{"id":9705,"date":"2012-05-14T11:41:21","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T18:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9705"},"modified":"2012-05-14T11:41:21","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T18:41:21","slug":"usg-press-release-concerning-weapons-release-to-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=9705","title":{"rendered":"USG Press Release Concerning “Weapons Release” to Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior Administration Officials on Bahrain<\/strong>
\n11 May, 2012 – US humanrights.gov<\/p>\n

MODERATOR:<\/strong> Thank you, and thanks to everyone for joining us on a Friday afternoon. We certainly appreciate it. As you\u2019ve all seen from the statement we released earlier today, the State Department has informed Congress that it\u2019s in our national security interest to release additional items and services to the Bahrain Defense Force, the Coast Guard, and National Guard. And this is for the purpose of helping Bahrain maintain its external defense capabilities.<\/p>\n

And here to talk with you all about that decision, we have three senior Administration officials. For your records, they are [Senior Administration Official One]; we also have [Senior Administration Official Two]; and [Senior Administration Official Three]. Just a reminder this is an on-background call and these individuals should be referred to in your reporting as senior Administration officials.<\/p>\n

So with that, I\u2019ll turn it over to [Senior Administration Official One] for some brief opening remarks, and then we\u2019ll get to your questions.<\/p>\n

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE:<\/strong> Hi. Good afternoon, everybody. I think you know that, given the unrest in Bahrain over the past year and pending further progress on reform, the United States has maintained a pause on most arms sales and licenses to the Government of Bahrain, while at the same time continuing to supply some items on a case-by-case basis that directly affected our own national security interests.<\/p>\n

Bahrain is an important security partner in a region that\u2019s facing enormous challenges and complications, and maintaining our and our partners\u2019 ability to respond to these challenges is an important component of our commitment to Gulf security. I think many of you might have been on the Secretary\u2019s trip to Riyadh on March 31st when we launched the Strategic Cooperation Forum, which is another example of this commitment we have to Gulf security.<\/p>\n

Now in light of our own U.S. national security interests, the United States has decided, as the press statement noted, to release additional items and services for the Bahraini Defense Forces, Bahrain\u2019s Coast Guard, and Bahrain\u2019s National Guard. And the purpose of this is to help Bahrain maintain its external defense capabilities. We have informed Congress of this decision today and we\u2019ll continue our close consultation with Congress on Bahrain in general, including our security cooperation. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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Senior Administration Officials on Bahrain 11 May, 2012 – US humanrights.gov MODERATOR: Thank you, and thanks to everyone for joining us on a Friday afternoon. We certainly appreciate it. As you\u2019ve all seen from the statement we released earlier today, the State Department has informed Congress that it\u2019s in our national security interest to release more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[2998],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9706,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9705\/revisions\/9706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}