00:00details of that publicly.
00:02Yeah, Simon.
00:03Just a couple of things to follow up on from Said's questions.
00:06On UNRWA, didn't you announce a ban of – before this congressional action, you announced
00:14that the administration would no longer be funding UNRWA, and as far as I know, never
00:17lifted that.
00:19We announced a suspension of funding to UNRWA pending the investigation that UNRWA launched.
00:25That investigation is still going.
00:26But in the interim, before the time that investigation was finished, Congress enacted
00:32a ban.
00:33So your pausing of aid basically precipitated this – like, it seemed to precipitate a
00:40situation where everybody pulled funding from UNRWA, and now you're sort of criticizing
00:45other people for cutting off UNRWA or criticizing the Israelis for cutting off UNRWA.
00:51That's not – that is not what I criticized Israel for.
00:53I criticized Israel for – or I criticized the verbal attacks and threatening rhetoric
00:57and advancing legislation and calling them a terrorist organization, which we do not
01:01agree with.
01:02Other – we've always made clear that other countries have to make their own decisions
01:04about funding, and we've seen other countries restore funding.
01:09We just simply don't have the flexibility to make that decision because of the action
01:13that Congress took.
01:14But the investigation and therefore the decision of this department on whether funding should
01:20go to UNRWA from the U.S. is still up in the air.
01:24Is there any expectation of when that will be finished?
01:26No, it is a – because it's a UN investigation.
01:30It's not something that we are conducting, so it's not something that we can put a
01:33timetable on.
01:34They've had two investigations ongoing.
01:36One of them finished.
01:37One has not.
01:38But just to go back to the decision we made, we made a decision to suspend funding to UNRWA
01:43after there were allegations made about UNRWA employees having been involved in October
01:477th that UNRWA told us they found credible.
01:51And so when you had UNRWA telling us they found credible, we thought that was an appropriate
01:54step to do, to suspend funding to fund humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people through
02:00other mechanisms while that investigation proceeded.
02:02That investigation is still ongoing.
02:04Now, in the meantime, as I said, Congress came in and enacted this statutory restriction
02:09that bars us from funding UNRWA.
02:11But all the humanitarian assistance money that we would have provided to Palestinians
02:15through UNRWA we are providing through other mechanisms, chiefly at the UN and then through
02:20other nongovernmental organizations.
02:22Right.
02:23And also, just on the question of the day-after talks that Said mentioned involving the UAE,
02:31some mention in The Washington Post reporting on that of the U.S. playing a coordinating
02:36role with this international force that would – being responsible for securing Gaza would
02:43be invited in by the PA.
02:45These are obviously details I'm not sure if you'll get into, but I wonder if you
02:49could sort of address the possibility of the U.S. playing that kind of coordinating role
02:55and separately whether U.S. security contractors could also be involved in that.
03:00I just don't want to get into any of the details at all.
03:02I think it's not appropriate at this time.
03:05One more slightly separate thing.
03:07Just on the trip planning that you mentioned, I wonder, now that you're basically – the
03:14Secretary has decided to stay for an extra day to attend the Netanyahu meeting, I wonder
03:20what the message to ASEAN and to that region, to Southeast Asia, is that you're also – that
03:27means it was announced yesterday that you would be at – that he would be – or sorry,
03:31earlier in the week, that he would be attending the funeral of the Vietnamese former leader.
03:37Now we're not going to attend that funeral.
03:40It seems like the participation at ASEAN is much shorter than was previously planned.
03:45This is all happening because the prime minister of Israel has decided to come to the U.S.
03:51How do you square that with sort of trying to tell Asian allies, partners in the region,
03:55Southeast Asia – this is obviously a really important region – that the U.S. is sort
04:00of all in on your region, but when a crisis happens in the Middle East, this is a meeting
04:06that's run by the president.
04:08Does the Secretary of State really need to be there?
04:10So I think our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific understand a few things.
04:15Number one, that this is the Secretary's 18th trip to the region.
04:18It was his first trip as Secretary, continues to be a major priority for us, and we show
04:23that not just by our words but by the amount of time he spent in the region.
04:27And as I said, it's his 18th trip.
04:29I think they understand that he will be visiting all of the countries that we announced that
04:34he's visiting.
04:35He will still travel to Laos, to Vietnam, to Japan, to Singapore, to the Philippines,
04:41to Mongolia.
04:42And I think that demonstrates our commitment, as do the investments that we've made in
04:47the region, as do the partnerships that we have announced in the region.
04:51I think people understand that there was a meeting he had planned to attend, and the
04:56timing of the meeting got shifted due to something that's – could not be foreseen.
05:00That's the president getting COVID.
05:02And I think they understand that that happens.
05:05It happens to a number of foreign leaders where there are unforeseen events at home
05:08that mandate a slight shift in the schedule, but we will still be there attending the meetings
05:14that we intended to and still traveling to Vietnam to pay our respects – not on the
05:19day of the funeral, but the day after – to meet with senior government officials, and
05:22I think our allies and partners quite – I think certainly understand the importance
05:28we place on the region and understand that we have the ability to do more than one thing
05:31at a time.
05:32QUESTION.
05:33So I think the – obviously, the Secretary's travel has been to the region a lot, but the
05:37President did miss the ASEAN Leaders' Summit last year.
05:40That will also be in November this year.
05:43Is there – do you have anything you can tell us on how the U.S. will be represented
05:48at that one?
05:49Obviously, ministerial this week, but the Leaders' Summit that day.
05:51MR.
05:52HOOKER.
05:53The summit?
05:54No, I can't.
05:55I would let the White House speak to the President's participation.
05:56Obviously, that's still, I think, a couple of months away.
05:59But as I said, the overall presence of the U.S. in the region – I think if you look
06:03at what we said at the outset of this administration, how we plan to make a major investment of
06:08time, of resources, of energy and capacity in the Indo-Pacific, we have borne that out
06:13through our actions the past three and a half years, and we intend to continue to do that
06:16for the next six months.
Comments