Department of State Daily Press Briefing 7/08/24

Good afternoon everyone.

Good afternoon.

Very sorry to be late. I don’t have anything to start with, so Matt.

Nothing at all?

Well, after being so late, I don’t want to delay your questions any further, so.

Oh, okay. So that means that you’ll promise us solid answers?

I’ll promise you responses.

Okay. Let me just start with Ukraine and NATO. So the Secretary is going to be meeting with Foreign Minister Kuleba tomorrow?

Correct.

Correct?

Correct.

President Zelensky is in town.

Will be.

Yeah. What can you tell us in terms of what the US is going to offer or what the US and others and NATO are going to offer?

So you will see a number of announcements come out of this summit. I won’t get too far ahead of them for obvious reasons, but you will see new military diplomatic and economic support announced for Ukraine.

(01:06)
You’ll see additional specificity about Ukraine’s bridge to NATO. You’ll see additional announcements around significant air defense capabilities that allies will be providing to Ukraine, and you’ll see us further talk about how we can better integrate Ukraine with NATO while helping Ukraine take steps to advance towards membership.

I’m just a little bit… I mean, I guess, maybe not confused, but I don’t really understand this bridge to NATO thing. This seems like it’s like a roadmap. We’ve all seen the roadmaps to various things go into complete dead ends, not end up anywhere. Why is this bridge… How do we know it’s not a bridge to nowhere?

So let me tell you exactly what it’s a bridge to. Right now, Ukraine is not in-

Well, I know what it’s supposed to do.

… Ukraine is not in NATO.

I know what it’s supposed to be a bridge to, but how-

Ukraine’s future is in NATO and there will be a bridge to get from here to today that will-

Well, how?

… include… Well, you’re going to have to wait to see the communique that comes out at the end of the week, I’m not going to get ahead of that. But it’ll include the steps that the alliance is prepared to take and that Ukraine needs to take as well to move along that bridge to full membership.

To move-

Along the bridge to membership.

So the bridge actually exists already, yet it’s not still under construction?

You can torture this metaphor many, many different ways, but, I mean-

You guys are the ones who came up with it.

I know. I try not to torture it. No, but I’m not trying to be cute. The point is, the idea of a bridge is to get them from where they are today, which is a country that has-

I know what the idea of a bridge is.

… received significant support from NATO to membership. And you’ll see further details about that announced during this summit, but I’m obviously not going to detail them here.

But in Bucharest, more than a decade ago, the idea was that they were going to get into NATO. So I don’t understand how is this bridge any different than the promises that have been made to them in the past.

So you’ll see specific steps outlined in the communique we expect about Ukraine’s path towards NATO. Now, it’s a little bit hard for me to answer the question here because I can’t tell you what those steps are going to be, what’s going to be contained in communique because I can’t get ahead of an announcement that’s coming later in the week. But you will see a significant new announcement and I’m happy to have the conversation in detail after we have made that announcement public .

Several times your colleague at the White House said that NATO is going to be in Ukraine’s future. He said that several times. It seemed to be kind of a talking point. So can I turn it around? Can you say this, is it equally the case that Ukraine will be part of… or that Ukraine is going to be in NATO’s future?

Yes. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

We’ve been quite clear that… I mean, you’ve heard the president say that Ukraine will be in NATO.

Well, I was just wondering about that specific wording.

Yeah. Sean.

Sure. To follow up on a couple of things on Ukraine. I know Kirby was asked about this a little bit, but more indirectly. The attack today or the explosion at the hospital, the children’s hospital, could you say anything about that?

(04:32)
I believe Zelensky has declared a day of mourning. The Russians are saying that they think that it was Ukrainian air defense systems. Are you sure that this was a Russian attack? And also, do you have any comment on that?

Yes, we are sure it was a Russian attack. We’ve seen Russia unleash another savage missile attack, hitting civilians in Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine. We are seeing reports that at least 23 civilians were killed in Ukraine in these missiles attacks. Just to be clear, these are sites that serve no military purpose. They’re not sheltering Ukrainian military assets. They’re not sheltering members of the Ukrainian military. These are civilian infrastructure, pure and simple that cannot, should not, must not be targets of military attacks. But once again, we’ve seen Putin deliberately attacking civilian infrastructure as part of his bloody war against Ukraine.

And so you think it’s… I guess, you can’t get in his head, but you think it’s deliberate? It wasn’t a mistake, a target?

So, it’s hard to say with any one particular strike. But when you look at the history of Russia continuously targeting civilian infrastructure that bears no legitimate military purpose, then it’s hard to conclude it’s anything but deliberate. This isn’t just one strike.

(05:47)
There is a pattern of strikes, as I said, where there are no Ukrainian forces, there are no Ukrainian military assets, and yet you see the Russian military continue to strike them time after time.

Could I follow up on Ukraine and some of the diplomacy?

Yeah.

The Hungarian prime minister was recently in Kyiv, and Moscow, and Beijing. Do you find anything productive about this? What’s your take on it?

No, not at all. We find it concerning, in fact. Look, before he traveled to Russia, you did see the Hungarian prime minister travel to Ukraine. We thought that was an important thing for him to do.

(06:22)
We thought that was a productive step and we would welcome, of course, actual diplomacy with Russia to make it clear to Russia that they need to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, that they need to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity. But that is not at all what this visit appears to have been.

Could I follow up on one more? There’s another visit in Moscow today, Prime Minister Modi of India. Obviously, India has a longstanding relationship with Russia. What do you think of the timing of this right before the NATO summit and in light of what’s going on?

Yeah. So again, we did just see Modi, like Orbán meet with President Zelensky. We thought that was an important step to take and we would urge India as we do any country when it engages with Russia to make clear that any resolution to the conflict in Ukraine needs to be one that respects the UN Charter, that respects Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Ukraine’s sovereignty. And India is a strategic partner with whom we engage in a full and frank dialogue. And that includes, on our concerns, about the relationship with Russia.

Was-

I don’t understand your answer to the Orbán question. I mean, it’s okay and it’s good and productive for him to go to see Zelensky in Kyiv, but it’s concerning and bad that he goes to Putin?

Because what I-

And is only the timing?

No.

Because there are plenty of people who have been going-

If you listen to the answer, to my full answer, it’s we welcome people engaging with Russia about the war in Ukraine if they make clear to Russia that Russia needs to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

(08:03)
And that goes to the fact that there is a difference between Ukraine and Russia, and there’s a difference between engaging with Ukraine and Russia because one side is the aggressor and one side’s the victim. So of course we look at their engagement with those two countries differently.

Well… Yeah, but okay. So do you know for sure that he didn’t make those things clear?

We have seen no indication that that is… including his public statements that is what making-

And you think that Prime Minister Modi made clear to President Putin?

As I just said, we-

Do you think that President Erdogan has made clear to-

So I will look to Prime Minister Modi’s public remarks to see what he talked about. But as I said, we made quite clear, directly with India, our concerns about their relationship with Russia.

(08:43)
And so we would hope India and any other country when they engage with Russia would make clear that Russia should respect the UN Charter, should respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

And what’s the problem with Orbán going to CG?

I wasn’t asked about that. I was asked about… I was asked about-

You were asked about that.

No.

And you said it was a concern.

I missed that part of the question.

No? Wasn’t that part of your question?

Yeah, I was asking-

I totally missed the Xi part. I was talking about-

So you don’t have a problem with him meeting Xi?

I don’t have any comment. We understand that countries engaged with China. We, as you know, Secretary Blinken has traveled to China twice now to President Xi.

Just a follow-up very quickly-

Yeah.

… on the Modi part of that. You said that the US has dialogue within India about concerns about the relationship with Russia. Were there concerns expressed prior to Modi’s visit and has there been any dialogue before that?

We have long made clear those concerns.

I mean, specifically about the trip to Moscow at this time.

I’m not aware of any conversations specifically about this trip in advance of the trip.

Just while we’re on the topic of Russia, are you expecting any other provocative actions from Russia this week given the 75th anniversary of NATO, the gathering in Washington this week?

It’s very hard to say because it’s not like this strike against civilian infrastructure today came out of the blue. It’s not like this is the first time that they have done this.

(10:02)
So it’s hard to know whether this strike was time to the NATO summit or not, because we’ve seen strikes from Russia against civilian infrastructure that have killed scores of civilians in previous weeks.

(10:15)
So I don’t know how to answer that question other than that this fits a pattern that we have seen from Russia going back to the outset of this conflict. So I certainly expect that these sorts of strikes would continue. Whether or not they’ll come this week, whether or not they’re related to the NATO summit, I think it’s impossible to say.

And any indication that there’s plans for a change to their nuclear posture or their nuclear doctrine this week?

No, we have seen no indications of that.

Okay. And if we could just stick on NATO for a minute here, Kirby said Ukraine is in NATO’s future or whatever way it was. And I wonder if it’s still the position though of this administration that the war has to be over before Ukraine can join NATO. Otherwise, that would draw the entire alliance into the conflict.

So I just don’t want to get too much into the details of what Ukraine’s membership in NATO will look like and what steps they have to take to get there today in advance of significant new announcement’s being made in that regard over the course of this week.

(11:19)
So I know that sounds a little bit like a punt, but in fact it’s because we will be making new announcements with respect to these very questions this week, and I don’t think I should get ahead of them today.

There are specific announcements you’re going to make having to do with the-

About-

… timing of the war and when Ukraine will join NATO?

About their bridge to NATO. And I don’t want to talk about it any further before we can make those announcements and you can all look at them and then of course we’ll be happy to take questions about them and talk about them further.

And then last question on NATO. On Wednesday night, there is the leader-level dinner that is being hosted by the president and the first lady, it starts at 6:00 PM over the weekend. President Biden told governors, we gather, that he’s not going to go to any events after 8:00 PM, try and get some rest, given some of his challenges with his age. So is there a plan for the Secretary of State to stay if that event goes on longer past 8:00 PM or will the president stay on past 8:00 PM?

So I won’t speak to the president’s schedule. I’ll let the White House do that. But I would say with respect to his schedule, I think this NATO summit will look a lot like previous NATO summits where the president and other members of our government, the Secretary of State, but also the Secretary of Defense and other leaders in the government will have a full schedule event starting in the morning and going through the evening.

(12:37)
That includes bilateral meetings, includes multilateral meetings. The Secretary will participate in those. With respect to any one event several days from now, I can’t tell you what his participation will be at that dinner. And when it comes to the president, the White House can speak to that.

Well, to be fair, at the Vilnius Summit, it was the Secretary who went to that dinner instead of the president.

Right. But with this one, I’m going to let the White House speak to what the president’s exact schedule is. I just don’t know here. Yeah.

Just to follow up on the comments you gave about this strike in Kyiv in the hospital, obviously this has happened very quick, very… only a few hours ago. Could you talk us through how you’re able to come to those kind of solid conclusions about, “This is a Russian attack. We’ve seen this pattern. We see it fits the pattern”? In this case, what is the process for you to be able to state with so much confidence what’s happening?

Well, so I could get into our ability to look at missiles that are launched. I could get into the Ukrainian military’s ability to look at missiles that are launched. And we talk about that with respect to any one strike. But also give me a break. There’s no one else lobbying missiles at Ukraine right now. There’s no one else launching the tax at Ukraine. So I think it’s pretty clear that it came from Russia.

But you probably can guess what I’m getting at

… is, in the other situation that we’re often talking about, in Gaza, when there are strikes, there have been strikes that have hit hospitals, other facilities, universities, in those cases, and often, and in some cases US weapons are actually involved in those strikes, but you’ve been pretty unable in a lot of those cases to say definitively what happened. Why the disparity there about your information gathering?

So, the disparity is in the context of the events, and I’ll give you just a couple of examples when it comes to Gaza, what makes these types of assessments so hard. Oftentimes, it is clear that a strike on any one target was an Israeli strike, if it’s an airstrike, for example, it’s clear that it was an Israeli strike, it’s not from anyone else. Sometimes there are other attacks where there’s an exchange of fire between Hamas and the IDF, and it’s clear, or it’s unclear, I should say, when one specific site was damaged, whether that damage was from IDF munitions, Hamas munitions, or both, which sometimes happens in a crossfire. That’s one way in which it’s difficult.

(15:09)
The other way in which it’s difficult is understanding what the actual target was. And so, that’s one of the things that’s different when you look at Russia’s strikes on Ukraine, the Ukrainian military doesn’t hide behind civilians, it’s not headquartering itself in hospitals, under hospitals, in other civilian sites, in apartment buildings, and that’s exactly what we see Hamas do. And so when you get to making assessments about strikes in Gaza, it’s not just always who conducted the strike, but whether the strike ultimately was after a legitimate military target or not. And it’s a much different assessment in Gaza where you have Hamas using civilians as human shields, which is not at all the case in Ukraine.

All right, but you did say that it seems that this isn’t an accidental strike aimed at something else, there’s quite a lot of information that you’re able to pass on there. There have been cases where, I’m obviously not defending the Russian strikes, but there are cases where Ukrainian anti-aircraft fire has taken down a missile and it hits something, right? There is complexity to that, but you’re able to a few hours later give a pretty detailed account of what happened. I’m not saying… I’ll give you a break on that, that’s your job. But on the Israeli case, often we are left with, after months, you haven’t come up with a real conclusion about what happened in a certain specific incident. And these are US weapons that are being used, you have the ability to demand answers from the country involved. So, I think people will watch this and think there’s a disparity here, and I’m wondering, is there not a difference in the way that you’re approaching these and giving the benefit of the doubt to one side?

There is no difference in how we are approaching these, there’s a difference in the context, there’s a difference in the conflict, and that’s what lends itself… That’s what leads to our inability sometimes to give such definitive answers. I will also say that there is a difference in assessing responsibility for a strike, which is what I was getting into a moment ago, and assessing whether the strike was a legitimate military target. Those are two entirely separate things. Sometimes you can make an assessment about who carried out the strike, but you can’t know unless you were on the ground whether it was a legitimate military target. And that’s especially the case where we often see conflicting claims in Gaza, which is not the case in Ukraine.

(17:40)
I haven’t heard any conflicting claims about what happened in Ukraine, and what Russia might have been trying to hit, if it was not this hospital, if it was not the other civilian infrastructure that they have hit, and I’ve seen no claims from Russia that there were legitimate military targets embedded in the civilian infrastructure. That is often the case in Gaza, where you get conflicting claims. Where you have reports from the ground that there were no Hamas fighters there, and you have the IDF claiming that it took out a number of Hamas fighters. When you have those conflicting claims, that often makes it hard to offer definitive conclusions for what I would hope are fairly obvious reasons.

[inaudible 00:18:16] Gaza.

I’ll go to Sayeed first, I’ll come to you.

Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to ask you first if you read or heard about the [inaudible 00:18:28] report on Israel employing the Hannibal Directive on October 7th.

So, I did see that report that moved over the weekend, and that’s the limit of my knowledge of seeing that report from Haaretz.

Does that make you change your position or your perspective on what really happened that day? That Israeli may be responsible for killing a majority of the people that died on that day?

Boy, it certainly does not, Sayeed, I don’t think there’s any question-

I just want to-

… I don’t think there’s any question that it was Hamas… Just let me finish. I don’t think it’s any question that’s Hamas that is responsible for the overwhelming number of deaths on October 7th.

Okay. All right. Now, you and your answer to Simon, you gave two answers, you were saying that almost with certainty that people were killed in the crossfire. Do you have any figure on how many people got killed in the crossfire? Or how many people that died as a result of direct Israeli attacks?

No, I don’t, but that’s exactly my point, Sayeed. I’ll give you, the best example of this is the recent hostage rescue, when a number of people in the area who were not members of Hamas were killed in crossfire, and that happened when Israeli vehicles, with a hostage on board, were leaving the area, took fire from Hamas, and then there was exchange of fire. And that’s something that happens from time to time.

Okay, 300 people died that day, but anyway. So, let me ask you, what is the status of the negotiation now? Is there a ceasefire in Gaza’s future? Do you-

We certainly hope there’s a ceasefire in Gaza’s future, and we are trying incredibly hard to achieve a ceasefire. The negotiations are ongoing, the CI director is in Cairo today working on those negotiations, as we said last week, when we received a response from Hamas, we found reasons to be hopeful in that response. But that said, we don’t yet have a deal, and we’re not taking anything in granted until we get a deal. And so, we continue to work to try to achieve a ceasefire that would secure the release of hostages, would allow us to surge humanitarian assistance in, and alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.

So, you believe that the Israeli prime minister is okay with this new proposal?

He has said he is, yes.

Okay.

Well, wait, let me just be correct. I want to make sure I’m not misunderstood. I don’t mean that he has endorsed the proposal has come back from Hamas, he has endorsed the proposal that the Israeli government put forward, and we’re working to bridge the differences between Hamas’ response and what the Israeli government puts forward sometime before several weeks ago.

You think this is a bridge too far?

I’m not going to negotiate on this in public.

All right. Let me ask you a couple of things. We see Israel, Rafah is completely destroyed and people are dying, Israel is just a grabbing land in the West Bank, it’s really doing a lot of things. Would you be agreeable to any other state doing what Israel has done, let’s say, in the past 48 hours, or the past 72 hours, or the past week and so on, against Palestinians, whether in Gaza or in the West Bank? Wouldn’t you be outraged? We hear reports by Israeli soldiers themselves, they’re saying they were killing children because they were bored, for crying out loud.

So, let me take those one at a time. When it comes to abuses by the IDF, we make very clear that we expect the IDF to have full accountability for any soldier that behaves inappropriately, that violates either IDF rules of engagement or the laws of war, and we have seen the IDF announce that they will take steps to impose such accountability, and we will be watching that very closely. When it comes to settlements, we have also made clear that we oppose the advancement of settlements in the West Bank. We think that they’re both inconsistent with international law, and that they’re ultimately counterproductive to the realization of peace, which is in Israel’s interest. And that includes urging Israeli officials to not take actions to fund outposts that have long been illegal under Israeli law. So, we will continue to make that clear.

So, any particular response to what happened last week in terms of the size of land confiscated by Israel for settlement purposes, which is apparently the largest since the 1967 war, definitely since the Oslo Accord in 1993. Do you have any particular comment on that particular-

Yeah, as I just said, we oppose the advancement of settlements, we oppose them taking actions to fund outposts, we think all of those are illegal under international law and ultimately hurt the chances of peace.

Thank you.

Can I just follow up on that point that Sayeed was making about ceasefire? Because there was a list of principles, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr. Netanyahu, his office issued yesterday on the ceasefire, one of which appeared to be a desire, or he said insisting on resuming fighting until all the objectives of the war have been achieved. We know that one of his objectives is the complete destruction of Hamas, not just its military existence, but also its administrative governance capabilities and so on, which goes way beyond what the president announced in his May framework, that was described as the Israeli proposal. So, have you got any reaction to what he said yesterday?

So, I don’t know that this will be a satisfying answer, but I think it’s most productive to hold these negotiations in private, not in public.

Yeah, but it wasn’t, the president made a very public announcement about-

Tom, Tom, Tom, let me… Just hold on, just let me finish, tom. I’m happy to answer the question, and you can ask me a follow-up if you want. We think it is productive to have these conversations in private, not in public. Sometimes seeing the Israeli government make public statements, we’ve seen Hamas make public statements, we’re going to hold the negotiations in private, and what has not changed is Israel, in its conversations with us, saying that they’re committed to the proposal that the president publicly outlined.

The reason I was pushing back on that is it was a very public announcement by the president, about, in some detail, about what should be in this proposal, and we have a very public announcement by the Israeli prime minister, about what he believes. So, this isn’t, I’m not asking you to negotiate in public, I’m just asking for whether you believe this is a shift in the Israeli position, or is this something that Mr. Netanyahu is simply saying for public-

We do not believe that their substantive position has changed, they have consistently supported the proposal that they put forward several weeks ago, that the president outlined publicly.

So, do you think he’s saying this for domestic consumption and he doesn’t actually mean it?

I’m just not going to characterize it at all.

[inaudible 00:25:11].

Yeah, go ahead, I promised you.

The United Nations warned of widespread starvation in Gaza all the way back in December, we’ve had eight organizations and relief groups, we’ve said over and over again that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war. You’ve had 12 US government employees who’ve resigned, and they accused the US government of undeniable complicity in the starvation of Palestinians. Doctors we’ve spoken to at Al Jazeera have told us that they, in part, also blame the US government for the horrors that they are seeing. How do you respond to the allegations of complicity of the US government, and what more will it take for the US to stop Israeli military funding?

So, let me just take the humanitarian assistance piece first, because you raised that in the introduction to your question. So, it is the United States, that has secured all of the major agreements to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza, going back to the very early days, the first week after October 7th, when the secretary traveled to the region and the president traveled to Israel, and together convinced Israel to open Rafah crossing to allow humanitarian assistance in. It is the United States that worked to open Kerem Shalom to get humanitarian assistance in, to open Erez Gate in the north. It is the United States that has worked day and night in the region, in Washington, in other capitals around the world, to coordinate a humanitarian assistance effort to get food and water and medicine to the Palestinian people. It has not been enough, there are obstacles, sometimes those are logistical obstacles coming from Israel, sometimes those are the nature of moving humanitarian assistance around in an armed conflict.

(26:55)
But when you look at what has actually happened, the sad truth is there is widespread food insecurity in Gaza, and we have worked to try and address that. But when you saw the IPC, the group that actually measures famine, come out and make assessments, they warned that famine was imminent, we worked hard to get gates open, and get more humanitarian assistance in. In their last assessment, which came out after the time they predicted famine was going to occur, they came out and assessed that it had not yet happened, which is not at all to say that the conditions are good, of course they’re not, they remain dire for the population in Gaza. But we continue to work to get humanitarian assistance in, and we’ll continue to do so. I cannot tell you the amount of work that the secretary has put into this, that the president has put into this, that others in the government have put into this, and will continue to put into it. And that’s not to mention the ceasefire agreement that we are trying to broker, which would allow a massive surge in humanitarian assistance, and would allow humanitarian assistance to move more freely around Gaza. So, when it comes to our policy

… policy for getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza and to the people who need it. We’re not going to change one bit. We’re going to continue-

Just to-

No, just let me finish. We’re going to continue to work day and night to get humanitarian assistance and recognizing all the barriers working to try to overcome them. And every time we do, something else pops up and we work to overcome that too. And that’s what we’re going to continue to do.

Sorry, just to follow-up on that, the latest IPC report actually says that 96% of the population of Gaza is tasting acute food insecurity crisis level or higher.

Which is what I just said, I said dire.

It’s still very dire and you’ve spoken about what the US has done but the US also continues to be the biggest funder of Israeli military. And under US law, it is required that any country receiving military support must not obstruct the flow of humanitarian aid during war. Every major rights group from the United Nations to Human Rights Watch has said that Israel is using starvation as a tactic of war. Do you disagree with them? Just, sorry, one final question. Are you not afraid of completely losing legitimacy?

Let me just answer that. Let me just-

Of being hypocritical when it comes to supporting human rights in one country.

Let me just answer-

And not when it comes to Palestinians.

Let me just answer the first question. I would encourage you to read the report that we issued on this very question two months ago that looked into Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law and their work and whether they had done a good enough job to let humanitarian assistance in. Where we said that there were some roadblocks that needed to be overcome. And we had worked to overcome those and we had seen Israel take steps to allow humanitarian assistance in.

(29:31)
At times they have been too slow. At times they haven’t moved quickly enough. At times there have been barriers that we needed to break down, but we have worked to do it and we have seen Israel take steps to allow humanitarian assistance in. Now, as I just said a moment ago, there is always something more that needs to be done. We’ve talked about the fact that you have a lot of assistance coming to Kerem Shalom now, but it can’t move around Gaza’s freely as it could because of looting by armed gangs. And so we need to come up with practical steps to address that.

(29:58)
And I say that to get at the point that I know sometimes everyone likes to make this seem like a black and white issue that is completely simple, where there’s somebody that’s blocking humanitarian assistance. When it actually, it can be much more complex. There can be other problems such as the looting of criminal gangs that we have to assess. And so we’re working with our partners in the region to try to assess that. And we’re going to continue to work to do so.

I have to reply to that.

Jannie, go ahead.

I just have to quickly reply to that.

Jannie, go ahead.

Sorry, can I just quickly reply to that point, please?

No, thank you.

We have done, actually [inaudible 00:30:28].

Thank you very much on NATO subject. Secretary Blinken recently said that it would be dangerous for Asia-Pacific countries such as South Korea and Japan to ignore Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Solidarity with NATO will have a strong synergy effect. Do you think NATO allies, including South Korea, Japan will reach an agreement on a new security treaty at this NATO summit?

I just don’t want to preview any type of the announcements that will come out over the course of the summit.

Second question now is President Xi Jinping and the Russian President Putin recently met at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference. And they pledged to work together to fight competition with the United States. And Xi Jinping mentioned that the conclusion of the treaty between North Korea and Russia was reasonable as a sovereignty country. How can you react to this?

Repeat the last sentence of the question again?

Last?

Just the very end of the question. Just…

The second one?

Yeah, just the end. Not the total. I missed the last…

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Putin recently met at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Conference and they pledged to work together to fight competition with the United States. And Xi Jinping mentioned that the conclusion of the treaty between North Korea and Russia was reasonable as a sovereignty countries. How do you reaction?

I think we have made quite clear our great concern about increased collaboration between the DPRK and Russia. We’ve seen the DPRK supporting Russia’s war machine that is targeting and killing innocent civilians in Ukraine and violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of another United Nations member in violation of the multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions. And we will continue to work with our allies and partners to counter that relationship.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Matt. A couple question about today’s possibility. But before that, the metaphor, are you using, the breach. Just to understand how far you’re willing need to go? How’s it going to be different from last year? Look, every breach starts with a-

You can torture a metaphor to death sometimes.

Just to understand, every breach starts with a blueprint. Does that mean that the department administration has a clear strategy, a plan for Ukraine to become a member of NATO?

I’m going to answer this question the way I did some of the others, which is you should not expect me to speak in detail about announcements that will be made by the president and other heads of state later this week at the NATO Summit. You’ll hear concrete announcements from the NATO heads of state in the summit about what that bridge looks like. And as frustrating as I know it is on Monday when we have this summit starting over the next couple of days, I’m just not going to get ahead of it here.

Fair enough. A couple of questions on the hospital attack. You said that it’s clear that it came from Russia. You said it is deliberate. You stopped short saying that it’s a terror attack because that’s what you described. Isn’t it an act of terrorism?

It is a deliberate targeting of innocent civilians is our judgment. I know where you’re going with the question. Our position on designation of state sponsor of terrorism has not changed.

The fact that this was conducted by the current chair of UN Security Council, how are you digesting that?

How are we digesting it? I mean, that doesn’t really have anything to do with it. Russia is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Obviously, they become the chair on a regular basis of the UN Security Council. That doesn’t change in any way the horrific nature of their actions. And of course, it doesn’t give legitimacy to them at all.

I’ll give you today’s attack. Will the Biden administration be willing to allow Ukraine to hit back anywhere with any weapons at any time by using America?

I don’t have any change to our policy to announce.

Just come back more Georgie if possibly later.

Right. Sha.

Sure. Just a short one. The new president, president-elect of Iran, Pezeshkian. He said in some of his first remarks that, I mean the tone is very different from his predecessors, saying he wants to reach out to the US or to the West and have a better relationship. How does US see that? I mean, is there I mean this administration obviously at the beginning wanted to restore the JCPOA? Could there be a return to that?

We have no expectations that this election will lead to a fundamental change in Iran’s direction or its policies. At the end of the day, it’s not the president that has the ultimate say over the future of Iran’s policy. It is the supreme leader. And of course, we have seen the direction that he has chosen to take Iran in. Obviously if the new president had the authority to make steps to curtail Iran’s nuclear program to stop funding terrorism, to stop destabilizing activities in the region, those would be steps that we would welcome. But needless to say, we don’t have any expectation that that’s what’s likely to ensue.

Okay. No expectations. Does that mean you’re willing to try them out to see if would he be open to testing the waters with the new president?

Let’s let him take office first. I don’t have anything to announce today. We have always said that diplomacy is the most effective way to achieve an effective, sustainable solution with regard to Iran’s nuclear program. One of the issues with which we have great concerns obviously. And nothing about the election has changed that, but we have also made clear that we are far from any kind of meaningful diplomatic resolution right now given Iran’s escalation across the board.

[inaudible 00:36:35].

Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you, Matt. Do you have a comment on China in Belarus right now doing joint military drills just ahead of the NATO Summit?

Let me take that one back and get you an answer.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, Matt. A question on Turkish military operation in Iraq and Kurdistan region. Turkey has advanced nine miles deep into the Kurdistan region territory and carried out more than 1,000 strikes so far this year. And including today, they attacked the three people in Shanghai. Do you agree the way Turkey is dealing with the situation in Kurdistan region in fighting PPK?

(37:09)
And the second one, this conflict has a huge impact on the villagers and the civilian people and the wider impact in the region. Has the United States ever reached Ankara, Baghdad able to come over this situation and dealing with that situation?

We have urged the Governor of Turkey to coordinate with Iraqi and KRI authorities on cross-border military operations and to protect civilians from harm. We also recognize the ongoing threat posed by the PPK. But that said, we call on the Turkish government to coordinate military operations with the governments of Iraq, Kurdish regional government and other local authorities.

Do you agree with the Turkish operation in the Kurdistan region to fight in Baghdad?

I just don’t have any comment…

Because-

Other than the one that I just made. Yeah.

Thank you. Going back to the missile attacks. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, in his meeting with President Zelenskyy today said that he wants to be able to shoot down Russian missiles that are going in the direction of Poland and do it over the Ukrainian airspace. But he said that he would need an agreement from NATO or from some other international body. Do you think, is that an idea that’s worth discussing? Or do you think it’s-

I don’t have any changes when it comes to either US policy or NATO policy to announce today. But obviously anytime a NATO member wants to raise a policy, they have the ability to do so and discuss it with other heads of state, they’ll have a summit this weekend. I’m sure that is something that could be discussed if he would like to do so. Yeah.

Do you have an update on the political or diplomatic solution that the US is working on between Israel and Hezbollah, especially after the visit that Mr. Rothstein made last week to Paris?

The answer that really does come back to an answer I gave in response to, I don’t remember whose question it was about the ceasefire negotiations. We have been taking further diplomatic steps to try and reduce tensions along the border between Israel and Lebanon and try to set the table for a lasting ceasefire. But again, we think we are much more likely to have success in that endeavor if we are able to get a ceasefire in Gaza. And so, we continue to work, as I said, we have the CI director in the region now in Cairo working on talks to achieve a ceasefire. We’re pursuing those full bore. Doesn’t mean the work stops on trying to achieve a climb down along the Israel-Lebanon border, but it’s just much more difficult without getting a ceasefire in Gaza first.

One more on the death of President Assad’s advisor this week or last week. Do you have any?

No, I don’t have any comment on it all. Yeah.

I want to come back to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, given some of your answers earlier. You mentioned the IPC report. One of the things that that report said was that a lot of the progress that Israel that had been made after you gave this ultimatum to the Israelis about opening new gates and things had actually been reversed by Israeli operation in Rafah.

(40:28)
There was a lot of talk about that operation in Rafah, a major operation in Rafah shouldn’t go ahead. Some kind of operation did go ahead. You haven’t said it’s a major operation. And foreign journalists have been taken there by the Israelis for the first time. I think a lot of people have seen the images. You still stick with this assessment that this wasn’t a major operation, given some of the destruction? Noting that these journalists were taken in by the Israelis so they were only then able to see what the Israelis wanted them to see. And if you see the footage, it looks pretty devastating.

Let me just say something about the humanitarian situation first before I get to that. Without a doubt, the situation remains incredibly challenging and some of the metrics have gone down since say six weeks ago when we were getting a much steadier flow in through a number of different challenges. A big reason for that, as I said, is the just lawlessness outside of Kerem Shalom in Southern Gaza that has made it very difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance around.

(41:35)
It’s this really frustrating problem where you address one challenge, you get enough humanitarian assistance to the gate, which for a while was part of the problem. And then you have a difficulty moving it beyond the gate into Gaza. The point I was making is that we had gotten the situation somewhat stabilized, it had stopped getting worse, and we were at the point where we were trying to make it better. And we continue to try to make it better.

… better. And that is an ongoing challenge that we’re all working hard on. When it comes to Rafah, no, nothing has changed. What we made clear is we did not want to see the type of military operation that looked like the military operations we saw in Gaza City, we saw in Khan Yunis, where you had mass civilian casualties. You had in some neighborhoods almost complete and total destruction. And the Rafah operation has looked different, which is not to say at all that there has not been destruction. Of course there has there been a great number of homes and other facilities that have been destroyed. The damage in Rafah does not appear to be as great and there’ll be assessments of this over time. But it does not appear to be as great as those in Khan Yunis and those in Gaza City.

(42:43)
And notably the civilian harm has been reduced in operations. If you just look at the number of civilian casualties… I should say the number of casualties because it’s often… When you get the number from the Gaza Health Ministry, it’s impossible oftentimes to differentiate between civilians and militants. The casualty number has come down dramatically over the past few months, which isn’t to say there aren’t still civilians being killed. There are, and any number is unacceptable. We want to see that number go to zero. But the operation has just in terms of the results looked different than the operations in Gaza City Khan Yunis. All that said, we want to get a ceasefire so we see an end to the death and destruction in Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza.

I mean, I think a lot of people would say the way that you gave a very strong warning, a very clear warning, “Don’t go into Rafah.” Yeah, we can debate whether it’s a major operation, but there is still a huge amount of destruction, hundreds of thousands of people displaced. Yeah, the death toll might be a little bit lower, but there’s still a rising death toll. This was supposed to be… Or I think was communicated as a way that the US was restraining the Israelis from committing more of the worst kind of… Or creating the worst kind of images that we’d seen earlier on in the war and worsening the humanitarian situation. The humanitarian situation has got worse as a result of the operation. Yeah, maybe it falls short of some category for a major operation, but doesn’t this… Basically what has happened is that Israel has gone ahead with almost what you were telling them not to.

So it is a different operation than what they were initially planning and is a different operation than the one that we were very much making clear we were opposed to. It’s not to say that we have agreed with every tactic that they have pursued, that we have agreed with every strike that they have taken. Of course we can always look at things and say, “This isn’t the right way to do this. You should have done more to minimize civilian casualties.” But when we made clear what we were opposed to, we had a very specific operation in mind and what we saw ultimately did not look like that type of operation.

And you’re talking about the casualty figures coming down. So is there an acceptable level? 50 a day is okay, but 100 a day is not okay?

No. Acceptable level is zero for civilian casualties. Now we want to see militant casualties. Of course, it’s a very different thing. We want to see them prosecute the campaign against Hamas, but we don’t want to see any civilian casualties.

Just two really quick questions on Israel. There’s a report that the US and Egypt are going to work on a high-tech underground barrier to prevent smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza. And they’ve told Israel that they will work on this effort if there’s a ceasefire and hostage agreement. Is that accurate?

So I will answer that generally, which I know you won’t like. I’m not going to confirm that or speak to that in detail. But we do believe that smuggling across the border from Egypt into Gaza was a very real problem that needed to be addressed. It’s one of the ways that Hamas was able to arm itself, that Hamas was able to fund itself, and that presented a legitimate security challenge to the government of Israel. And it also makes it difficult to ever achieve peace for the Palestinian people if you see Hamas having the ability to arm itself and reequip and reconstitute its terrorist infrastructure. So we have been working on proposals with the government of Egypt, with the government of Israel on how you could address that challenge. But I’m not going to confirm the specifics of any one proposal.

Okay. And you said it was a real problem. Is it no longer a real problem?

So I was speaking to the pre-October 7th context.

Sure. But this is still presumably an issue.

So Israel has control of that stretch of Gaza now, and I’m not going to give a definitive assessment that there’s no smuggling coming in, but you’ve seen the Rafah border crossing shut down completely. Something we oppose. And you’ve seen Israel going in and shutting down smuggling tunnels. I can’t tell you whether smuggling has been completely eliminated, but certainly it’s a different context now with Israel having control of the Philadelphi Corridor.

Has the majority of smuggling been prohibited?

I can’t give you any kind of assessment.

Okay. And then just one more on another report with regard to Israel. Over the weekend, there was a Hezbollah missile attack towards Israel and according to a local medical center, there was an American citizen who was injured. Is the State Department able to confirm that, give us any details on the status of that American citizen?

I can confirm that there was American citizen who was injured in Israel, one American citizen who was injured in Israel. But I can’t give you any details of the situation other than to say that we are monitoring the situation and are in contact with Israeli authorities.

And are you in contact with this American citizen’s family?

We are providing assistance to the US citizen and their family. Go ahead. I’m going to do a few more around the room, then I got to go.

Thank you, sir. There’s a heated debate going on in Pakistan regarding May 9 protest last year or 9th of May, angry protestors of a political party attack military installations, looting, vandalism and arson, resulting damage worth 1.9 billion rupees. It were kind of the same attack like January 6th on Capitol Hill. So what are your thoughts when you witness such kind of attacks on states’ institutions anywhere in the world, including Pakistan?

So our thoughts are the same anywhere in the world, which is we support legitimate free expression, including the right to protest, the right to peaceful assembly, and we oppose violent actions. We oppose vandalism, looting, arson. That would be true anywhere in the world. And when it comes to responding to those situations, we urge… First of all, we’d say all protests should be conducted peacefully and governments should deal with them consistent with the rule of law and respect for free speech.

So Pakistan Defense Minister has said that Pakistan will continue launching attacks against terrorist groups in Afghanistan as a part of a new military campaign. So does the US support such strikes against terrorist groups like you did in Afghanistan?

So the Pakistani people have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists. We have a shared interest in combating threats to regional security-

[inaudible 00:49:26] 200 Constitution Avenue North West.

Do you need directions, Matt?

[inaudible 00:49:29].

Okay. Saeed, I would think you knew how to get to this location after all this time.

I’m always looking for directions.

For the people making the transcript, won’t know what I’m talking about of some Google Maps directions, I think it is Google Maps directions, went off in middle of the briefing. May have been Apple Maps. Not Matt Lee’s, to be very clear.

(49:51)
We partner with a range of Pakistani civilian institutions and regularly engage the government of Pakistan to identify opportunities to build capacity and strengthen regional security, including at our annual high level counter-terrorism dialogue.

… then turn left on Constitution Avenue North West.

Tom, go ahead and then we’ll wrap up.

It’s still up.

I know it’s still Saeed.

Still mine.

I wanted to ask you a question about Europe. The White House has announced to an afternoon bilateral between the President and the new UK Prime Minister on Wednesday. And I know the Secretary has a bilateral with David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary. When it comes to the UK and the European Union, I mean it’s been an extremely turbulent eight years really for the UK. The Obama administration, when the current president was vice president, made no secret of what they thought about that referendum and the run-up to it. And I just wonder how you look at this, what you’ll be thinking when this UK delegation is here about the UK’s place in Europe because it’s strategically very important for the Europeans and for the US European relationship. Do you see this as the start of a new chapter? How are you viewing this?

So I don’t think I’m going to comment on what a change in government might mean. That is just always kind of places that… I shouldn’t say always, but typically don’t go. I will say that no matter the government in the UK, we have always had an incredibly close working relationship, a special relationship with the UK, and we expect that to continue under the new government. But even with the UK, not a member of the EU, when you look at the things that we have been working with Europe on under this administration, chiefly and maybe most importantly countering Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, you have seen the US, the UK, and other members of Europe united and working together to push back. And based on what we’ve heard from the new Prime Minister and the new Foreign Minister and other members of the UK government, we do not expect that to change in any way.

And what about a free trade arrangement which the last government had been pursuing? Is the US still interested in that with the UK?

Let me take that one back and get to you. And with that, we’ll wrap for today. Thanks everyone.

Thank you.