Informal Communication

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Tokyo, Japan

The Okura

QUESTION:  Okay, so thank you so much for sharing your time with us today.  Let me start with this question.  As you have repeatedly mentioned, Israel has the right to defend itself.  But at the same time, that does not mean they can do anything – that’s what we all understand.  And I believe that is one of the reasons why you have visit the Middle East twice a month, and talked with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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Topics: Countering Terrorism, Refugee and Humanitarian Assistance

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Tokyo, Japan

The Okura

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good evening, everyone.  We just concluded a pretty packed two days – coming at a very intense time for our countries and for the world.

I want to begin by thanking Foreign Minister Kamikawa for the very warm hospitality here in Tokyo, and to her and Prime Minister Kishida for Japan’s leadership during this historic year for the G7.

The G7 has strengthened its role as the steering co

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Amman, Jordan

St. Regis Hotel

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER SAFADI: Good evening to you all.  I’ll start in Arabic and then I’ll switch to English if you don’t mind.  So —

(Via interpreter) In the name of Allah, Most Merciful, Most Gracious, I welcome Their Excellencies Sameh, Tony and the other colleagues, the foreign ministers of United Arab Emirates and Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and the secretary general of the Palestinian

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Johannesburg, South Africa

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Hello, everyone.  I want to start by thanking President Ramaphosa for bringing together so many government, private sector, and civil society leaders at this important forum.  Last year, I traveled to South Africa to lay out the United States strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa.  At its core, it’s about partnership – what the United States can do with African nations, not for African nations.

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Topics: Climate and Environment, Economic Prosperity and Trade Policy, Energy

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Dr. Geeta Rao Gupta, Ambassador-at-Large Office of Global Women’s Issues

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

AMBASSADOR RAO GUPTA:  Good afternoon, and welcome to the Department of State.  My name is Geeta Rao Gupta and I serve as ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues here in the State Department.  It is my honor an

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Jose W. Fernandez, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment

Ramin Toloui, Assistant SecretaryBureau of Economic and Business Affairs

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

MODERATOR:  Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Secretary of State Antony Blinken; Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez; Special Representative for Commercial and Business Af

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Arlington, Virginia

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Press Briefing Room

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good afternoon, everyone.  About an hour ago, two American citizens held by Hamas since October 7th were released.  These two Americans are now safely in the hands of Israeli authorities in Israel.  We expect a team from the U.S. embassy to see them very shortly.  Over the coming hours, they’ll receive any support and assistance they need, and of course we’re very anxious to be able to reunite the

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Austin, Texas

The University of Texas at Austin

MR EDGAR:  All right.  Welcome, everyone.  Please, if you haven’t already, take your seats, and we’ll begin the program shortly.  My name is Paul Edgar, and I am the interim executive director of the Clements Center for National Security.  On behalf of the Clements Center and the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, welcome to a conversation on the state of foreign aff

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good afternoon.  Welcome.  Welcome back to the State Department for so many of you.  Welcome to the Ben Franklin Room, newly refurbished.  A lot went into this.  And I think maybe a word about Ben Franklin before we get to today’s event.

As you all know, he was America’s first diplomat, ambassador to France, negotiated our first treaty, charted the Gulf Stream, pioneered el

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Franklin Room

ASSISTANT SECRETARY KRITENBRINK:  Good evening, everyone.  Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the State Department and to the Benjamin Franklin Room.  Esteemed guests and friends from across the Pacific, it is my honor to welcome you tonight to our dinner program and to introduce our co-hosts, the Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfi

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

New York City, New York

Rockefeller Foundation

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.  Thank you very, very much.  So we’re, what, about halfway through High-Level Week, I think – (laughter) – which is known at the department basically as speed-dating for diplomats.  And we have lots of events, lots of meetings, lots of gatherings.  But I have to tell you I was really looking forward to this particular meeting, this particular gathering,

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

New York City, New York

United Nations Headquarters

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you very much.  Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for focusing the Security Council on this critically important issue.  And Mr. Secretary-General, thank you for the moral clarity that you’ve shown in dealing with Russia’s war against Ukraine.

We’re grateful to have been able to welcome President Zelenskyy to this council table, and we thank him.  We thank him

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

New York City, New York

Ford Foundation

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Administrator Power, Sam, my friend, thank you – thank you very much, but thank you especially for truly remarkable leadership at USAID.  I see that every day, and I see that around the world whenever I go to one of our missions around the world; where the rubber really meets the road is in the work of USAID, and it’s extraordinary, and it’s making a profound difference in lives a

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you.  Good morning, everyone.

AUDIENCE:  Good morning.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Dean Steinberg, Jim, thank you for the honor of joining the SAIS community to help inaugurate this truly magnificent new home.

Jim has contributed so much over his remarkable career, but his most lasting contribution is the generation of thinkers, the generation of d

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Ten years ago the Assad regime launched rockets carrying the deadly nerve agent sarin into the Ghouta district of Damascus, killing more than 1,400 people.

The United States remembers and honors the victims and survivors of the Ghouta attack and of the other chemical attacks launched by the Assad regime. Ten years on, we continue to seek justice and accountability for those responsible for these horrific acts.

Despite its international obligation

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Topics: Human Rights and Democracy

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Press Briefing Room

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good morning.  Good morning.

QUESTION:  Good morning.

QUESTION:  Well, barely morning.  (Laughter.)

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Speak for yourself, Matt.

Very good to see everyone here.  Actually, I kind of hoped more of you might be on vacation by now but – (laughter) – I see we have a pretty full house

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

QUESTION:   Okay.  So I’m going to start by asking you a little bit about the Brazil role in this global crisis of food insecurity because the Brazilian president has a position of neutrality in the war.  Lula has already spoken to President Zelenskyy, President Vladimir Putin.  And do you believe this puts him in a good place to perhaps mediate a talk with – and try to convince Russia to go back to the grain agreement

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Brisbane, Australia

Government House Queensland

QUESTION:  Well, you’ve just wrapped up two days of intense talks.  What’s been the tone of the discussions here?

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  It’s hard to overstate how, first of all, much genuine friendship there is among the four of us – among the Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, among the Foreign Minister Penny Wong and myself and Lloyd Austin.  So it starts

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Today, we remember the victims of a heinous terrorist attack at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut forty years ago, killing 63 people.  We stand with the families, friends, and colleagues of those whose lives were cut short.

Despite Hizballah’s efforts to use terror to drive a wedge between the United States and the Lebanese people, our close cooperation has only deepened in the 40 years since this reprehensible attack.

The United States maintains its re

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Topics: Countering Terrorism

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Karuizawa, Japan

The Prince Karuizawa

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good afternoon, everyone.  Let me – let me start with the situation in Sudan.  For the past 36 hours, we and our partners have been focused on how to stop the widespread fighting in Sudan between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces.  Indiscriminate military operations have resulted in significant civilian deaths and injuries, and are recklessly endangering the Su

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Dean Acheson Auditorium

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, good afternoon, everyone.  Secretary Manalo, Secretary Galvez, it has been an honor to host you at the State Department for the third ever – and first since 2016 – U.S.-Philippines 2+2 Ministerial alongside Secretary of Defense Austin.  Today’s meeting builds on the momentum of the high-level U.S. visits to the Philippines just over the past year, including by Vice Presiden

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Brussels, Belgium

European Council Building

HIGH REPRESENTATIVE BORRELL: Good morning. Good morning. I’m very happy to welcome you, Secretary Blinken, in Brussels. We just had a very good bilateral meeting marking our great transatlantic cooperation. Now we will co-chair the EU-U.S. Energy Council, and later we will see each other also at the NATO Ministerial.

Allow me some words about our bilateral discussion.  Certainly

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everyone.  Thank you all so much for joining.  It’s very good to be with friends and partners from around the world as we prepare to open the second Summit for Democracy.

In his first year in office, President Biden launched the summit to look at the future of democracy, which we see is at an inflection point.  Worldwide, we see autocrats violating human right

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Burns Auditorium

ASSISTANT SECRETARY NICHOLS: Good morning. Buenos días. I would like to welcome all of you, especially our guests from Colombia. Bienvenidos a todos. This is the 10th year we mark the – this High-Level Dialogue, and we are honored to host this year. The High-Level Dialogues present remarkable opportunities to engage at a deeper level on our shared interests. The dialogue continu

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Dirksen Senate Office Building

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, thank you very much, Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Risch, committee members.  Very good to be with you today as always, and thanks for the opportunity to speak to the administration’s proposed FY24 budget for the State Department and the Agency for International Development.

We meet at an inflection point and I think that’s reflected actually in what both

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Washington, D.C.

Dirksen Senate Office Building

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Thank you very, very much.  Chairman Coons, Ranking Member Graham, very good to be with you.  Chair Murray, Vice Chair Collins, to all the committee members here today, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you about our proposed FY24 budget for the State Department and USAID.

And I think as you’ve both laid out in different ways, we are meeting at

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Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Addis Ababa University

SECRETARY BLINKEN:  Well, good evening, everyone.  It is great to be back in Africa, but also to make my first appearance to Ethiopia as Secretary of State.

I’m here in Ethiopia – and then on to Niger – to reaffirm the pledge that President Biden made at the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit late last year.  As he put it, the United States is “all in on Africa, and all in with Africa.”  That mea

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