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.)