Diplomats

WILL HE or won't he? The international community of human-rights activists and national-security hardliners wonders whether President Obama will demand an Arab leader's ouster. Yes, it's déjà vu all over again. This time it's Damascus, not Tripoli, and the enemy is Syria's violent and vicious Bashar al-Assad. In reality, Obama already has signaled his desire for Assad's removal. Robert Ford, the career diplomat who is ambassador to Syria, has taken on a unique role for the president.

The State Department has launched a different sort of raid against al-Qaida, engaging in a cat and mouse game to replace anti-American al-Qaida ads on Yemeni tribal websites. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that experts based at the State Department swapped al-Qaida ads on Yemeni websites bragging about killing Americans with ones showing the deadly impact of al-Qaida tactics on Yemenis themselves. "Our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll al-Qaida attacks have taken on the Yemeni people," Clinton said.

VIENNA - Facing international opposition, US negotiators at a nuclear meeting have dropped their insistence on a ban of uranium enrichment technology to non-nuclear states, diplomats said yesterday. The compromise, which moves America closer to the positions of other nations selling nuclear technology and material, is important because it could give ammunition to Iran, which is under UN sanctions for defying a Security Council demand that it give up its enrichment program. It also could complicate efforts to put life into a US-Indian deal that would allow transfers of sensitive nuclear...

U.S. officials say the Obama administration's top diplomat for the Middle East is stepping down to take a senior position at the United Nations. The officials said Monday that Jeffrey Feltman, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who has guided U.S. policy through the tumult of the Arab Spring, plans to retire from the foreign service at the end of May and become a deputy to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the move has not yet been announced.

MOSCOW -- A US diplomat said yesterday that envoys from the five permanent Security Council members plus Germany discussed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but failed to reach agreement on how to proceed further. US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said in an interview following nearly three hours of talks that diplomats recognized the "need for a stiff response to Iran's flagrant violations of its international responsibilities. " President Bush said "all options are on the table" to prevent Iran from developing atomic weapons but that he will continue to focus...

WASHINGTON - The State Department will not force diplomats to serve in Iraq because volunteers have filled all 48 vacant positions at the US Embassy in Baghdad and in outlying provinces, the Associated Press has learned. The department will announce it no longer needs to move to "directed assignments" for Iraq once personnel panels give a formal OK to Foreign Service officers who signed up for the remaining three open jobs, US officials said yesterday. The three diplomats have won tentative approval, they said.

BAGHDAD -- Gunmen seized two Algerian diplomats yesterday -- including the country's top envoy to Iraq -- in the latest attacks aimed at scaring away Muslim diplomats and undermining the US-backed Iraqi government. The abductions brought to five the number of key diplomats from Islamic countries targeted in Baghdad in less than three weeks. The top Egyptian envoy was reportedly killed after being captured, and two apparent kidnapping attempts against diplomats were foiled. The chief of Algeria's mission in Iraq, Ali Belaroussi, and another Algerian diplomat,...

Canada has ordered all remaining Libyan diplomats to leave the country within five days, officials say. Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said in a statement Monday that Canada has declared the diplomats persona non grata, effective immediately. Baird calls the decision the latest step in Canada's efforts to delegitimize the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. The diplomats have five business days to vacate the Libyan Embassy in Ottawa and leave the country. Baird says Canada is also cutting off the diplomats' access to the embassy's bank accounts.

Italy is hosting a meeting of the United States and its allies to discuss sanctions against Iran in a bid to halt its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Italian Foreign Ministry said officials of "like-minded countries" are meeting Tuesday in Rome but did not give details. Diplomats say the group includes the United States and EU nations, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and possibly a Gulf country. The Wall Street Journal reports, citing unnamed U.S., European and Arab diplomats, that Iran's oil exports and global energy prices are key issues on the table.

NEW YORK -- For years, United Nations diplomats were notorious for running up millions of dollars in parking tickets, then laughing at the city's attempts to collect. Diplomatic immunity meant that there was little US courts could do about it. But the city's thousands of foreign officials have largely changed their ways since a threatened crackdown three years ago. According to New York's finance department, diplomats have gotten 90 percent fewer tickets since late 2002, when the United States threatened to revoke the plates of scofflaws and subtract however much they owed in fines from...

An expert panel's report says North Korea continues to violate U.N. sanctions, citing possible attempts to ship arms to Syria and Myanmar and illegally import luxury goods, U.N. diplomats said Friday. Two Security Council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report has not been released, said the panel concluded the violations "illustrate elaborate techniques" used by North Korea to evade the discovery of its sanctions-busting. The Security Council imposed sanctions against North Korea after its first nuclear test in 2006 and stepped up sanctions after its...

The U.N. nuclear agency chief will fly to Tehran over the weekend to sign a deal meant to allow his organization to resume a long- stalled search for evidence that Iran worked on developing nuclear arms, the agency and diplomats said Friday. The trip Sunday by International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano comes just four days ahead of a key meeting between six world powers and Iran where the six hope to wrest concessions from Tehran meant to reduce concerns that it wants such arms.

China's assertive behavior is breathing life into America's historically tumultuous relationship with the Philippines. With Washington turning its attention more to the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. and the Philippines last week held the first joint meeting of their top diplomats and defense chiefs. The U.S. increased military aid and resolved to help its ally on maritime security. The steps come as the Philippines is locked in a standoff with China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. The U.S. is walking a delicate diplomatic...

The United States has named a career diplomat to head its de facto embassy in Taiwan. The American Institute in Taiwan announced Tuesday that 27-year State Department veteran Christopher Marut will become its leader in August. AIT was established in 1979 after the U.S. transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. Despite its irregular status, it is one of the larger American diplomatic outposts in Asia. Marut previously was deputy consul general at the U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong and Director of the Office of Australia,...

President John F. Kennedy's only surviving child is celebrating what would have been his 95th birthday this month by honoring three Iowa judges who were ousted after the court unanimously decided to legalize same-sex marriages. Caroline Kennedy will also recognize the U.S. ambassador to Syria who risked his life to support opponents of President Basher Assad's regime. Kennedy heads the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, which promotes the late president's memory and legacy.

BEIJING (AP) — The blind Chinese activist at the center of a six-day diplomatic tussle between the U.S. and China said he fears for his family's lives and wants to leave China, hours after American officials announced an agreement with Beijing that was to guarantee his safety. Chen Guangcheng escaped from illegal house arrest and other mistreatment in his rural town, placing himself under the protection of U.S. diplomats last week. On Wednesday, after six days holed up inside the American embassy, he emerged and was taken to a nearby hospital.

WASHINGTON - The State Department is warning its diplomats they may be forced to serve in Iraq next year and says it will soon start identifying prime candidates for jobs at the Baghdad embassy and outlying provinces, according to a cable obtained yesterday by the Associated Press. A similar call-up notice last year caused an uproar among Foreign Service officers, some of whom objected to compulsory work in a war zone. The State Department eventually found enough volunteers to fill the jobs.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is trying to quell a revolt among US diplomats angry over attempts to force Foreign Service officers to work in Iraq or face dismissal. Rice plans to send a cable to all US embassies and missions abroad explaining the decision to launch the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam, following a contentious town hall meeting Wednesday where angry diplomats raised deep concern about the "potential death sentence" of being ordered to work in Iraq, the State Department said.

A senior U.S. diplomat arrived in China on a hurried mission Sunday as new problems — from possible U.S. arms sales to Taiwan to the custody of a blind dissident — threaten to complicate relations with Beijing ahead of high-level talks. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell avoided reporters, and the U.S. Embassy declined to discuss his agenda. His trip, originally scheduled for later this coming week, comes after the White House said it is considering selling new warplanes to Taiwan and after dissident legal activist Chen Guangcheng fled house arrest and ended up, rights...