Syria: Daily Press Briefing – August 30, 2011 | Making Editore Blog Main

Daily Press Briefings : Daily Press Briefing – August 30, 2011 | Making Editore Blog Main


clip from article:

MS. NULAND: The Syrian Government knows where we stand. The Syrian foreign minister and Ambassador Ford have met in the past. We continue to be willing to meet with him, but we are not willing to facilitate his travel or other – to the United States or other international activities, and we want to make clear that we are holding him and these other two personally responsible for propagating and advancing the regime’s violence and that that has not changed.

QUESTION: So this designation does not preclude meetings between Mualem – between Ambassador Ford and the foreign minister?

MS. NULAND: I don’t think so because that’s within the scope of our diplomatic activity. But let me just take the question because I don’t –

QUESTION: On a scale of one to ten, what do you think the chances are that Foreign Minister Mualem would now be willing to meet with Ambassador Ford?

MS. NULAND: If he wants to have a clear understanding of the U.S. view, including why we sanctioned him personally today –

QUESTION: Have frozen his assets and –

MS. NULAND: — Ambassador Ford is available there –

QUESTION: Okay.

MS. NULAND: — to explain it.

QUESTION: On this point –

QUESTION: When was the last time they met or spoke, Ambassador Ford and –

MS. NULAND: They met a week ago – two weeks ago Thursday, something like that. I don’t know if they’ve spoken since.

QUESTION: Did –

QUESTION: Hold on. If Mualem wants to represent his country –

QUESTION: Are you –

QUESTION: — (inaudible) at the General Assembly in a month, does this now preclude it? I mean, we do have treaty obligations, but now here’s a different situation with this – him as an individual.

MS. NULAND: My understanding, but we’re going to just confirm for you, is that under our obligations as UN host, it would not preclude him from going to the UN in the same way that Iranian head Ahmadinejad is not precluded from going to the UN.

QUESTION: Can I ask you a follow-up on Ambassador Ford?

MS. NULAND: Yes.

QUESTION: Are you concerned at all about his safety? There’s been some reporting that he’s been harassed and ridiculed on Syrian television. Are you concerned at all about that?

MS. NULAND: I think you’re referring to this YouTube video that’s going around. Just to clarify that incident for all of you, Ambassador Ford was invited by some lawyers who were having a sit-in at the Syrian bar association to come and witness their protest. Ambassador Ford was not the only member of the international diplomatic community invited to do that. Some of the EU ambassadors were also invited and attended. Ambassador Ford went, he stood quietly outside, he was not involved in any disruptive activity, but some pro-government thugs came and tried to interrupt his bearing of witness and then put it on YouTube as a cynical effort to portray him as an agiteur, when in fact, they should have been paying attention to their own lawyers protesting peacefully at the bar association. We continue to believe that he is doing very, very important work there, and the fact that he was asked by the Syrian opposition to come and bear witness to their peaceful protest speaks to his influence and the importance to the opposition of having outside support. I think this effort to put it up on YouTube is going to backfire, because it just allows more public understanding of what the lawyers were trying to say to their own government.

QUESTION: Just to follow up on that point – [ read more at link ]