Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O’Brien And Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Yuri Kim Previewing Secretary Blinken’s Upcoming Travel to Albania and Germany

James O'Brien, Assistant Secretary Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs

Yuri Kim, Principal Deputy Assistant SecretaryBureau of European and Eurasian Affairs

Via Teleconference

MR PATEL:  Hey.  Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks so much for joining us and appreciate everyone’s flexibility on the last-minute time change.  Just a quick – a few ground rules at the top.  This call is going to be on the record but embargoed until the call’s conclusion.  We, of course, will have some time for questions at the end, but wanted to give a quick introduction of our speakers.

Joining us today is Assistant Secretary Jim O’Brien and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Yuri Kim.  They will talk through the Secretary’s visit to Albania as well as the Munich Security Conference.  So Ambassador Kim, why don’t I kick it over to you first?

AMBASSADOR KIM:  Okay, great.  Thanks very much for the opportunity.  So as everybody knows, we’re going to be taking off tomorrow for a two-stop trip in Europe.  The first stop is going to be essentially a day stop in Albania that’ll run from about 11:00 until about 7:00 or 8:00 in the evening.  And this is really a stop that is going to focus on the future, the future of Albania, the future of the Western Balkans, where you may recall that Assistant Secretary Jim O’Brien recently was there was to talk about Bosnia-Herzegovina, but in any case, the future of the Western Balkans and the future of Europe.

In all of this, the visit comes as we’re kicking off the second 100 years of U.S.-Albania relations.  It comes at a time when we want to go and thank Prime Minister Rama and Albania for being our co-penholder on the UN Security Council from .  They’re now on the Human Rights Council.  We want to emphasize and highlight the great cooperation that we have with Albania, we want to thank them for having been a main host of Afghans in need, with the Albanians continuing their historic tradition of giving refuge to those who are in the way of harm – in harm’s way.  So that’s what we want to do.

There are a few events here.  It’s a pretty tight schedule.  So he’ll go and he’ll meet with the President Begaj, and then he’ll have a meeting with the prime minister.  This is not necessarily in chronological order, by the way.  But he’ll have a bilateral meeting with the prime minister, at the tail end of which he’ll have a joint press avail.

In between that, though, somewhere along the line, he’s going to have a lovely encounter with young people, probably about 100 or so folks, and it’s noteworthy for a couple of reasons.  First is that it’s about 100 people who have gone through our various exchange programs, like the Fulbright or the IVLP and any number of other programs.  And the venue for that event is going to be the pyramid.

This used to be – I think many of you are familiar with Albania’s reputation during the bad old communist days as the North Korea of Europe, a severely isolated and repressive regime.  The pyramid was built during the ’80s as a mausoleum to their dictator Enver Hoxha, and it’s kind of gone through several incarnations since the collapse of communism in 1991.  But a couple of years ago, the city of Tirana and the Albanian-American Development Foundation joined hands to remake the pyramid into essentially an incubator for innovation and tech.

So I think it’s as lovely idea.  It’s also a building that was designed by – I think it was Dutch designers.  But it’s quite interesting, and we’re looking forward to taking a look at this facility that’s just been opened a few months ago.

Let me stop there.

MR PATEL:  Great.  Let’s now pass it over to Assistant Secretary O’Brien.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Thanks, Vedant, and thanks, Yuri.  I’ll just say a few words.  So the Secretary will spend Friday and Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.  It’s a venue that brings together leaders from across the European and Eurasian land mass, but also from around the globe, so it’s a convenient spot to address a number of issues.

The delegation – U.S. delegation is being led by Vice President Harris.  The Secretary and the Vice President will have some work together, and – as well as she will deliver a keynote address in the conference as well.

Throughout his meetings he’s going to be highlighting four themes.  One is support for Ukraine – so he will pivot off today’s move from the – by the Senate on the supplemental bill, but also address how our coalition can continue to make this war even more a strategic failure for Russia, but also help Ukraine succeed.

The second theme will be addressing the Middle East.  So he’ll reaffirm U.S. support for Israel’s right to respond to terrorist attacks, and also talk about how the situation in Gaza can be ameliorated, and in particular taking all possible steps to protect civilians and to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance, taking into account the discussions that are ongoing about releasing hostages and a potential pause in the fighting.

The third theme is to talk about the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.  And given the global participants at the conference, this will be a good opportunity to drive that message home.

And the final theme will be to discuss the importance of cooperation in international institutions and with states from around the world.  One event that will highlight this theme will be a public forum that’s on multilateralism with the Indian minister of external affairs and the German foreign minister.  So for our German journalist guests, this will be one public manifestation of why we think this is not only a good conference, but it is very good that it be held in Germany with one of our primary global partners, the German Government.

With that, Vedant, why don’t I turn it back over to you and we can address questions that may come up.

MR PATEL:  Great, thanks so much.  Operator, could you please remind folks on instructions to join the question queue?

OPERATOR:  If you would like to ask a question on today’s call, please press 1 then 0.  You may remove yourself from queue at any time by pressing 1 then 0 again.  If you are on a speaker phone, please pick up the handset before pressing the numbers.  Once again, the command to ask a question is 1, then 0.  And one moment please for our first question.

MR PATEL:  Let’s first go to the line of Nick Schifrin from PBS.

QUESTION:  Thanks so much for this.  Jim, one of the obvious questions going into Munich follows the former president’s comments on NATO this weekend.  How will the Secretary reinforce the message that the President has been sending that we are united with Ukraine and that we’re united transatlantically despite the former president’s comments, when the Secretary does not have the supplemental in hand to be able to say the U.S. is putting its money where its mouth is?  Thanks.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Vedant, do you want to take a few, or do you want me just to address that?

MR PATEL:  Sure, go ahead.  Go ahead, Jim.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Okay.  Yeah.  Hey, Nick, sorry – sorry I didn’t get to see you yesterday.  Hope everything’s all right.

QUESTION:  Yeah, sorry about that.  Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  So no, I think people around the world are – understand our domestic process and that the U.S. works through these processes at a time.  So it won’t be a surprise to them that we’re mid-course.  I think they’ll take heart from the size of the vote and from the President’s endorsement of the legislation as it emerged, and that will give us a strong hand there.  A question will be whether the former president is expressing his pride that contributions to defense went up under his time, just as they did for the two administrations surrounding him; or whether he’s expressing skepticism that they should go up.  And I think that’s for him to clarify.  But I think it’s been clear for now 75 years this summer that the U.S. stands by our NATO commitments.  Administrations from both parties of all ideological persuasions have regarded NATO as the bedrock of our security, certainly in Europe but increasingly a global partner.  And I think that’s the answer that they will come to.  So the Secretary can explain this, put it in context, and prepare to then carry back to the U.S. the message of support that we get from our partners.

And I’ll just close with this note.  One point that has been a theme since the end of the Cold War has been that the U.S. needs to do things with others, not alone, without support from others.  In the case of Ukraine, our partners have contributed more in assistance than the U.S. has.  Even on defense cooperation they are providing almost as much as we are, and in total it’s more.  So this is an example of what the U.S. has always wanted, of having our partners with us when we engage in something like this.  And the size and the increases we’re seeing in partners’ commitment to their own defense, particularly in NATO, also illustrates how we’re in this together.  And that’s how they’ll emerge from the Munich conference.

MR PATEL:  Thanks so much.  Let’s next go to the line of Felicia Schwartz with The Financial Times.

QUESTION:  If you could speak to how the West’s assessment of what Russia would do – you had Denmark’s defense minister say recently that Russia could attack a NATO country in as little as three years.  That’s changed since 2022 when the U.S. and other partners were sure that Russia would not attack a NATO country.  So I’m wondering how you can explain that shift.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  I didn’t hear the first part of the question; I apologize.

QUESTION:  No worries.  Recently Denmark’s defense minister said Russia could attack a NATO country in as little as three years, and I’m wondering how – I think we heard from the U.S. and others in 2022, when the war first started, that the assessment was that Russia would not attack a NATO country.  So – anytime soon.  So I’m wondering if you can speak to how this assessment has changed.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  I haven’t seen what the Danish defense minister said, so I don’t know the context of that.  I think we’ve been very clear that the best deterrence comes from preparing our defense.  The collective security aspect of NATO increases the ability of each of its members to defend its territory.  So having a strong NATO, having a NATO where its members increase their investment in their defense, and having the U.S. stand strong along with the collective security element of NATO, we think, is an effective way of keeping Russia from being aggressive.

As far as what Russia will do, I think we just got several hours of President Putin.  And at any time in that fairly friendly interview, he could have said that he had no designs or no interest.  Instead, we got a history lesson on just how far-reaching his interests might be.  But I think it will depend on whether he assesses that there’s an opportunity, and that’s why strong defense of the kind we’ll emphasize this weekend is the best answer.

MR PATEL:  Great, let’s next go to the line of Alex Marquardt with CNN.

QUESTION:  Ambassador, the number two point on your summary there, the – addressing issues in Israel and Gaza, just specifically, where do you – do you think the Secretary is going to be addressing that?  It seems that the two opportunities that we’re going to see him speak publicly in Albania and then in the forum on multilateralism don’t exactly lend themselves to addressing those issues.  So when will he be speaking to that?

And then I don’t – it might be too soon for this, but is there anything that happened today in Cairo in terms of the hostage talks, the talks on a humanitarian pause, that he would hope to build on in meetings and conversations in Munich?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Vedant, do you want to take the question?  So I think the Secretary is going to have a number of meetings in the private part of the conference, and I think that’ll be where we discuss with our partners from the region and from Europe on next steps across the Middle East, the Red Sea, Gaza, and so on.  But Vedant, do you want to take more on that?  And then I’m not going to comment on the discussions in Cairo.

MR PATEL:  Yeah.  Absolutely.  Thanks, Jim.  And just to build on what the ambassador said, we expect the Secretary to have a number of bilateral engagements over the course of the Munich Security Conference.  We’ll of course have more to share on those as the schedules for each day become clearer and clearer.  And we expect in a number of those the Secretary will address and discuss with his counterparts the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Separately, on your second question, Alex, I just don’t have any updates for you.  And again, this call is limited in scope on the upcoming trip.  We just finished the Daily Press Briefing where I believe Spokesperson Miller addressed a number of these things, so would point you back to that.

Let’s next go to the line of Alex Raufoglu with News Agency Turan.

QUESTION:  Hi, Vedant.  Thank you so much for doing this, and I appreciate the speakers for their time.  Quick questions about the Munich leg of the trip and the security conversation.  Is – on Sweden’s NATO accession and Hungary’s opposition to it, is the Secretary planning to get more publicly and more directly involved into this given his history of active engagement on this topic as recently as with the Turks?  Do we know what Hungary’s reason actually is or if they even have any reason?

And my second question about Azerbaijan-Armenia, Munich summits have been a place for engagement recently.  As you know, last year Secretary hosted a trilateral meeting.  Just wondering how much of the latest clashes complicate diplomacy or potential – a path for diplomacy.  And why do you think this is happening now?  Thank you so much.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  I’m sorry, I didn’t get the context of the second question.  I apologize.  I’m at the airport so it’s a little noisy.  I just heard a reference to a trilateral last year, but I’m —

QUESTION:  Right, can you hear me now?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Yes.

QUESTION:  Yes, yes, the question was:  Given the latest clashes between the two countries, how much it complicates the path – potential – for potential diplomacy at the summit?  And why do you think these clashes are happening right now?  Thanks so much again.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Yeah.  So on the first question, I don’t know that we’d characterize it as Hungary opposing.  What Prime Minister Orban has said is that – first he said Hungary would not be the last to ratify Sweden, and we hope it will not be the last for long.  And he said as soon as parliament returns in its regular session, which will be next week, the 26th, it will take up the matter.  He anticipates that they’ll approve Sweden’s membership in NATO.  So we’ll expect to hold them to that, and I think that’s the path that we’re on.

On the latter, I think the tensions now just point to the importance of more diplomacy, but I don’t want to speculate on any particular recent action, so we’ll just continue the path of trying to bring the parties together.

MR PATEL:  Great.  Let’s next go to the line of Michael Birnbaum.

QUESTION:  (Inaudible) so much for doing this.  I appreciate it.  A question about Europe looking at the American political context and Trump’s general attitudes toward defending Europe.  There are a few ideas that flit over the air about kind of setting up a more Europe- based defense system, different kind of fallback plans for how Europe could defend itself better if America were not ultimately coming to its aid.  Do you think those kinds of efforts are useful?  I mean, do you think it’d be better if Europe were in fact able to stand on its own if it ever got there, or do you think that’s actually counterproductive to NATO planning, NATO efforts, and a general kind of ongoing transatlantic bond?  What do you think the Europeans should do when they look at those Trump comments and the U.S. political scene?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  But I think, Michael – and thanks for the question.  I think for us the important point is that our partners should invest in their defense.  That’s the goal between both the top-line measurements – 2 percent of GDP invested in national defense, 20 percent of that on major equipment – but also on NATO’s effort to have a strong regional defense plan that it can actually execute so we know the money is being spent wisely.

The question of exactly how they’d spend that money is something that we discuss within the Alliance and across the partnerships, and I expect certainly at the NATO Summit this summer we’ll have some discussions on how we look at what defense will be needed in the future, and we’ll come out of that a stronger Alliance.  I think that’s independent of daily headlines.

This particular surge in investment in defense is something that started in 2014.  We saw the investment numbers go up immediately after the Wales Summit in 2014, and they continued going up through the Obama administration, across the Trump administration, and they in fact increased even more in the first few years of the Biden administration.  So this is a thing that’s independent of a particular firestorm, but it’s the right thing for an alliance to do.

MR PATEL:  Great, let’s next go to the line of Nadia Bilbassy.

QUESTION:  Hi, thank you for doing this.  A couple of questions.  First, why do you feel the need to send two senior officials to the Munich summit?  You have the Secretary of State, the Vice President.  Apart from that you outlined that she will give a keynote speech, how their roles will be similar or overlap?

And second, on Gaza, if I’m not wrong, I think you said that the Secretary will explain Israel’s right to defend itself and the U.S. position, but there’s never been an agreement with European leaders.  I think they disagree on how the war is executed and the large number of civilian casualties.  So what exactly the message for the Secretary, and why do you feel there is a need to keep repeating that Israel has the right to defend itself?  Thank you.

MR PATEL:  Jim, do you want me to – do you want me to take those?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Yeah, why don’t you do that one.  Yeah.

MR PATEL:  First, Nadia, I would say that there are – we expect a number of officials from the U.S. Government to be present at the Munich Security Conference, and their respective departments and offices can – I’m sure would be happy to walk through their specific programming.  From the State Department’s perspective, this is a really important opportunity to meet with counterparts from Europe as well as from other parts of the world to discuss the very important issues at hand.  I expect, of course, that the Secretary will do that, but I fully expect that other American officials will be – will have their own scheduling cadence of bilateral engagements, and it’s important for those to continue at the various levels of governmental representation that we will have at the Munich Security Conference.

On your second point, I take issue with the phrasing of your question.  We believe that there continues to be convergence between us and our European allies on the right for Israel to be able to defend itself and to hold the Hamas terrorists who conducted the October 7th terroristic attacks accountable.  We expect that the Secretary will talk about these things in his bilateral engagements, but as well as talking about the very important matters of ensuring that additional steps be taken to minimize the impact on civilians as well as additional steps be taken to ensure that humanitarian aid can continue to flow into Gaza.

Let’s now go to the line of Humeyra Pamuk with Reuters.

QUESTION:  Hello, can you hear me?

MR PATEL:  Yeah, go ahead.

QUESTION:  Okay, sorry.  Thanks.  I accidentally hung up and came back, so I’m sorry if something like this was asked in – during my absence.  Also, Ambassador Kim must be delighted to be returning, sort of paying a short visit to her previous post, where she was almost a borderline celebrity.  I’m just going to ask about Ukraine.  I wonder what’s going to be your message of support to Ukraine given the supplemental is struggling to pass.  How can you really assure the allies when, because of Congress, the administration is effectively unable to put its money where its mouth is?

And maybe a follow-up to a previous question on Trump:  How are you going to, like, choreograph that message?  How are you going to reinforce when a former president who’s also campaigning is coming out with such strong commentary about NATO and where – when, according to the polls, that there is a decent chance that he might be at the White House this time next year?  What exactly – like, how can you assure the allies that U.S. policy will have continuity basically?  Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY O’BRIEN:  Vedant, I gave a bit of an answer to that.  Do you want me to try and improve, or do you want to take a shot?  Why don’t I – I can go ahead.

So I think that here are the main points.  Our allies understand that we have domestic politics just as they do, and they can look at progress through the – through our Congress.  They also have seen, as I have, that there is overwhelming support from members in the House as well as the Senate for the supplemental.  The question is whether the leadership will put it to a vote, and that’s a choice that the Speaker in particular has to face, and we have seen this situation happen before.  I believe the U.S. will do the right thing because we understand that if we stand with our allies that all of us are stronger together.

As far as how people interpret President Trump’s views, I think that’s up to them – whether they interpret him as expressing his pride that he brought increased investment into the national defense of our Allies or that he’s expressing skepticism that that was necessary.  But I believe that Americans stood by NATO for 75 years as its leading member and will continue.  We’re going to prepare this summer for the next period of NATO defending our future, and I think our Allies will see that commitment and know that even when America has come close to adopting isolation sentiments, we have always come back to this leadership role.  That’s the purpose of an alliance: that you know you can count on each other whatever the headlines are from week to week.

MR PATEL:  Thanks so much, Ambassador.  And that, folks, is all the time we have for today.  As a reminder, this call was on the record, embargoed until the call’s conclusion, which (inaudible).

MR TEK:  Sorry, we lost Vedant.  Just as a reminder, this call is concluded.  It was on the record and embargoed until now.  Thank you all so much for joining us and have a great rest of your day.