U. S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing
10/18/2007
QUESTION: I understand the Armenian Prime Minister is in town meeting
with Gates today. Any plans for — to be here? And if so, do you know
what the details of the meetings are?
MR. CASEY: I actually don’t. I can check for you. I had heard he’s in
town. Given some of the adjustments to the Secretary’s schedule, I
don’t think she has any plans to meet with him just because they won’t
be in the same place at the same time. But let me check for you and
see.
Yeah, Param.
QUESTION: I have a question on Myanmar. Special Envoy Gambari said in
Kuala Lumpur yesterday that the military junta had agreed to invite
him, I think the third week of November, and the United States have
been maintaining that they have been — had said that they have
contacted Southeast Asian leaders as well as China and India to
enhance– to speed up the visit, bring it earlier. Is there any new
developments in that effort?
MR. CASEY: Well, in terms of Burma, certainly we believe it would be
appropriate for Mr. Gambari, in addition to the visits that he’s
making to various ASEAN countries, to go again to Burma to meet again
with the Burmese leadership and also with Aung San Suu Kyi and some of
the other detained opposition leaders. I think it’s important that he
should do that as soon as possible, and I think the mandate from the
Council is pretty clear that he should.
In terms of the arrangements that, you know, he is trying to make with
the Burmese Government, it’s pretty clear to us that the Burmese
Government, whatever it’s doing with respect to his visit, still is
not doing fundamentally what it needs to, which is to stop its
crackdown, to release political prisoners and to engage in a real
political dialogue. Certainly, we will do what we can to work with
other countries in the region and to do what we can to push the
Burmese Government to do the right thing here. But I don’t have
anything new to share with you in terms of either bilateral or
specific steps on the part of the U.S. or other things that
Mr. Gambari might be planning.
Okay, Mr. Lambros.
QUESTION: Yes, on the Armenian resolution. Mr. Casey, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi stated yesterday that the prospects of a (inaudible)
Armenian genocide resolution are uncertain after several members
pulled their support amid feeling that it would cripple U.S. relations
with Turkey. Are you satisfied on this development?
MR. CASEY: Well, I talked about this a little bit earlier in the
briefing, Mr. Lambros. We’ve seen the comments by the Speaker that
gives us some reason for hope that perhaps this legislation might not,
in fact, come to the floor. But again, our position on this remains
clear. We oppose this resolution. We do not think it solves or does
anything to help foster Armenian and Turkish reconciliation and we
think it’s injurious to U.S. national security. So we’re going to
continue to work with Congress on this and we’re going to continue to
encourage members to vote against this resolution when and if it does,
in fact, come up for a vote.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. CASEY: Thanks.