U.S. State Department Briefing
June 9, 2005
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack briefed the press on
the following issues: Rice/ElBaradei meeting, U.S. cooperation with
IAEA, democracy, Henrietta Holsman Fore/nomination, Iran, North
Korea, Uzbekistan, Serbia, Mexico, Ethiopia.
Following is the transcript of the State Department briefing:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing Index
Thursday, June 9, 2005
1:10 p.m. EDT
Briefer: Sean McCormack, Spokesman
DEPARTMENT
— Secretary Rice’s Meeting with Director General Dr. Mohamed
ElBaradei/Nonproliferation Treaty Compliance/Additional Protocols for
Verification
— U.S. Cooperation with IAEA/Consensus on ElBaradei Continuing as
Director General
— Spread of Democracy/Struggle of a Generation
— Support for Henrietta Holsman Fore as Nominee for Assistant
Secretary of Management
[parts deleted]
QUESTION: Did you see the story about the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia
concerning his remarks on genocide in Armenia and the fallout from
that?
MR. MCCORMACK: Is this the Washington Post story?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MR. MCCORMACK: I did see the news story. The story centered on an
award that was going to be given by the American Foreign Service
Association, which is an entity independent of the State Department.
And I understand that, based on their own assessments, their own
evaluation of the facts against the criteria that they used to decide
on granting this award, they decided not to issue the award.
That’s just my reading. That’s my reading of the news stories. I
would refer you over to AFSA for any further description of why they
took the action that they did.
QUESTION: But does the State Department have a position on what
happened in 1915? Did it constitute genocide or not?
MR. MCCORMACK: George, let me put that out for you after the
briefing.