Transatlantic Focus:
A U.S. Foreign Policy Newsletter

IRAN

Rice Calls for Security Council To Take Up Iranian Nuclear Issue U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined her European counterparts January 12 in calling for a referral of the Iranian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council. Iran’s decision to remove the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) seals from its nuclear research facilities “demonstrates that it has chosen confrontation with the international community over cooperation and negotiation,” Rice said. “We agree that the Iranian regime's defiant resumption of uranium enrichment work leaves the EU with no choice but to request an emergency meeting of the IAEA board of governors. That meeting would be to report Iran's noncompliance with its safeguards obligations to the U.N. Security Council,” she said. more

Rumsfeld Says Unconventional Enemies Seek Powerful Weapons Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says military and civilian leaders share “a great sense of urgency” as they confront enemies who seek increasingly powerful weapons as part of their arsenal of terrorism. Recognizing the difficulty of trying to defend “against every conceivable type of asymmetric attack” around the world -- 24 hours a day -- requires the complete cooperation of many nations, he told reporters at a Pentagon news conference January 12. That full cooperation is needed “for us to do almost anything in this global war on terror, effectively,” the secretary said, including working to close the bank accounts terrorists need to fund their operations. more

U.S. Sanctions Nine Companies Under Iran Nonproliferation Act The United States has imposed sanctions on nine companies -- six in China, two in India, and one in Austria -- for selling materials to Iran that can be used in the production of missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD), State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. Ereli said the Bush administration imposed the sanctions on the basis of "credible information" that the companies had transferred equipment or technology in violation of the Iran Nonproliferation Act. more

Sanctions on North Korean Companies Unrelated to Six-Party Talks U.S. sanctions on eight North Korean companies for alleged weapons proliferation and one Macau-based bank for alleged money laundering and other illegal activities on North Korea’s behalf are a separate issue from the ongoing multilateral talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, says State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. "At the end of the last round of talks all the parties agreed to return to the Six-Party Talks as soon as possible," McCormack said at a January 3 press briefing. He added that the United States looks forward to the resumption of talks. more

TRANS-ATLANTIC AGENDA

State's Burns Outlines U.S. Trans-Atlantic Agenda for 2006 R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs, says the U.S. agenda for the trans-Atlantic relationship in 2006 is to broaden NATO’s mandate and extend its global reach; to advance democracy in Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia; and to cooperate with Europe in every region of the world through political, economic and security partnerships. more

KOSOVO STATUS TALKS

U.N. Envoy Predicts Kosovo Status Talks Will Conclude in 2006 The United Nations envoy to Kosovo says 2006 likely will prove crucial in determining whether the province gains independence from Serbia, and a former senior U.S. diplomat says the decision would help stabilize the entire Balkans region. “We are at the end of one momentous year for Kosovo and the beginning of another,” Soren Jessen-Peterson, the U.N.’s special representative to Kosovo, said in a New Year’s message. With the opening of U.N.-mediated talks on the final status of Kosovo, “the coming year will more likely see the end of that process,” Jessen-Peterson said. more

UKRAINE / CENTRAL ASIA

Central Asia Now ‘Arc of Opportunity,' Not ‘Crisis,' Rice Says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says South Asia and Central Asia are high on her list of global priorities, and the State Department is adjusting its bureaus so that the same teams of experts and diplomats are focused on both regions. “One of the things that we did in the State Department was to move the Central Asian republics out of the European bureau, which really was an artifact of their having been states of the Soviet Union, and to move them into the bureau that is South Asia, which has Afghanistan, India and Pakistan,” Rice said January 5. more

U.S. Regrets Russia's Decision To Cut Off Gas Supplies to Ukraine The United States regrets Russia's decision to cut off gas from its sources to the Ukraine, the State Department announced in a January 1 statement. "Such an abrupt step creates insecurity in the energy sector in the region and raises serious questions about the use of energy to exert political pressure," the statement says. more

Transatlantic Focus: A U.S. Foreign Policy Newsletter
is published and distributed by the Public Affairs Section of the United States Mission to NATO - Brussels.