يجب أن يستمر الضغط على البيت الأبيض لإلغاء زيارة نافع لواشنطون

Patrick Ventrell
Acting Deputy Spokesperson
Daily Press Briefing
Washington DC
May 3, 2013

1:27 p.m. EDT

MR. VENTRELL: Okay. Good afternoon, everybody, and happy Friday indeed. I have a few things for you at the top, and sorry for the delay. One of the things we just – I apologize for this delay, even on the two minutes. But let me go ahead here. As you’ll just be seeing now, Secretary Kerry just made an announcement about our new Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. So you’ll all be getting this – it has just been released moments ago. But in it, the Secretary says that --

On Sudan:


QUESTION: On Sudan, you took a question earlier this week regarding a letter from Congressman Wolf expressing his objection over the Obama Administration’s invitation of the Sudanese presidential advisor, Nafie Ali Nafie.

MR. VENTRELL: Yeah.

QUESTION: Can you confirm receipt of that letter?

MR. VENTRELL: So we have seen the letter from Congressman Wolf. We’re aware of the allegation, and we’re not under any illusions about this delegation or any of the other senior leaders of the regime. However, we believe that engagements with this delegation can advance our policy goals in Sudan, and if we don’t make our arguments directly to the Sudanese, who influence and direct their country’s policy, our ability to affect change will be limited. So this engagement can set the stage for a continuing dialogue on a peaceful, sustainable resolution to the conflicts and governance issues throughout Sudan.

QUESTION: So you’re under no illusion about Mr. Nafie Ali Nafie, but nonetheless he is still invited to come to the United States as part of that delegation.

MR. VENTRELL: And again, we agreed to receive the delegation. They expressed an interest in meeting, and we’ve invited the delegation to travel to Washington following their initial expression of interest.

QUESTION: Is there any (inaudible) of why he’s being denied a visa?

QUESTION: Does that hold more broadly?

MR. VENTRELL: To what?

QUESTION: Well, if you – your justification of this is that if you don’t have – if you don’t talk with people you disagree with then how are you ever going to make your point? So why don’t you go – why don’t you send someone to Pyongyang now?

MR. VENTRELL: I mean again --

QUESTION: Why don’t you send someone to Tehran now?

MR. VENTRELL: A lot of these are based on the individual context, and we think at this time that this is the appropriate move to have this kind of engagement in this particular situation.

QUESTION: Is there any reason why the U.S. would be comfortable issuing a visa to Mr. Nafie? I mean, doesn’t that erode the U.S. credibility by doing so? Why can’t you say to the Sudanese, “Yes, you can send a delegation, but you need to send someone else”?

MR. VENTRELL: We adjudicate visas based on applicable visa law. I don’t have any information on this specific case or specific allegations, but we certainly adjudicate all the visas based on the law.

QUESTION: Certainly, human rights groups that advocate for better conditions in Sudan and along the border with South Sudan are quite dismayed that the U.S. may, in essence, raise -- remove all of its pressure on the Bashir government by allowing Mr. Nafie to come in.

MR. VENTRELL: We’re – look, we’re under no illusions about a specific individual or the leadership of the regime as a whole. But we are going to pursue this engagement.

QUESTION: If he were to be allowed to come in, would there be restrictions on where he could travel while he’s here in the United States?

MR. VENTRELL: That’s sort of a hypothetical. I’d – we’re not there yet.

QUESTION: But there’s a long history of other officials being allowed to come to the U.S., at least to a port of entry for very specific reasons, and having their travel circumscribed. The late Qadhafi, Ahmadinejad --

MR. VENTRELL: There are a lot of different circumstances in terms of visa restrictions. Some of them are for the UN, some of them are, in specific cases, based on reciprocity and other issues. But I don’t have anything for you on this specific case.