State Department Noon Briefing

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2000 12:40 P.M. (ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE
NOTED)

Q: Have you seen the report about the Kuwaiti Government announcement
on the arrest of three suspects wanted for planning a terrorist
attack?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I've seen the Kuwaiti Government
announcement yet. We certainly have ongoing and excellent cooperation
with the Kuwaiti Government about possible threats to the United
States, threats to Kuwait, threats to others in the region. This is an
active cooperation that we have established in recent years with all
the governments of the region in dealing with threats to all of us. So
we certainly have active cooperation with Kuwait. We are discussing
these particular arrests with the Government of Kuwait, but I don't
really have any more detail for you at this stage.

Q: Have you increased the security at the US Embassy and Embassy
employees in Kuwait?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think we actually - in our form of maintaining
security, we don't actually handle things that way. We make sure that
Embassies are at a high state of vigilance all the time. As you know,
we had an announcement a week or two ago, maybe two weeks ago, that
went public that mirrored what we have advised our people internally,
that there was a threat of terrorist attack in a broader region. I
think it was the Persian Gulf, Arabia and Turkey.

This kind of reported arrest of suspects and people that might have
been planning or working on such a thing I think confirms the warning
that we issued, and during this time we have maintained a very high
state of vigilance.

Q: Before you said we were discussing these particular arrests with
the Government of Kuwait. Now you just said this kind of reported
arrest. Have the Kuwaitis actually told you guys that these arrests
have been made?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know quite at what stage we are in this, whether
I can confirm that they have confirmed to us. I haven't seen their
public statement. I don't have the response back yet from the Kuwaiti
side, but we understand they have made these arrests and we are
talking to them about them.

Q: So we don't need to say that you said it was a reported arrest?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, you can because I said that, but that's not as
significant --

Q: But we don't have to. (Laughter.)

MR. BOUCHER: You don't have to.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:20 P.M.)