The US State Dept held a press briefing on June 26, 2023 with spokesperson Matthew Miller fielding a wide range of questions.  His replies to questions on India, Pakistan and B’desh are tweaked to appear upfront.

 Excerpts  

 QUESTION:  Sure, can I ask a couple questions about some American citizens overseas?  First in Pakistan – I know this was addressed earlier this month, but the case of Khadija Shah, who is a U.S. citizen, it was raised – earlier this month the State Department said it was seeking consular access to her.  Do you know if that’s been granted?  Do you know if there’s been any discussion from the U.S. embassy there or —

MR MILLER:  I don’t.  I’ll have to take it back and get you an answer.

QUESTION:  Jahanzaib Ali from ARY News TV Pakistan.  Pakistani Government has criticized the United States and India after President Biden and Prime Minister Modi called on Pakistan to ensure its territory was not used as a base for militant attacks.  Pakistani foreign ministry also said that the U.S.-India joint statement about Pakistan was baseless and one-sided.  Would you like to respond?

MR MILLER:  Sure.  I would say, first of all, that we remain committed to working with Pakistan to address the shared threat posed by terrorist groups throughout the region.  The Pakistani people have suffered tremendously from terrorist attacks over the years.  We do recognize that Pakistan has taken some important steps to counter terrorist groups in line with the completion of its Financial Action Task Force actions plans.  This includes the arrest and conviction of Sajid Mir.  Moreover, we commend both Pakistan and India for continuing to uphold the cease fire along the line of control.

At the same time, however, we have also been consistent on the importance of Pakistan continuing to take steps to permanently disband all terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and their various front organizations.  And we will raise the issue regularly with Pakistani officials, and will continue to work together to counter mutual terrorist threats, as we discussed during our March 2023 CT dialogue.

QUESTION:  I hope you have seen the president remarks about India that was going on there with the Muslims and other minorities.  And we have noticed that the joint statement did not address concerns regarding human rights and religious freedom violations in India.  Could you please clarify if there were any discussions on this particular topic during the meeting?

MR MILLER:  What I will say is that we regularly raise concerns about human rights in our conversations with Indian officials.  And you saw President Biden speak to this himself in the joint press conference that he held with Prime Minister Modi.

QUESTION:  He mentioned   former-President Obama’s remarks.  There has been quite a bit of response in India to that.  Notably, there was a social media post by the chief minister of the state of Assam, who is an ally of Prime Minister Modi, using quite insulting language about former-President Obama.  Is that something that the United States wants to comment on

MR MILLER:  No, no, I don’t think so.

QUESTION:  Thank you, Matt.  A couple of question on Bangladesh.  During a recent press conference, Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina alleged that the U.S. wants to grab the small island of St. Martin.  And main opposition BNP wants to sell it to the U.S.  That’s why she will be ousted from the power.  Last 15 years she is in power without reflection of the will of the people of Bangladesh, though.  The AL wants to purchase or grab this small island, or is all this a disinformation spreading by the top regime people?  Why it is so important for no reason, the St. Martin Island?

MR MILLER:  I will just say that it is not accurate.  We respect Bangladesh’s sovereignty, and we have never engaged in any conversations about taking over St. Martin’s Island.  We value our partnership with Bangladesh.  We strive to bolster our relationship by working together to promote democracy, including by supporting free and fair elections.

QUESTION:  And one more on – the state junior minister of foreign affairs, on Sunday, reacted to the letter of six congressmen calling as enemy – as you know, the six congressmen wrote a letter to the president and six congress – and other six Foreign Relations Committee member sent a letter to the secretary of state.  So, what is your reaction about the foreign minister is saying that is enemy of those who are urging to take action against the authoritarian regime of Bangladesh?

MR MILLER:  I haven’t seen that letter.  I’d want to review in detail before I commented on it.   

QUESTION:  Well, what’s your understanding of the situation in Ukraine, Russia, Wagner, Belarus?

MR MILLER:  So, I don’t have any specific assessment to make in terms of the facts on the ground.  Obviously, we all saw what happened over the weekend.

I will say, in our assessment, it remains a dynamic situation.  It’s unclear what the ultimate implications of what happened will be.  As it relates to United States activities and United States interests, I’ll speak to what we did over the weekend.

Number one, the President focused on convening allies and partners.  You saw that he had a call with members of the Quad, Secretary Blinken had a call with members of the G7, he had a call with Secretary Kuleba of Ukraine, with – sorry, with Foreign Minister Kuleba of Ukraine, with foreign ministers from Türkiye and Poland.  We continue to have discussions with our allies and partners today.

We also made clear to Ukraine, as we made clear in conversations with our allies and partners, that our steadfast support for Ukraine will remain so, no matter what happens in Russia.

And I will say, with respect to the activities over the weekend, obviously they were a significant step.  It is a – certainly, a new thing to see President Putin’s leadership directly challenged.  It is a new thing to see Yevgeniy Prigozhin directly questioning the rationale for this war, and calling out that the war has been conducted, essentially, based on a lie, which is something that we have said previously, but we certainly have not seen coming from Russian officials previously.  Those are all significant steps.  And what the implications of those are, I think, remains to be seen.

QUESTION:  Okay, but – so you think that Prigozhin is a Russian official?

MR MILLER:  He is not a —

QUESTION:  I’m not sure —

MR MILLER:  He is certainly a leader of Russian forces that have engaged on the battlefield, or was.

I think it remains to be seen – we’ve seen the announcements, but I think it remains to be seen, the final or the – the current or final disposition of Wagner and Yevgeniy Prigozhin.

QUESTION:  And do you think that this is going to have any kind of impact on the Russian operations in Ukraine or, also, on Wagner activities outside of Ukraine, like in Syria and in Africa?

MR MILLER:  I think it’s too soon to tell with respect to both of those questions.  Certainly, the events we saw over the weekend, where you see Wagner forces to some extent withdrawing from Ukraine, and instead marching on and eventually occupying a Russian city, are a significant step.  What happens to those Wagner forces in the wake of the announcements on Saturday and the last couple days?  I think we just don’t know the answer to that yet.  We don’t know what will happen to Wagner in Ukraine; we don’t know what will happen to Wagner in Africa.

I will say that, as we’ve said before, obviously, wherever we’ve seen Wagner operate in the past we’ve seen death and destruction follow in their wake.  And we have instituted a series of policies to hold them accountable, and to counter Wagner’s influence.  And to the extent Wagner continues to operate in Africa, or in Ukraine, or anywhere else in the world, or any Wagner successor organizations pick up the mantle that Wagner has carried, we will continue to take actions to hold either Wagner or their successor accountable.

QUESTION:  Okay, last one.  Just – so Ambassador Tracy went to the foreign ministry, or called the foreign ministry, and there was a – there were communications here in D.C.? Wwhat were they?

MR MILLER:  We had communications over the weekend on – actually, I will just say we had communications on Saturday with the Russian Government, both Ambassador Tracy and at other levels here in Washington, where we delivered two messages to them: number one, we expected Russia to withhold its obligations – to uphold its obligations, I should say, to protect our embassy and to protect diplomatic personnel who are in Moscow; and two, to reiterate what we said publicly, that this is an internal Russian affair in which the United States is not involved and will not be involved.

QUESTION:  Matt, Senator Warner – obviously, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee – told me on the air that they believe, or he believes from reports he’s seen, that Prigozhin is in Minsk.  Do you have any indication that that’s – of that as well?

MR MILLER:  I don’t have any assessment on his location, no.

QUESTION:  And do you have any indication of what concessions he may have received regarding Shoigu or anything else, for turning around?

MR MILLER:  I do not, I do not.  I would note in respect to that – and we’ve gotten a lot of questions with respect to Shoigu or Gerasimov, and I will say – it relates to the last question I answered from Matt – that the United States does not take a position on the leadership of the Russian Federation.  We do not take a position on the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Défense.  Our policies have always been with respect to actions that Russia has taken.

We want a Russia that is not invading its neighbors and trying to violate the territorial integrity and sovereignty of its neighbors.  We want a Russia that is not conducting malign influence operations across the world.  That has always been our policy with Russia, not the disposition of the ministry of defense or any other offices inside the country.

QUESTION:  The one on-the-record statement that came out on Saturday was the confidence in the command and control of the nuclear forces.  And I infer from that that there is military-to-military communication, as one would expect, between us and the Russians, in contrast to – obviously to a different situation with China or —

MR MILLER:  I won’t speak to any inferences.  I will say that I will let the Pentagon speak to any military-to-military communications, whether it happened or not.  I will say, however, as the Secretary said yesterday, we do not – did not see, do not see any change in the disposition of Russian nuclear forces and have not changed the disposition of ours.

QUESTION:  And the Secretary did say in some of his interviews that Putin’s influence, power, whatever, has clearly been shaken by this, by his speech, by the whole nexus of what has happened.  Can you speak to that?

MR MILLER:  Yeah.  I will say, as I said a moment ago, this certainly was a new moment in – if you look – think of the events of the last few years.  As the Secretary said, 16 months ago the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin envisioned that Russian forces would be taking Kyiv, and instead over the weekend we saw Russian forces taking a Russian Ministry of Défense office inside a Russian city.  We saw the entire pretext of this war being questioned openly – something we have done, something our allies and partners have done, something that you have not seen inside the borders of Russia.  In fact, you can be thrown in jail for taking that step as an ordinary citizen inside of Russia.  We saw Yevgeniy Prigozhin directly questioning not just the ministry of defence officials, as he’s done for some time, but really directly challenging President Putin’s leadership.

Those are all significant steps and a significant change from what we’ve seen certainly in the last 16 months, but over a number of years.  Where that – what that means going forward, we don’t know.

QUESTION:  Could I ask about the the element of Belarus in this?  Has there been any direct contact with the United States and Lukashenka or people in the Lukashenka regime over this?

MR MILLER:  Not that I’m aware of.

QUESTION:  Is there any message or is there any impact there would be on relations?  Obviously, they’re already quite bad with Lukashenka, but how do you see the fact that Prigozhin supposedly is going to Belarus?

MR MILLER:  I think before I comment on that I’d want to wait and see what actually happens –where Prigozhin actually does end up, before I make any kind of speculatory comment about what – a speculative comment about what may occur.

QUESTION:  You mentioned earlier on Africa, the Wagner operations there, that you don’t – you can’t say yet what’s going to happen.  But is there a message the United States has to countries – say Mali, Burkina Faso allegedly, some other countries that have partnered with Wagner – about what this unrest shows about Wagner’s activities and which direction they should go?

MR MILLER:  I will say two things.  Number one, to reiterate the message that we have given to these countries publicly and privately in the past, which is that any time Wagner enters a country, death and destruction follows.  We see Wagner exploit local populations.  We see them extract local wealth.  We see them commit human rights abuses.  So, we have always encouraged any country not to engage with Wagner forces because of the deleterious effects it will have on their countries and most specifically on their people.

And then second with respect to this, I would say – just what happened over the weekend, it would just – it would reinforce the concerns we’ve stated about the instability that Wagner brings with it when it enters any country.

QUESTION:  Just a couple of questions to follow up on what you just said.  To backtrack a little bit, what is the State Department’s definition on what happened, nearly happened, or failed to happen over the weekend?

MR MILLER:  What do you mean?

QUESTION:  You just – you just said the events that happened.  Do you have any definition?  How do you call it?

MR MILLER:  I think the events that happened were Yevgeniy Prigozhin took a group of his forces and marched on Rostov and then continued to Moscow and then stopped.

QUESTION:  Was it a coup attempt or is there any other —

MR MILLER:  I will say no one in the United States Government has used that term.  I won’t speak to what his eventual motivations were, what his intentions were.  I’ll say it is only – it is Vladimir Putin that raised the spectre of 1917, not someone from – not anyone from the United States Government.

QUESTION:  And can you tell the timeline – can we be precise on when did exactly your ambassador reach out to Russians, and what did she convey?  Everything we have heard from Lavrov today quoting her, was it accurate?

MR MILLER:  I’m not going to speak to Lavrov’s characterization.  The conversations that we had with the Russian Government were on Saturday, and they were along the lines that I just outlined a minute ago.  I’m happy to go through them again if you want.

QUESTION:  And finally, the Secretary said yesterday that we haven’t seen the last act yet.  I’m just curious how much does it reflect sentiment on your end that this might be just an episode of what can be a long-running internal fighting in Russia.

MR MILLER:  I think the – what the Secretary was speaking to was quite obvious, in that this is a situation that remains dynamic, and we do not yet know how it will end.

QUESTION:  How does the Secretary envision the last act?

MR MILLER:  The Secretary envisions the final act as Russia withdrawing its forces from Ukraine; and if not, Ukraine being victorious on the battlefield.  Beyond that, I wouldn’t want to speculate.

QUESTION:   There are media reports that the Biden administration had intelligence about the mutiny rebellion, how you call it, since mid-June.  Is that correct?  And also, if that’s true, why didn’t the administration issue any warnings to its citizens inside Russia since mid-June?

MR MILLER:  So, a few things.  Number one, I’m not going to speak to any intelligence matters, as I never do from this podium.  I will say you didn’t exactly need a classified briefing to know that there were tensions between Yevgeniy Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of defence.  He’s been quite open about those, and those tensions have been escalating in plain sight for anyone for the last several months.

I will say with respect to American citizens in Russia, separate and apart from this matter we have been quite clear for some time that any American citizens considering travel to Russia should not do so, and any American citizens who are in Russia should depart immediately.

QUESTION:  There’s some reporting that Israel’s hopes of getting on the visa waiver scheme, that there will be a pilot project next month that will involve Palestinian Americans being able to fly into Ben Gurion.  Can you tell us whether that’s – is that something that’s happening?  If – and I guess if it’s – by the terms of the Visa Waiver Program, isn’t it sort of pretty simple what the Israelis need to do in terms of – they basically need to allow – to treat Palestinian Americans in the same way as they treat other Americans.  Why do you need a pilot project to see if they are capable of doing that?

MR MILLER:  So, I won’t speak specifically with the report – with respect to the reports of a pilot program.  I will say we do believe that steps in the bilateral relationship that would be beneficial to U.S. and Israeli citizens are something we support.  That would include working with Israel towards fulfilling – towards Israel fulfilling all the requirements of the Visa Waiver Program.  We continue to work with them on this, and to the point of your question:  yes, that includes extending reciprocal privileges to all U.S. citizens and nationals, including Palestinian Americans, to travel to and through Israel.  And that includes Americans on the Palestinian population registry.  So yes, I don’t have anything to announce with respect to a pilot program, but the requirements of the Visa Waiver Program are quite clear.

QUESTION:  A quick question about Ukraine’s accession to NATO, especially given what President Zelenskyy has said about not seeing a value in going to Vilnius if he’s not going to see some progress towards that.

MR MILLER:  I will say this is —

QUESTION:  What is – I guess I should ask what the U.S. – has there been any evolution of the U.S. position?

MR MILLER:  I will say that we are focused on NATO unity.  As you know well, that NATO – NATO accession is a – requires a unanimous vote by all NATO members.  So, we are in conversations with our allies within NATO.  Secretary Blinken discussed this in detail with NATO foreign ministers in Oslo a couple of weeks ago.  And we do expect that there will be a significant package of political and practical support for NATO coming out of Vilnius, but I wouldn’t want to make any statements today that would get ahead of what ultimately will be a leader-level gathering next – later this month.

QUESTION:  Two weeks from —

MR MILLER:  Next month, next month.  Trying to figure out what date it was today.

QUESTION:  And what about Hungary’s opposition to Sweden?

MR MILLER:  The same message applies to Hungary with respect to – that I said a minute ago with respect to Türkiye, which is we believe it is time for Sweden’s accession to be finalized.

Alex, go ahead.

QUESTION:  You said that —

MR MILLER:  Just let me – okay, go ahead.  Go ahead, Said, then I’ll come to you, Alex.

QUESTION:  Thank you.  You said that wherever they have left a great deal of death and destruction in their wake.  Do you like to see them disbanded, the Wagner Group – would you like to see them disbanded?

MR MILLER:  We would love to see Wagner Group continue to not exist.

QUESTION:  Okay —

MR MILLER:  I think the implication of your question, though —

QUESTION:  I mean, they exist, so

QUESTION:  I’m sorry – yeah, that was — that was especially poorly said.  I’ve poorly said a number of things.  We would like to see Wagner not exist.

QUESTION:  You’d like to see them disbanded, right?

MR MILLER:  Yes.  However, I think that the further implication of your question that’s been raised by events over the weekend is a Wagner by a different name is still Wagner.  So yes, we would obviously —

QUESTION:  So basically, you —

MR MILLER:  We would obviously like to see Wagner disbanded, and the activities that Wagner has conducted in Ukraine and around the world cease to exist.

QUESTION:  And not morph into something else?

MR MILLER:  Correct.  Correct.

QUESTION:  Okay.  So how do you classify them?  Are they like the Foreign Legion – I mean, for the lack of a better comparison, the French Foreign Legion?  What are they like?

MR MILLER:  They are – I don’t want to try to put an exact name on it from the podium other than to say they are an organization, as I said earlier, that has left death and destruction wherever they have operated.

Alex, go ahead.

QUESTION:  Thanks, Matt.  I have two questions on South Caucasus.  But before that, what you just said is important on Wagner:  that you don’t want to see them exist.  Is there anything you’re going to do between now and the next couple of weeks to help this happen faster —

MR MILLER:  Well, we can —

QUESTION:  — such as designating them as terrorist group?

MR MILLER:  So, I wouldn’t want to preview any actions that we might take other than to say we have taken another – a number of actions to impose accountability on Wagner in the past, and we won’t hesitate to continue to do so when it’s appropriate.

QUESTION:  Thank you.  On South Caucasus.

MR MILLER:  Yes.

QUESTION:  Foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia are headed to Washington to meet with the Secretary and to discuss what the Secretary described last time as last mile of the marathon.  I was just wondering if you have any clear instructions or directions on it.  I’m not saying plan.  Directions —

MR MILLER:  If we have any clear what?

QUESTION:  To discuss the last mile of the marathon.  Any clear instructions or any directions for them as they gather this week in Washington?

MR MILLER:  So, we certainly have a number of items we want to discuss.  I’m not going to read those out publicly, obviously.  They’re very sensitive diplomatic discussions that will take place here.  We expect the talks will commence tomorrow, on Tuesday, continue through Thursday of this week.  Secretary Blinken will meet with the foreign ministers from both Azerbaijan and Armenia.  We’ll have more details as the week progresses.

We continue to believe that peace is within reach and direct dialogue is the key to resolving the remaining issues and reaching a durable and dignified peace.

QUESTION:  Excellent.  Last question on Georgia.  Ambassador O’Brien is headed to Tbilisi tomorrow, along with his European and British colleagues, to discuss sanctions.  The administration recently voiced its concern about Georgia helping Russia, along with other countries – to skirt sanctions.  The question is why now, and what tools do you have in your toolkit as these negotiations, this process starting as of tomorrow?

MR MILLER:  I don’t want to speak to those discussions in detail other than to say that we have concerns with any country that would seek to evade the sanctions that we have imposed on Russia – the sanctions and other measures that we’ve imposed on Russia.  And we constantly look at ways that we can either tighten sanctions or crack down on any individuals or entities that try to avoid them.  But it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to speak to those in detail.

QUESTION:  Iraqi electricity ministry, they told the state media that Iraq has paid off all the debts for gas imports from Iran, which – about 11 trillion Iraqi dinar.  How do you give Iraq a green light to pay all of this money to Iran?  And were there any negotiation or a mini-deal between the U.S. and Iran to this matter?

MR MILLER:  I will just say there has been no change in our policy towards Iran or Iraq.  The Biden Administration continues to implement all U.S. sanctions on Iran.  Since 2018 the Department of State has provided a number of waivers – you’ve heard me speak to these in the past – in consultation with Congress that allow Iraq to pay for electricity imports from Iran, by transferring funds into a restricted account in Iraq.  Consistent with U.S. sanctions, these funds can only be accessed for humanitarian and other non-sanctionable transactions.  The money only goes to approved third parties.  They are not transferred to Iran directly, and we the United States continue to approve transactions for the use of funds on a case-by-case basis.

QUESTION:  And last question.  Russia is filling the gap in Türkiye of KRG oil export stoppage – source with the access to the port that says that Türkiye has imported around 1.7 million tons of the Russian products in May.  That’s about 400K barrels per day – and up more than 20 percent from April and doubled from previous year, May 2022.  What is your reaction and comment on this exporting Russian products to Türkiye?  And you have engaged with Türkiye about the KRG oil stoppage – what their reason and what’s their justification to not let the resumption of the KRG oil —

MR MILLER:  I will say that we’re not going to discuss our private diplomatic discussions with our partners, but we have been clear on our position and our support for the resumption of oil exports from northern Iraq.  We’re glad to see that officials from Iraq and Türkiye met on June 19th to discuss a resumption of ITP operations, and we’ll continue to urge progress.

Matt.  And then I’ll come to you.

QUESTION:  Yeah, I want to go – well, before I get to my question to – so I thought it wasn’t required that you had to say “Türkiye.”  I thought you could still say “Turkey.”  No?

MR MILLER:  I think I – I think we allow people to make their own decisions.

QUESTION:  Prigozhin is, as you well know, still under indictment by the Mueller – the Mueller probe for what happened during 2016, the election.  Are there any efforts to arrest him?

MR MILLER:  Well, we don’t have an extradition treaty with Russia or Belarus.  I’m not going to speak to law enforcement matters.  But certainly, I would expect that were he to appear in a country with which we have an extradition treaty, we would seek to enforce our indictments.

All right.  End it there.  Thanks, everyone.

QUESTION:  Thank you.

QUESTION:  Thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:33 p.m.)

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