By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: February 1, 2008 Filed at 3:21 a.m. ET
Incidents of U.S. diplomats straying from official foreign policy lines, prompting rebukes from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides:
NORTH KOREA
Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, gave a Jan. 17 speech in Washington in which he trashed the six-nation negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs. Rice responded with an unusually blunt and sharp disavowal of the comments, saying Lefkowitz ''has nothing to do with the six-party talks.''
IRAN
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad violated administration policy on contact with Iranian officials by appearing onstage Jan. 26 with Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at a World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The State Department said Khalilzad did not seek permission to participate.
KENYA VIOLENCE
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer described postelection violence in Kenya as ''ethnic cleansing'' while speaking to reporters on Jan. 30 at an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack distanced the administration from the emotionally charged phrase, refusing to repeat it and saying it was too soon to characterize the situation in such terms.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: February 1, 2008 Filed at 6:36 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- More and more, top government diplomats are straying from official Bush foreign policy as the administration wanes, leaving Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice struggling to keep them in check.
Twice just this week, Rice and her aides had to rebuke, disavow or otherwise try to explain away public words or actions by three top officials on delicate affairs ranging from North Korea and Iran to the violence in Kenya.
The trouble began on Jan. 17, when Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for human rights in North Korea, delivered a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think-tank in which he trashed the six-nation talks aimed at persuading the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons program.
Then the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, violated Washington's long-standing policy on contact with officials from the Islamic government of Iran by showing up on a stage in Switzerland with the Iranian foreign minister. And the top U.S. envoy for Africa used the emotionally and politically charged phrase ''ethnic cleansing'' to describe the postelection violence in Kenya.
Whether or not any of those incidents will have lasting implications, the gaffes and lapses on sensitive diplomatic matters have been embarrassing for an administration that attaches great importance to being ''on message.''
First, Lefkowitz said he believed North Korea would still have nuclear weapons when President Bush leaves office. ''After four years of six-party talks,'' he declared, ''it makes sense to review the assumptions upon which previous policy was built and make sure they are still valid today.''
The administration has attached great importance to the process he was questioning. Lefkowitz, a New York lawyer with close White House ties, earned an unusually sharp slapdown from Rice for his speech, which many suspect was a calculated attempt by hawks to derail what they see as appeasing North Korea.
''Jay Lefkowitz has nothing to do with the six-party talks,'' Rice told reporters. ''He's the human rights envoy. That's what he knows. That's what he does. He doesn't work on the six-party talks. He doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks and he certainly has no say in what American policy will be in the six-party talks.''
Rice added that she did not think Lefkowitz's remarks would complicate U.S. efforts with its negotiating partners -- China, Japan, Russia and South Korea -- or with North Korea, saying: ''I would doubt very seriously that they would recognize (his) name.''
Yet, even with the transcript of Lefkowitz's address removed from the State Department's official Web site, the North Koreans did notice.
On Monday, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency, which once described the hawkish former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, as ''the scum of the earth,'' said, ''Lefkowitz was impudent enough to poke his nose into the nuclear issue, only to bring shame to himself.''
Carelessness or lack of discipline were the main factors in the two latest diplomatic blunders.
Unbeknownst to higher-ups in Washington, Khalilzad accepted a last-minute invitation on Jan. 26 to participate in a discussion on ''Understanding Iran's Foreign Policy'' at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And he sat next to Manouchehr Mottaki, foreign minister of the nation that the administration has accused of trying to develop nuclear weapons under cover of an atomic energy program.
While Khalilzad said nothing that differed from the administration's hard line on Iran, his mere presence on stage with the Iranian was enough to cause palpitations in Washington. Officials claimed they learned of his participation only after video of the event was posted on YouTube.
The administration has strict rules regarding contact with Iran that allow only a small number of very senior officials to meet with Iranian representatives and then only with permission from Washington. In social settings, U.S. diplomats are instructed to be polite but not to engage in any substantive discussions with Iranian officials.
''There wasn't any permission in advance,'' State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Wednesday when asked about Khalilzad's appearance with Mottaki, which the spokesman insisted did not signal any shift in policy.
''We haven't done these sorts of things in the past and I don't expect we will (in the future), absent some agreement from the Iranians that they are going to suspend their nuclear enrichment and reprocessing related activities,'' McCormack said.
McCormack was also busy this week trying to tamp down possible repercussions from comments made Wednesday by the top U.S. envoy for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She had spoken of ''ethnic cleansing'' in Kenyan violence.
He took great pains to distance the administration from the term, refusing to repeat the words ''ethnic cleansing,'' which many regard as a precursor to ''genocide,'' in reference to the violence in Kenya that has claimed more than 800 lives and displaced tens of thousands in the past three weeks.
McCormack acknowledged that the situation in Kenya was of great concern and said some violent incidents and displacements appeared to be driven by ethnicity, but he also said it was too early to characterize the situation in such terms. He indicated that Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, had been speaking for herself.
''She made some comments based on her firsthand assessment from a trip several weeks ago,'' McCormack told reporters. Asked if the Bush administration shared Frazer's assessment, he replied: ''She said what she said. I am going to stick to what I said.''
------
On the Net:
Video of Lefkowitz at the American Enterprise Institute:
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: February 1, 2008 Filed at 1:47 a.m. ET
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea has completed eight of the 11 measures required to disable nuclear facilities under an international disarmament deal, South Korea's chief nuclear envoy said Friday.
North Korea has made progress in disabling its main plutonium-producing facilities but failed to complete the work by an end-of-2007 deadline because of technical reasons, Chun Yung-woo told a forum, according to organizers.
Chun and other diplomats have said removing fuel rods from the reactor would take several months and the entire disablement work is expected to be completed by March.
North Korea began disabling its nuclear complex in November, in the biggest step the communist nation has taken to scale back its atomic programs.
However, the disarmament procedures have stalled because of a dispute over whether the North missed a Dec. 31 deadline to give a full accounting of its nuclear programs. North Korea has said it already provided the U.S. with a declaration in November, but the U.S. said it was incomplete.
The State Department's top Korea expert, Sung Kim, flew to North Korea on Thursday in an attempt to resolve the impasse. There, he met Foreign Ministry officials and was expected to meet other officials before returning Monday to Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
''No party is ready to rock the boat over the declaration,'' Chun said in prepared comments. ''It may take some time to work out the difference.''
He said a roadmap for North Korea's eventual dismantling of its nuclear programs should be formulated by the end of June, after the current declaration dispute is over, according to the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, which organized the forum.
Chun also suggested that a U.S.-initiated program used in the deactivation of some of the former Soviet Union's nuclear weapons could also be applied to the North Korean nuclear issue.
Under the plan, called the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the U.S. has provided financial support, equipment and technicians to help the former Soviet Union deactivate nuclear warheads, destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles and chop up nuclear submarines.
Chun stressed the need to redirect nuclear scientists in North Korea to new jobs that would allow them to turn their expertise to the peaceful use of atomic technology. Chun said there are about 5,000 nuclear scientists in North Korea, according to some estimates.
