Index

State Department Noon Briefing, October 26

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
BRIEFER:  PHILIP T. REEKER, DEPUTY SPOKESMAN
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2000  1:30 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)




Q: There have been rumors in Yemen that the US is going to draw down
on the number of Embassy people that are there, and that the
Ambassador may be called back to Washington. Could you clarify that,
please?


MR. REEKER: I am not aware of those rumors and I don't have any
particular information on the Embassy making any steps to draw down.
The Embassy is not closed. We can talk about other embassy closures if
you want to go through that, but I don't have anything specific to our
Embassy in Yemen.


Q: And one more question. Can you say whether, at the time of the
explosion of the Cole in the harbor in Aden, whether the US Embassy in
Sanaa was on a heightened state of alert?


MR. REEKER: I think, as we have talked about previously, we had no
specific information in advance of the attack on the Cole. At all of
our embassies, particularly our embassies in the region, security
personnel continually review and adjust the security posture.


But I think as we have discussed before, certainly since the tragic
bombings of the embassies in East Africa in August of 1998, we have
been significantly ramped up in terms of our security posture around
the world, and certainly in those areas where we are aware of threats.
But again, there was no specific information in advance of the attack
on the Cole, and our security personnel at all of our embassies,
including our Embassy in Sanaa, continuously review and adjust the
security posture accordingly.


Q: Can you talk a little bit about whether or not there are any other
changes, like the ones that Betsy talked about, as far as closing down
an embassy or drawing down personnel in that part of the world, due to
these threats?


MR. REEKER: Right. As I promised - we always promise - I tried to
review completely today missions closed, and let me just run through
what we have. Obviously, based on the situation in Abidjan, Cote
d'Ivoire, they are providing emergency services only at the Embassy,
while our staff are clearly working, reporting to us on the situation
there.


Contrary to a reference made yesterday, our Consulate in Adana,
Turkey, is not closed. Our Consulate in Krakow, Poland, did close
today for a day, and in Vienna our Embassy is closed for a local
holiday. In Jakarta, as we discussed earlier and announced, the
Embassy is closed today and tomorrow, following yesterday's Indonesian
holiday there. And shifting completely to another hemisphere, Port of
Spain, Trinidad and Georgetown, Guinea, are both closed for local
holidays. But to the information I was able to gather up to this
moment, there are no embassies or missions, US missions, closed in the
Middle East region at this time.


Q:  Why Krakow?



MR. REEKER: I don't have any details on that, Barry, just that they
closed the Consulate today only. Today, Thursday, the Consulate in
Krakow was closed.


Q: I want to go back on Jakarta, which I know was closed Wednesday
because of a holiday, and I know you - we've been told that it would
be closed Thursday and Friday as well. But is the closure Thursday and
Friday related - would you tell me why it was also closed Thursday
and Friday?


MR. REEKER: As we announced I guess a couple days ago and in response
to credible information of a threat to the Embassy compound,
Ambassador Gelbard and the team out there at Embassy Jakarta decided
to close the Embassy's public services for the remainder of the week
following the Wednesday holiday, when obviously they would have been
closed anyway. Operations of a public nature are suspended for today
and tomorrow there, and a message to the American community, what we
call a "warden message," was sent out informing local Americans of
that development.


Q: Are you tying this threat to the Embassy compound to events in the
Middle East, or is it something related to Indonesia specifically?


MR. REEKER: No, I think if you look at the Worldwide Caution that we
have had in place since October the 12th, that suggests that US
Government facilities have and will continue to temporarily close or
suspend public services or certain public services as necessary. And
that is what the Embassy in Jakarta cited. They had some credible
threats there to the Embassy compound. I am not making any particular
ties to anything else, but that does fall under the Worldwide Caution,
and as we said, there may be facilities that do determine to suspend
certain operations or close.


Q: Earlier this week, when Doha was closed for three days and opened
on Tuesday, you said it was open, despite the fact that public
services were not taking place. But now that you say that Jakarta is
closed, and it's just that public services aren't taking place, is
there any difference between those two?


MR. REEKER: Well, let me qualify it. They have closed the Embassy's
public services. Embassy Jakarta is an open Embassy, but they
determined to close the public services, so there are no public
services. It gets into, I guess, a semantic difference on what's
closed or open. For the purposes of the public, the Embassy is closed
these days. There may be some of our officials, some of our diplomats,
conducting work there. That is all determined by the Chief of Mission.


Q: How is that different from Doha on Tuesday, then, because you said
that that was open but no public services?


MR. REEKER: I think that's probably very similar, then, to that, and
Doha at that point chose to suspend public services. It is just very
difficult to try to splice each mission's specific determination of
what they will or will not offer on a given day, as they adjust
security posture or make judgments on how open they should be or what
activities they will conduct.


Q: I was just trying to clarify for consistency's sake what we call
open and what we call closed.


MR. REEKER: I think, broadly, an Embassy is open that is functioning
and exists in a place. We'll try to get our nomenclature more precise
to refer to closures or suspension of certain public services. But
that's why each day I'm happy to try to go through what is happening
in different places. I mean, I referred, for instance, to Krakow being
closed. Obviously, they haven't closed that post - our Consulate
General in Krakow, Poland - but it was closed, as you might say, the
"Open" sign was not on the door today.

....

Q: Back on Yemen for a minute. The report of a threat against the
hotel where some of the FBI investigators have been staying - is it
still the case that the Government feels that the Yemeni authorities
are cooperating as fully as they can in this investigation?


MR. REEKER: I think the investigation - and you may be able to get
some more details from my colleagues at the Pentagon, who will be
briefing shortly - the investigation into the USS Cole explosion is
continuing, and as you know, while it's under way, we are all not
commenting on any particular reports or speculating on responsibility
or details.


We have had cooperation from the Yemenis. We have talked about that.
We have had very good cooperation from Yemen. President Salih pledged
to President Clinton and to Secretary Albright - I think we discussed
that in the past weeks - and to other US officials that Yemen would
offer all needed cooperation, and they have done that. So we expect
the government to continue to abide by President Salih's pledge
because, as we have said, Yemeni cooperation is critical to seeing
this investigation through to its successful conclusion there.




(The briefing was concluded at 2:10 P.M.)