MR PRICE: Our focus right now is on a reauthorization of the border crossing. I wouldn’t want to get into contingency planning.
The same, of course, could be said of what has happened in Nicaragua, where we’ve seen an increasingly constricted space for civil society, and of course, Venezuela under the Maduro regime, a regime that we don’t recognize and we continue, of course, to recognize the leadership of interim President Juan Guaidó.
We, again, recognize and respect the position of our allies in supporting – in support of inclusive dialogue. We also note, as I have, that non-governmental representatives will be in attendance from Cuba, from Venezuela, and from Nicaragua. Participants from those three countries have registered to take part in stakeholder events.
When it comes to the participation and the issues that have been at the fore, I think it is unfortunately notable that one of the key elements of this summit is democratic governance. And these three countries are not exemplars, to put it mildly, of democratic governance. In recent days alone, the Cuban regime has tried two artists on charges that actually criminalize the freedom of speech and artistic expression in Cuba. Diplomats and the press were barred entry to their trials. We’re anxiously awaiting the verdicts.
Anything – yes.
QUESTION: Do you have estimation for when that dialogue will lead to movement of the grain?
QUESTION: Could we follow-up upon North Korea?
QUESTION: How —
QUESTION: How will – I’m sorry – how will U.S. and NATO ensure, like, these three countries are protected from the threats from Russia? Thank you.
QUESTION: Okay. So is it – so can I just drill down into that a little bit? Is it your – is the administration’s position that the JCPOA was, in fact, a nuclear jail?
QUESTION: Then Afghanistan.
MR PRICE: The special envoy routinely engages with members of the interagency. He works closely with leadership across the government. He in fact leads an interagency team. That team actually includes a senior military advisor. And so he went to CENTCOM to meet with the CENTCOM commander as part of that regular work.
MR PRICE: Yeah. All right. We have gone on for quite a while. I’ll take a quick —
QUESTION: So Sunday’s strikes on Kyiv. Ukraine demands new sanctions in response to Sunday’s strikes. It’s the first time in weeks. And also characterizes missile attack on Kyiv as an act of terrorism. Do you share that characterization? Was it an act of terrorism?
QUESTION: If I may, Ned, in the previous administration, before the last Turkish invasion into northeast Syria, the administration was calling on Turkey the same things that you’re calling Turkey, and that didn’t work, obviously. Are you optimistic that this time there will be anything different?
Thank you all very much.
MR PRICE: I don’t have a reaction other than the fact that I think it highlights the asymmetry between our countries. Of course, the United States is a banking center; it’s a financial center. It is a country where citizens from the world seek to travel to, where citizens from the world seek to educate themselves and their families. So of course there’s always going to be an inherent asymmetry between the steps that the Russian Federation puts forward and what we, together with our allies and partners, do in response to Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine.
MR PRICE: I can understand the interest you have in this, and we will have —
MR PRICE: I don’t – I can’t tell you why The Washington Post wrote that report.
QUESTION: Yeah, well, is there something that has happened new other than this just one report that has increased your concern?
QUESTION: Yeah, well, is there something that has happened new other than this just one report that has increased your concern?
MR PRICE: Sure.
MR PRICE: Yes.
MR PRICE: Yes.
And secondly, you mentioned Ambassador Sullivan’s interview. He was quoted today as saying Russia should not close its embassy in the U.S. I get the sentiment that when ambassador talked about that, this is two-way road. But I wonder how comfortable you are in terms of seeing Russian diplomats wandering around, feeling they are part of international community just as normal after everything they have done on Ukraine, just pick up from where they left off.
The time frame for potentially resuming – mutually resuming compliance with the JCPOA, again, isn’t based on a date on the wall. It is not based on a – whether it’s a week or a month from now. It is based on assessments that are ever evolving. These assessments are updated based on every piece of relevant information. And as long as a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA conveys nonproliferation benefits that the status quo does not, we will pursue a mutual return to compliance with the JCPOA.
MR PRICE: We will have more details on all of that as the week unfolds.
QUESTION: But this issue goes to UN Security Council resolutions. But if China and Russia will veto, so how are you going to be responsible for this again, repeated these issues all the time, China and Russia’s vetoes. How are you going to respond to this?
MR PRICE: We have a broad and deep relationship with Mexico. We will be able to explore and to delve into elements of that relationship with our Mexican neighbors this week in Los Angeles. We will have engagements with our Mexican neighbors in the coming days and weeks beyond that. So certainly there are diversity of opinions when it comes to who should be invited to the Summit of the Americas. The United States, as I mentioned before, as the convener of this particular summit has broad discretion. We have done our best to incorporate the viewpoints of the hemisphere. When it comes to our Mexican partners, we look forward to engaging with the foreign secretary.
MR PRICE: We have a broad and deep relationship with Mexico. We will be able to explore and to delve into elements of that relationship with our Mexican neighbors this week in Los Angeles. We will have engagements with our Mexican neighbors in the coming days and weeks beyond that. So certainly there are diversity of opinions when it comes to who should be invited to the Summit of the Americas. The United States, as I mentioned before, as the convener of this particular summit has broad discretion. We have done our best to incorporate the viewpoints of the hemisphere. When it comes to our Mexican partners, we look forward to engaging with the foreign secretary.
Now, of course we have worked closely, we have listened carefully, to other countries, to important stakeholders in the region. Many of our neighbors have voiced their opinions, their good faith opinions about what a Summit of the Americas should look like in terms of representation. We will continue to have an opportunity to discuss the issues that are at the heart of this summit with those partners, and we’ll have an opportunity to discuss the issues that are at the heart of the summit with civil society representatives, including the civil society representatives that will be in attendance, or at least that have registered, from these three countries – Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Now, of course we have worked closely, we have listened carefully, to other countries, to important stakeholders in the region. Many of our neighbors have voiced their opinions, their good faith opinions about what a Summit of the Americas should look like in terms of representation. We will continue to have an opportunity to discuss the issues that are at the heart of this summit with those partners, and we’ll have an opportunity to discuss the issues that are at the heart of the summit with civil society representatives, including the civil society representatives that will be in attendance, or at least that have registered, from these three countries – Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
QUESTION: Do you have anything on Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov decision to cancel a planned visit to Serbia after three countries – Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria – decided to close their air space to Lavrov’s airplane? Moscow has made a condemnation and also a senior Russian official even threatened to – these three countries with a missile strike.
QUESTION: I have one on Iran and one on Lebanon. What was the purpose of Special Envoy Malley’s visit last week to the Central Command in Florida?
QUESTION: Sorry, Ned. How many senior Russian Government officials are you aware of who have voiced their opposition and disagreement to their policy?
But I think what we’ve seen is that regardless of the steps that Russia attempts to take, their efforts to fully suppress, to fully clamp down on truthful information is going to be – those efforts are going to be futile. And we have already seen that. We have seen even senior Russian Government officials express and air their grievances, their profound disagreements, with the policy choices of the Kremlin, most notably the choice that the Kremlin has taken to wage a brutal war against Ukraine, to air those disagreements publicly. In the earliest days of this war of choice, this unjustified war, we saw thousands, tens of thousands of individuals across dozens of Russian cities peacefully take to the streets. Many of them were detained, many of them were arrested, for doing nothing more than, again, exercising what should be the universal right to freedom of assembly.
MR PRICE: Anything else on Russia-Ukraine? Kylie?
Next I’d like to briefly preview the upcoming 9th Summit of the Americas, which the United States is excited to host this week in Los Angeles, California. From June 6th through the 10th, under the theme “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future,” heads of state and government officials from throughout the Western Hemisphere will come together to discuss and advance solutions to our most pressing challenges, such as areas – spanning areas such as health and resilience, climate change, democracy, digital transformation, and equitable economic recovery.
MR PRICE: There’s been no change in our posture. As you know, we resumed embassy operations at Embassy Kyiv last month. Since then, our team at the embassy has continued to engage with Ukrainian officials, to engage with the Ukrainian people, including representatives of civil society as well.
MR PRICE: My understanding is that we found out the same way all of you did when your colleagues were summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and essentially read a riot act that was a litany of false equivalence.
Yes, sir.
MR PRICE: Yes. Let me move around. Yes, sir.
QUESTION: So how does the U.S. view Russia’s renewed bombing of Kyiv? Is this President Putin sending a message to the West about the arms that it’s sending to Ukraine to now, or the return to a broader military objective than the Donbas? And does the renewed bombing campaign of Kyiv change operations at Embassy Kyiv at all?
QUESTION: Just on the food crisis, can you just bring us up to date on efforts to get grain out of Ukraine? It’s been a few weeks now since Blinken made his plea to the UN for countries to get on board, so where are you guys at? Are there routes out of the country that have been identified and are up and running at this time?
2:18 p.m. EDT
QUESTION: — on the Summit of the Americas, and in terms of the Secretary’s schedule there.
We will have an opportunity to meet with Foreign Secretary Ebrard and to speak with him in the context of the summit, but Mexico – we are gratified to have a relationship with Mexico that is broad and deep, meaning that we have had and we will continue to have a number of occasions to engage with our Mexican neighbors, not only at this summit but in future engagements in the days and weeks ahead.
QUESTION: Do the attacks on Kyiv specifically – do they alter plans for operations at Embassy Kyiv, or none – there’s —
QUESTION: Do you mean that absent these most recent steps by Cuba, an invitation at some level could have been possible? Or were you sharing some more precise demands on something to do on democracy, et cetera?
Yes.
The Cambodian people, neighboring countries, ASEAN, and the region more broadly would benefit from more transparency. We’ve made a very similar point in terms of the Pacific and the Pacific Island nations. We have seen the PRC attempt to put forward a series of shadowy, opaque deals that they would like to see signed in the dead of night with no input or transparency, and even limited visibility on the part of the governments in question. So this has been a pattern on the part of the PRC.
And so the point is that even as Russia tries to put forward these false arguments, these lies to justify their – what is a clear and apparent effort to intimidate independent journalists, Russia will not be able to fully suppress the dissent even within their own system to this brutal war against Ukraine. There could be no means of doing that because we know that opposition to this conflict is so widespread even inside of Russia, where, unfortunately, the Russian people are fed a steady diet of lies and propaganda and disinformation. But even the Kremlin’s efforts to clamp down on the organs of information and even their efforts to intimate reporters have failed, and information continues to make its way through what is undoubtedly a very constricted information environment.
MR PRICE: I’m not in a position to provide any more detail on potential presidential travel. As you know, the White House has said that they are working on a visit to the Middle East. He has accepted an invitation from Prime Minister Bennett of Israel to travel to Israel in the coming weeks, and we may have more to say, or I should say the White House I expect will have more to say on that front at the appropriate time.
MR PRICE: Okay.
QUESTION: Is he going to be meeting some of these, I guess, civil society members from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela?
MR PRICE: Yes.
MR PRICE: It confined it. It put it in a box.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR PRICE: He has a full schedule. We released a statement this morning indicating some of the elements that he will take part in, in addition to the fact that he will be accompanying President Biden to many of his bilateral engagements and engagements with government leaders. The Secretary will indeed be taking part in engagements with civil society. Tomorrow evening, for example, he’ll be taking part in an event predicated on media freedom. This falls within the bucket of democratic governance and civil society with the region. There will be other opportunities for him to meet not only with civil society stakeholders, but stakeholders from the private sector in addition to his engagement with government counterparts.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
So we are having conversations, of course, with Ukraine in the first instance, but also with important allies and partners coming out of the Secretary’s engagements in New York last month, where he led the session at the UN Security Council, and also in the General Assembly. That was billed as a call to action. We feel that we were successful in bringing together much of the world to focus on this problem. The challenge is now clearly in sight, and we are working closely with countries in the region to help to facilitate the export of Ukraine’s grain and other foodstuffs. But we’re also working with countries who have been impacted by Russia’s blockading of the ports, Russia’s targeting of vessels containing wheat and other foodstuffs. We’ll continue to keep the focus on this.
QUESTION: The new sanctions —
I’ve previously made the point that we expect Turkey to live up to the commitments that it made in October of 2019, including the commitment to halt offensive operations in northeast Syria. Any new escalation beyond those existing ceasefire lines could prove to be especially costly setbacks – costly setbacks to our collective efforts to counter Daesh, the efforts of the counter-ISIS coalition, but also to our efforts to promote political stability within Syria.
QUESTION: Oh, okay. All right. Well, I just wanted to – because sometimes – remember we had “sanctions hygiene” that was – and I just want to make sure that I understand where you’re coming —
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: And just so – when you say we shouldn’t expect breakthroughs, so you don’t necessarily see this, like, meeting over there as, like, unlocking anything or, like, leading to results. You mean to say that this is still going to be a long haul; it’s going to take more than that.
