QUESTION: Finally. Thank you. So tomorrow in Brussels, on the EU-led dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo – so if you can tell me specifically, what is the U.S. expectations in terms of the outcome for tomorrow’s meeting? And on the scale from zero to ten, where would you situate the priority Kosovo-Serbia crisis is for United States?
MR PRICE: I will turn to your questions in just a moment, but first, as you heard from Secretary Blinken earlier today, the Department of State is pleased to announce the new Colin Powell Leadership Program to advance the department’s commitment to hire a workforce representative of all segments of society and in support of the Secretary’s modernization agenda. Secretary Powell understood that diversity is, quote, “a source of strength. It is a source of our success.” And he exemplified his leadership values both as a general and as secretary of state by putting people first. The Colin Powell Leadership Program recruits highly motivated candidates from a variety of backgrounds who aspire to and possess the potential to become future Civil Service leaders here at Department of State. This program will provide paid fellowships to recent college graduates and paid internships to students who are enrolled at accredited institutions of higher learning.
MR PRICE: Well, we are still working to do what we can to facilitate what we hope to see, and that is a comprehensive long-term peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan. You know that Secretary Blinken recently had an opportunity to engage with the leaders of these countries. We did so, registering our deep concern about the recent fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, including the casualties and the loss of life that had resulted from that. We urged immediate steps to reduce tensions and to avoid further escalations between the parties. And the recent increase in tensions underscores, we believe, the need for a negotiated, comprehensive, and sustainable settlement of all remaining issues related to or resulting from the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. So while we’ve seen an intensification of tensions resulting in some violence, we are going to remain committed to working with the parties. We will continue to do so bilaterally, but also with likeminded partners in the EU and through our role as an OSCE Minsk co-chair to help the countries find that long-term comprehensive peace.
I can assure you that we continue to develop and to refine targets. We will continue to use appropriate authorities to pursue those who fall within the legal parameters of our sanctions authorities. Our partners are continuing to do the same, and together, we’re continuing to harmonize, harmonizing our sanctions with those of our European and other partners to ensure that we can exact maximum effectiveness.
QUESTION: On that, there are concerns on the Hill that we don’t have an ambassador right now to Belarus with your recent departure of Ambassador Fisher. The question is yesterday marked three years from the Minsk process. Are you in touch with the opposition, or who is the highest-ranked U.S. diplomat right now and where is he or she right now?
QUESTION: — Western Balkans?
MR PRICE: I don’t; not one that I can provide publicly, at least. But again, we have been in communication with the EU, we’ve been in communication with other European allies on the way ahead.
1:38 p.m. EDT
QUESTION: Well, so does that – is the long and short of it is that you don’t believe them when they say they don’t have any idea and can’t help?
QUESTION: Any updates on the talks that the Turkish delegation has been making in D.C. regarding the F-16 deal?
QUESTION: Can we go to Iran?
QUESTION: And I can’t say that I’m surprised that you declined the invitation to become the first spokesman to admit from the podium that a U.S. policy has been a failure. But that said, as it relates to India, his question about failure in your approach – but your point has been, since the invasion of Ukraine, that it can’t be business as usual with the Russians regardless of whether any of these countries have longstanding, decades-long strategic, military, economic ties with Russia and previously the Soviet Union. So isn’t this business as usual? Isn’t this not – I mean, India, after all, is a major non-NATO ally of the U.S. It’s part of the Quad. It’s a country that you guys are building a huge – trying to build the Indo-Pacific Strategy around, or one of the three others.
MR PRICE: It has been 10 years, so I would be hesitant to speak categorically about the arc of those 10 years and precisely what the Syrian regime has or has not said over the course of those 10 years. What I can say is that in our private discussions over the course – going back now years – the Syrian regime has never acknowledged holding Austin Tice. Whether this is the first time that they have made that point publicly, I couldn’t say.
MR PRICE: Good afternoon.
QUESTION: Another – but can you respond to the point about the escalations with – because, I mean, since the start of this you have – I mean, what you considered providing Ukraine and what you deemed too escalatory has changed. So can you speak to that point about the World War Three? I mean, like maybe this is not your position anymore, but I don’t know.
QUESTION: Any comment on UN gen-sec’s meeting tomorrow with President Zelenskyy and Erdoğan? I didn’t want to ask about it, but since this previous question was asked.
MR PRICE: Sticking on Iran? Sure. On Iran still?
Yes, Simon.
MR PRICE: I expect it is the sort of thing that we would raise, but I am not aware of – I just don’t have any conversations yesterday to read out.
QUESTION: Have you guys responded yet to the EU after reviewing Iran’s responses to their proposition?
We understand that Congress needs to be a partner in this endeavor as well. That is why we have routinely updated our members and their staffs on the Hill regarding the status of discussions, whether those have been in Vienna, whether those have been in Doha, whether those have been remote. We will continue to do that knowing that our foreign policy is ultimately going to be much more effective if it is conducted with the full support of Congress.
Yes, Alex.
QUESTION: The exact – the exact same thing that you’ve been telling countries not to.
QUESTION: You know this is just – you guys – you said it is “not for me to speak to another country’s foreign policy.” You do that every day.
MR PRICE: So it’s our understanding that the meeting will take place tomorrow. Of course, there are a number of important issues that Secretary General Guterres, that President Zelenskyy, President Erdoğan can be in a position to discuss. The fact that the meeting will take place where it is suggests that there will be a heavy focus on food security and the efforts that Turkey has undertaken to facilitate the free flow – or the freer flow – of grain out of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.
QUESTION: On North Korea, North Korea fired two cruise missiles already this morning, as you maybe know already, despite the South Korea proposal. How can you analyze this because North Korea already proposal to denuclearize (inaudible)?
MR PRICE: We will. We will continue to maintain those sanctions until and unless the underlying conduct, the underlying activity changes and North Korea alters its fundamental approach. As I said just the other day – earlier this week, I think – we strongly support what we have heard from President Yoon. We support the ROK’s aim to open a path for serious and sustained diplomacy with North Korea. It is not only our goal, it is our shared and collective goal to see the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and we are committed to working very closely with President Yoon, with his team, with our allies in the ROK, with our allies in Japan, trilaterally together with our Japanese and South Korean allies, but also with our broader set of allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
MR PRICE: Everything we have provided our Ukrainian partners has been in the name of one principle, and that’s self-defense, because what our Ukrainian partners are facing is an external aggressor, a country – a foreign country crossing over sovereign Ukrainian borders onto independent, sovereign Ukrainian territory as part of an effort to wrest an independent country away from the Ukrainian Government and ultimately the Ukrainian people.
At the same time, we also recognize that there are countries around the world that have longstanding relationships, including security relationships, with countries like Russia, for example, and reorienting a country’s foreign policy or a country’s security establishment or defense procurement practices away from a country like Russia is not something that we can do overnight. It’s not something that we can do over the course of weeks or even months. We do see this as a long-term challenge.
MR PRICE: I’m sorry, whose tweets?
So we will continue to do both those things in furtherance of that broader goal of the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
QUESTION: That’s why you get up here every day, to speak to other countries’ foreign policy.
QUESTION: Thanks so much, Ned. I have a couple questions, but let me start with Vostok 2022 just to stay on this line. One of the countries that will be part of the military exercises is Belarus, whose territory is in part being used to attack Ukraine. Does that change your approach in terms of how to view those – these drills? And any message you want to send to Belarus in that context?
MR PRICE: Ian.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
MR PRICE: Belarus’s participation in these exercises doesn’t fundamentally change our approach. What has fundamentally contoured our approach is the fact that the Lukashenka regime has opened Belarus’s doors. The regime has set aside what should be Belarus’s own sovereignty and independence and, in a way, its territorial integrity by permitting Russia’s forces onto, again, what should be sovereign Belarusian soil to launch a brutal, premeditated, unjustified attack against its neighbor to the south. That is, in addition to the human rights abuses, in addition to the Lukashenka regime’s clinging onto power following the fraudulent elections, in addition to its persecution of political prisoners, in addition to what it is doing to seek to trample on the civil rights and civil liberties of the Belarusian people – that is what alters our fundamental view of this regime.
QUESTION: Thank you so much. On Armenia-Azerbaijan – different region. The Secretary was involved in, well, very active Karabakh diplomacy while he was traveling. And I also remember a couple weeks ago behind this podium, you mentioned – you were talking about historic opportunities. I’m just wondering what was driving your optimism back then because it was followed by ceasefire violations and we just got (inaudible). And how much of your optimism is still there given the recent developments in the region?
Yes.
Simon.
QUESTION: They’ve increased their imports of Russian oil. They’ve increased their imports of Russian fertilizers. They’re doing this military exercise. They’re about to buy – do what the Turks did kind of and buy – potentially buy the Russian air defense systems. Is – how is that not business as usual?
MR PRICE: My understanding is that the Department of Defense have spoken to this, as they’ve noted that – the Department of Defense in coordination with other U.S. Government departments and agencies, and that includes the Department of State – but the Department of Defense continues to take steps to respond to the August 29th, 2021 airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, to protect the privacy of the family members, as well as to help protect their safety and security. The Department of Defense has noted that they’re not able to provide additional details at this time.
At every step of this conflict, our security assistance has been tailored to the battle that was facing our partners in Kyiv at the time. In the earliest days, we provided our Ukrainian partners with anti-armor, anti-tank, anti-personnel in an effort to forestall and to help the Ukrainians be successful in the battle for Kyiv, and ultimately, they were. The battle has since moved to the south. It has since moved to the east. And so too our security assistance has been tailored for precisely that battle to provide our Ukrainian partners with what they need to defend themselves against Russian aggression in these regions, to halt the Russian offensives as they have been able to do, and ultimately to defend their territory against an invading force.
It is the difference between a profoundly liberal order and a profoundly illiberal order in which all of the principles that the United States, that our allies, that our partners, that the United Nations, and that, by the way, countries like Russia and China, have previously stood for and in some cases still profess to stand for – it is a vision that is profoundly opposed to many of those principles.
Thank you.
So that has – that for us is the guiding principle here. It’s the national security concerns, it is the security concerns that our partners have expressed as well. The specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon would not pose a threat only to the United States, but to allies and partners around the world. And that’s why from the start we’ve been sincere and steadfast in seeking to effect a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA.
QUESTION: Yeah, have you put any offer on the table to Iran for a prisoner swap?
QUESTION: Navalny – Aleksey Navalny’s —
QUESTION: Ned, any —
MR PRICE: Yes.
A final question.
QUESTION: But do you still see the same level of historic opportunities you were seeing three weeks ago? How much it has faded away?
QUESTION: Okay.
MR PRICE: DAS Escobar.
QUESTION: Hello.
MR PRICE: I don’t have those details just yet, but we will keep you posted on that.
QUESTION: And it’s just a follow-up question because it’s really relevant and, I would say, newsworthy. Today at NATO joint press conference between President Vučić and the general secretary, President Vučić said that he does not welcome a Russian military base in Serbia or anywhere in the Western Balkans. Do you welcome that response? And do you think it’s a step forward into being – building a strong relationship between Serbia and United States?
MR PRICE: Kylie, we look at this through the lens not of politics but of national security. And we are confident that a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA remains the best and really the most effective means by which to once again verifiably and permanently constrain Iran’s nuclear program. The fact is that in the years in which we have not had a JCPOA, since May of 2018, Iran’s nuclear program has galloped forward in a way that is deeply concerning and alarming given where we were when the JCPOA was in full effect in terms of Iran’s breakout time, to where we are now with a breakout time that can be measured not in a year, not in months, but in weeks or potentially even less.
QUESTION: Yeah, some other military exercises involving China. The Russian exercises in the east the Chinese are sending troops to. I wonder if that, the fact that Chinese troops are going to Russia to take part in joint military exercises, does that represent that – the warnings that you were giving a few months ago to China not to militarily support the Russians in the war in Ukraine? Does this sort of change your thinking in the way that the Chinese have responded to that? And is it still the case that you think the Chinese haven’t offered military support for the war in Ukraine?
MR PRICE: If you – across the wider perspective, we have worked very closely with our Indian partners bilaterally, through the Quad as well, to signal, and the Indians have done so very clearly, the – what should be the inviolable principle of state sovereignty. We’ve —
QUESTION: Okay, thank you. And then in Afghanistan an aid worker, Zemari Ahmadi, along with family members of his and colleagues were killed in the final U.S. airstrike before American troops withdrew in late August last year. Is the State Department still working to get other members of his family as well as aid worker colleagues out of Afghanistan? We’ve been told that there are 32 family members and colleagues who are still in Afghanistan.
QUESTION: There’s a report from Russia that Ambassador Antonov is planning to visit the State Department tomorrow to discuss visas for Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Russian delegation for general assemblies. Are there any plans to – for anyone to meet with him, and will you be issuing those visas? Are there any issue around issuing them?
QUESTION: Well, and I am sorry for harping on this, but – and I know it’s sensitive – but I mean, does that mean that you still – you think – I mean, when you say the President said in his statement that you knew – know with certainty that at least one point the Syrian Government had custody of him, can you say that with certainty now?
QUESTION: Is there any serious dialogue now to release them? Is there any step that we should wait for?
QUESTION: No, go ahead.
MR PRICE: Okay, let’s – let’s —
QUESTION: I’m wondering if you had any response to the Chinese ambassador’s comments yesterday about congressional visits to Taiwan being inappropriate and warning of a Chinese response if the U.S. Navy sailed into the Taiwan Strait.
Yes, last question. A couple final questions.
Now, the broader point is that we have seen a burgeoning relationship, including in the security realm, between the PRC and Russia. We’ve seen a burgeoning relationship between Russia and Iran, for example, and we have made public elements of that. That is of concern because of the vision that the PRC, countries like the PRC, countries like Russia, have for the international order. It is a vision that is starkly at odds to the liberal vision that we and our allies and partners have for the international system. It is starkly at odds with the underpinnings of the international system that have been in place for some eight decades following the end of the Second World War, a system that has undergirded unprecedented levels of stability, of security, of prosperity across the world. That includes in Europe; that includes in the Indo-Pacific, and everywhere in between.
(The briefing was concluded at 2:34 p.m.)
MR PRICE: It’s always difficult, especially from the podium, to divine or attempt to assess the motivations of any particular action. I think looking over the longer arc, especially in recent years, where the DPRK’s provocations, including its launches of ballistic missiles, including ICBMs and ICBM technology – those are clear provocations. They are a clear threat to peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and potentially beyond, and that is really at the crux of our determination to continue working closely with our treaty allies and with other allies and partners throughout the Indo-Pacific and well beyond.
Both of these new initiatives represent our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility here at the department. As the Secretary said earlier today, we’ll keep working together in the decades to come to make sure our department is a place that reflects our values, looks like America, and is equipped to do the best possible work on behalf of America.
QUESTION: Thank you. So today almost 20 former diplomats, including your colleagues and generals, published in the op-ed in The Hill calling for more and quicker military aid for Ukraine, including longer-range weapons, and suggesting that the current level of support only allows for a stalemate on the battlefield. They also take exception to the administration’s reasoning that providing longer-range weapons might lead to World War Three as Jake Sullivan said. So how do you respond to that? And also, could you explain the logic about how those weapons could lead to World War Three?
To the second part of your question, far from, I think, giving Saudi Arabia license to act with greater impunity, our engagement, including the senior-level engagement that we’ve had with Saudi authorities – and this includes with President Biden, Biden’s recent visit to the kingdom – has made clear to our Gulf partners in the context of the GCC, but also to the Saudis in the context of our bilateral discussions, the fact that human rights is central to our agenda. It is always on our agenda. And it is always high on our agenda.
To the second part of your question, far from, I think, giving Saudi Arabia license to act with greater impunity, our engagement, including the senior-level engagement that we’ve had with Saudi authorities – and this includes with President Biden, Biden’s recent visit to the kingdom – has made clear to our Gulf partners in the context of the GCC, but also to the Saudis in the context of our bilateral discussions, the fact that human rights is central to our agenda. It is always on our agenda. And it is always high on our agenda.
To the second part of your question, far from, I think, giving Saudi Arabia license to act with greater impunity, our engagement, including the senior-level engagement that we’ve had with Saudi authorities – and this includes with President Biden, Biden’s recent visit to the kingdom – has made clear to our Gulf partners in the context of the GCC, but also to the Saudis in the context of our bilateral discussions, the fact that human rights is central to our agenda. It is always on our agenda. And it is always high on our agenda.
To the second part of your question, far from, I think, giving Saudi Arabia license to act with greater impunity, our engagement, including the senior-level engagement that we’ve had with Saudi authorities – and this includes with President Biden, Biden’s recent visit to the kingdom – has made clear to our Gulf partners in the context of the GCC, but also to the Saudis in the context of our bilateral discussions, the fact that human rights is central to our agenda. It is always on our agenda. And it is always high on our agenda.
To the second part of your question, far from, I think, giving Saudi Arabia license to act with greater impunity, our engagement, including the senior-level engagement that we’ve had with Saudi authorities – and this includes with President Biden, Biden’s recent visit to the kingdom – has made clear to our Gulf partners in the context of the GCC, but also to the Saudis in the context of our bilateral discussions, the fact that human rights is central to our agenda. It is always on our agenda. And it is always high on our agenda.
To the second part of your question, far from, I think, giving Saudi Arabia license to act with greater impunity, our engagement, including the senior-level engagement that we’ve had with Saudi authorities – and this includes with President Biden, Biden’s recent visit to the kingdom – has made clear to our Gulf partners in the context of the GCC, but also to the Saudis in the context of our bilateral discussions, the fact that human rights is central to our agenda. It is always on our agenda. And it is always high on our agenda.
MR PRICE: We are not taking sides. We are prepared to work with the government that puts Iraqi sovereignty and the best interests of the Iraqi people at the heart of its agenda. We hope to see a government form that does just that and a government that is able to deliver for the best interests of the Iraqi people.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
