State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf denied during a State Department briefing denied that Arab countries “snubbed” the Obama administration by not showing up to a Camp David summit, calling it a “cable news talking point.” (VIDEO: ‘Condescending, Childish’: Marie Harf Gets In Facebook Argument Over Daily Caller Article)
REPORTER: There’s been a lot of talk around town — I’m sure you’re aware– that there has been a snub of the United States, that nobody’s attending, and all this.
HARF: I’ve seen some of that talk.
REPORTER: Do you have any comment on that?
HARF: Well I think nothing could be further from the truth, that there was some, some snub, to use the cable news talking point.
The secretary had really good meetings with King Salman and other senior Saudi leaders in Riyahd, and also had very good meetings with the GCC foreign ministers in Paris. They walked through in detail the Iran negotiations. These were very positive discussions, both about the Iran talks and where we are, but also about the Camp David summit and leading into this which is really designed to enhance our security cooperation, as you know.
And to that end, we never expected every head of state would attend, never had that expectation. For example, Mohammed bin Zayed is the one that tends to represent the UAE, he’s been in the Oval office multiple times, he tends to be the one that represents them. King Salman made this decision given what’s going on in Yemen, he’s sending the crown prince and the deputy crown prince who are fully empowered. They run intel, they run defense, they run a lot of the area that we’re actually going to be talking in detail at Camp David.
So we believe that the right mix of people will be there. We’re looking forward to the summit and again it comes on the heels of very positive discussions we had in Riyahd and Paris.
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