Secretary Hillary Clinton's Sling Status: Gone!

Wow, this is the first day that Hillary has been at State without her sling! Awww and I was just starting to get used to her State Department sling as a great accessory to her pantsuits....

Well, sling or no sling here is the round up of todays bilaterals. In addition to attending the President’s bilateral with His Excellency Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, at the White House, the Secretary delivered remarks with Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen of the Netherlands at the State Department.

During the briefing the Secretary said this to the press:

"Today, I am privileged once again to host the foreign minister of the Netherlands. We had an excellent meeting with the prime minister and the President in the Oval Office today. The Dutch and the Dutch Government are among our greatest friends and allies on so many important matters. And we had a very broad-ranging discussion on a number of critical issues this morning, which we will get into even more depth on again this afternoon. So I welcome Maxime back to the State Department."

Foreign Minister Verhagen responded:

"Thank you very much indeed, Hillary. I would like to thank Madame Secretary for her warm hospitality. Indeed, we had very good discussions this morning, the President and my prime minister. And we will continue to discuss on these issues.

We share a lot of values and we have a lot in common, a common history for 400 years, as the first Dutchman landed on the shores of Manhattan. And we’ve also seen this morning, in the discussions between the prime minister and the President, that on issues like the Middle East, like Afghanistan, we have a lot to do in common. We share the same challenges, but we have also the same ideas on how to deal with these issues."

Secretary Clinton also gave remarks with Latvian Foreign Minister Maris Riekstins before their meeting.

Secretary Clinton said this on the Foreign Minister of Latvia:

"I’m very grateful for the extraordinary support and assistance that Latvia has provided on many issues that are of importance to us mutually, and I’m delighted to receive him for the purpose of going in depth into a range of issues that are concerns to us. We are partners in NATO; we are partners in so many of the security issues. We know that Latvia is facing a very challenging economic time and we look forward to discussing ways that we can work more closely together."

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Secretary Clinton: Costa Rica's President to Mediate Honduran Crisis

Today the Secretary held a private meeting with Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya. After the meeting she spoke to the press and revealed that the United States will support an international mediation effort to restore democratic order in Honduras.

The Secretary condemned the violence in the region and urged a peaceful resoltion:

"We call upon all parties to refrain from acts of violence and to seek a peaceful, constitutional, and lasting solution to the serious divisions in Honduras through dialogue. To that end, we have been working with a number of our partners in the hemisphere to create a negotiation, a dialogue that could lead to a peaceful resolution of this situation."

Secretary Clinton announced that Costa Rican President Óscar Arias was designated to mediate talks, beginning on Thursday, to resolve Honduras's political crisis. Both sides in the dispute had agreed to work with Mr. Arias. Mr. Arias was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for brokering an end to civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua and the Secretary called him "the natural person to assume this role."

Honduras's acting president, Roberto Micheletti, applauded the designation of Mr. Arias by saying, "We are open to dialogue."

During the Q&A, the Secretary touched on a lot of important issues including one I found to not only be very important, but clearly showed a new way of thinking at the State level for the United States:

"It has been my view for several days that the most useful role we could play is to convince all that are directly concerned, not only President Zelaya, but also the de facto regime, the OAS, the UN, everyone, that we needed to have a process where the Hondurans themselves sat down and talked to each other. And that is – that’s been my goal, and I believe that we are on the brink of that happening. I’m hoping that it actually occurs soon.

So we have tried through our good offices to get people to this point. And we’re very grateful for the willingness of President Arias to serve in this position, and we’re also appreciative of the efforts of the OAS as well."

Also, President Obama publicly backed Mr. Zelaya's reinstatement today. He said in a speech in Moscow, that even though the U.S. may disagree with Mr. Zelaya, it supports his restoration.

"We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not," Mr. Obama said.

Although things may look like they are under control here in the U.S., passions were still running high in Honduras today. Both supporters and non-supporters of Zelaya held protests and demonstrations in Tegucigalpa.

In the photo above you can see Mr. Zelaya's wife (bottom, giving the thumbs up) marching with thousands of demonstrators who carried a simulated red-splattered shroud symbolizing the protester killed Sunday. Read the Secretary's full remarks to the press here or watch below:

P.S.- Love the Official State Department Sling. That Hillary is always thinkin'! Read entire post