody at the department asked me to fix their printer. (Laughter.) And I guess the answer is four. The – our office is not part of the CIO or the IT shop at the State Department, and so I just don’t have any granular sense of the security of the department’s own networks. I’m sorry.
MR PATEL: Thank you so much, everybody, and thank you, Ambassador, for joining us. We appreciate it.
AMBASSADOR FICK: Okay, thanks very much.
MR PATEL: Okay. I’m happy to continue on with a regular scheduled briefing for you all. I’m not sure where our friend is, but Daphne, if you want to start us off.
[]QUESTION: If I could start off with OPEC, President Biden has said all options are on the table after the OPEC’s decision. Does this include arms exports to Saudi Arabia?
MR PATEL: Sorry, could you repeat that last part of your question?
QUESTION: Does “all options on the table” include arms exports to Saudi Arabia, cutting those off?
MR PATEL: So I would take a little bit of a step back here and reiterate what our colleagues from the White House and elsewhere have been saying as well, which is that this decision to cut production quotas is short-sighted, especially given what’s going – what’s ongoing with the global economy at the time dealing with the continued negative impact of the conflict in Russia.
Obviously, if there’s a price increase as a result of OPEC’s decision, it will particularly hit low- and middle-income countries. And yesterday’s announcement is a reminder of why it’s so critical that the U.S. reduces its dependence and reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuel, and with the Inflation Reduction Act we are making a historic investment here at home to accelerate clean energy – the clean energy transition as well.
QUESTION: Can you say any more about what options the U.S. is going to look at to respond to this decision?
MR PATEL: I’m not going to preview any specific options here. As you’ve heard many from across the interagency say, there is – continue to be a number of tools in the President and the administration’s tool belt. Of course, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve release, which the statement from NEC Director Brian Deese and NSC Director Jake Sullivan yesterday alluded to. Also there continue to be a number of options on the table.
QUESTION: And just a technical question. Is MBS welcome in the United States?
MR PATEL: For – what do you mean?
QUESTION: Is MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, welcome in the U.S.? Like, is he able to travel to the United States if he wants to?
MR PATEL: I’m – visa records are confidential, so I don’t have anything to offer on that specifically. But – so I don’t have anything else to offer on that right now.
QUESTION: Can you – sorry, just on the response, you’ve seen calls from some members of Congress for a pretty dramatic slashing of U.S. cooperation with the Saudis in response to this. I’m sorry, did you address part that I —
MR PATEL: No, no, no.
QUESTION: Okay. In terms of withdrawing all U.S. security forces and personnel and equipment from Saudi Arabia.
MR PATEL: Yeah. Thanks, Matt.
QUESTION: Is that – are those suggestions good ones? Do you –
MR PATEL: So we have no plans to do that at the moment. As you saw –
QUESTION: No plans to do what? Sorry.
MR PATEL: To withdraw arms or the – as you so indicated in your question. What I reiterate – and you saw Secretary Blinken speak to this on his travels – is that we have a multiplicity of interests with regards to Saudi Arabia. The President and the Secretary laid those out quite clear during their travels over the summer, and these priorities include everything from regional relationships, from improving relations between Arab countries and Israel, Saudi Arabia’s role in Yemen, where we’re working with them very closely to try and continue the truce, and a number of other issues that were reflected during the President and the Secretary’s travels over the summer. And we’re working every single day to the best of our ability to ensure that energy supply from across the world meets the demand signals that we’re seeing across the market right now.
QUESTION: So this idea is a non-starter from the administration’s position?
MR PATEL: I simply – we have no plans to take such actions. If you’re speaking to specific legislation, I’m not going to get ahead of Congress or legislation that is still pending. But in response to whether we intend to take such actions, I have nothing to read out on that right now.
QUESTION: Just a brief follow-up.
MR PATEL: Sure, Said.
QUESTION: Have there been any high-level conversation with the Saudis, between American – high-level Americans and Saudi officials in the last 24 to 48 hours on this issue?
MR PATEL: I have no – I have no specific —
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR PATEL: Sure, sure. I have no specific meetings to read out. But obviously Saudi Arabia is an important regional partner, as I said, over the course of a multiplicity of issues. And so we are in touch with them on a number of range of factors at regular intervals. But I don’t have any specific meetings to read out.
Anything else on this topic before we move away?
QUESTION: Just one last one.
MR PATEL: Sure.
QUESTION: Yeah. I mean, can you just address the – I think the gist of the criticism coming from the Hill is that the United States and Saudi Arabia have always had this relationship whereby the U.S. provides security guarantees, and the Saudis provide the oil. And a lot of the critics are saying that this was a sort of betrayal of that. And what would be your response to those criticisms?
MR PATEL: Well, I would say that that is a very black-and-white description and not indicative of the totality of our bilateral relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As I said when answering Matt and Daphne’s question, we have a multiplicity of interests with regard to Saudi Arabia.
Of course, a piece of those is an energy relationship, but there is also a security relationship, and we talked about a lot of these issues over the President and the Secretary’s travels over the summer. And like I said, there is a regional security component; there is the aspect of improving relations between Arab countries and Israel. Saudi Arabia plays an important role in Yemen, where we’re continuing to work with them to extend the truce. So we have a multiplicity of interests as it relates to Saudi Arabia.
Nike?
[]QUESTION: Yeah. Can we switch to North Korea?
MR PATEL: Sure.
QUESTION: On Tuesday, you said the U.S. was assessing the specific nature of North Korea’s recent ballistic missiles launch. Is there a conclusion from that already? And then do you have more to share with us on U.S. actions? And are sanctions working to deter North Korea from more ballistic missiles launches? Thank you.
MR PATEL: Sure, Nike. So again, we are still assessing the specific nature of the most recent launch, which I will reiterate posed an unacceptable threat to the region. And to take a step back, we, again, condemn the DPRK’s October 5th ballistic missile launch. This launch, along with the multiple other launches over the course of this week and in September, are a very clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and pose a direct threat to the DPRK’s neighbors and the international community.
In terms of specific actions, I don’t have actions to preview for you, but I will note that the U.S. has responded to these. I will let my colleagues at the Pentagon speak to these in more detail, but we almost immediately took part in military exercises with our allies in Korea and our allies in Japan. The USS Ronald Reagan is in the region for this exact reason. And of course, we continue to have a number of tools in our toolbelt – sanctions, other things – to continue to hold the regime accountable. But I don’t have any specific actions to preview, but the United States is monitoring and watching closely and ready to take additional action as well.
QUESTION: Okay. But one of the – one of the —
QUESTION: Pick up on North Korea?
MR PATEL: One second.
QUESTION: One of the problems with North Korea has been that they – you – that – now with North Korea is that in the past you have managed to get an international consensus. You mentioned the Security Council resolutions that they’re in violation of; all those were past.
But yesterday, we saw a situation where the Russians and the Chinese blocked any kind of meaningful action. Are you at all hindered in trying to get the North Koreans back to the negotiating table by the position that the Russians and the Chinese are taking, or do you think that you can – actions that you take on your own or in concert with your – with allies can be enough to do it?
MR PATEL: Well, first, to echo our UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on Russia and China’s actions during the Security Council meeting yesterday, that was obviously deeply disappointing. And we saw the very loose use of rhetoric that the DPRK’s actions were provoked or something to that effect. That obviously and certainly is not the case.
But, look, Matt, to take a little bit of a bigger step back, our goal here still remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and dialogue with the DPRK without preconditions continues to be, in our viewpoint, a piece to that puzzle, and so we’re going to continue to pursue those things. However, we also are going to continue to hold the DPRK accountable through actions at our multilateral institutions and other actions otherwise. I don’t have anything to preview, but again, we have been reacting and we’ve been taking action to this directly.
Kylie.
QUESTION: I’m wondering if the administration expects that North Korea will carry out a nuclear test before the end of the year because administration officials were very clear in saying it was possible that they could be preparing for one when the President was in Asia earlier this year. They didn’t actually carry out a nuclear test. Do you think it’ll happen before the end of the year?
MR PATEL: Like I said, I – we’re still assessing the specific nature, and I don’t have a new or different assessment to provide from here. But I think the bigger thing is that we, again, condemn these very destabilizing and unsafe actions that we’re seeing come from the DPRK over the course of this week.
QUESTION: And just one more question.
MR PATEL: Sure.
QUESTION: Do you think that this incredibly high number of missile tests this year could be a tactic by North Korea to try and get you guys to pay attention and actually engage in talks?
MR PATEL: Well, we have continually at almost every interval in which this question has come to Ned or myself or others from the State Department – even non?spokespeople – we’ve been quite clear that we continue to affirm that dialogue with the DPRK without preconditions continues to be a tenet of our approach when it comes to the denuclearization of the peninsula. So the offer is out there.
Anything else on the region before we move away?
QUESTION: A follow-up on that?
MR PATEL: Abby, go ahead.
QUESTION: Given the escalation, obviously, and what’s been in happening in recent weeks, is there any consideration of re-evaluating the policy, the strategy that you have been undertaking and perhaps looking at a higher-level – offering a higher-level meeting that – perhaps that had taken place in the past administration?
MR PATEL: I don’t have any meetings or any kind of engagement like that to preview, but I will – to the top of your question, our position on diplomacy and dialogue as it relates to our goal of the complete denuclearization of the peninsula has not changed, and that continues to be very much on the table.
Anything else on the region before we move away?
[]QUESTION: Yeah. So on meetings – speaking of meetings, reports from South Korea is saying that the U.S., Japan, and South Korea have agreed to have a trilateral meeting in Tokyo this month. Would Deputy Secretary Sherman attend the trilateral meeting?
MR PATEL: Thanks, Nike. I don’t have any meetings or any trilateral engagement specifically to announce, but as I noted earlier in this week, senior officials from not just this building but across the interagency have been in close touch with their counterparts, not just in – within the Republic of Korea, but Japan as well. And our defense and our commitment to them is ironclad, but I don’t have any potential other meetings to read out.
Shannon, you had your hat up – hand up for a while.
QUESTION: Yes.
MR PATEL: Go ahead.
QUESTION: I have two questions. First on North Korea, that repeated offer for open engagement, I was wondering, just point of clarity, can you say that the course of this administration – have you ever received any feedback from Pyongyang directly, any communication?
And second, the CIA reportedly began distributing compensation to victims of Havana Syndrome in August. We know the State Department is engaged in a similar program. Do you have any updates on that rollout?
MR PATEL: Sure. Let me take your first question first. So again, I’m not going to read out specific diplomatic engagements or a specific back and forth, but at every interval, we’ve made clear that dialogue without preconditions continues to be our belief and, frankly, our priority. And we have a number of officials working directly with our allies and partners in the region to continue to work towards that goal.
[] And then on your second question, I do have an update for you. Just give me one second. So I am pleased to report that as of September 30th, the department has approved the first tranche of requests for payment in accordance to the HAVANA Act. We are reviewing other requests, and we’ll continue to do so as they are received. We are processing those payments and processing those things as expeditiously as possible, but I don’t have any other specifics to offer on that right now.