STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING

Washington, DC July 1, 2002

 

 

Q Can we go to another U.N. organization briefly, since I doubt you'll have

that much to say about it. But can you say what the status of this review

of U.S. funding to the U.N. Population Fund is?

 

MR. RICHARD BOUCHER: No final decisions have been made, and we hope to announce our

determination by the middle of July.

 

Q That's the --

 

Q (To colleague.) Hang on.

 

Who will make the determination -- the White House or the State Department?

 

MR. BOUCHER: I don't have a final answer on that for you right now.

 

Q Can you tell us anything about what they found out?

 

MR. BOUCHER: No. We would expect to release the teams' findings -- the team

was out there, did their study, reported back to us. We're now looking at

their assessment and will probably make public their assessment at the same

time as we make the announcement of the determination.

 

Q (Off mike.)

 

MR. BOUCHER: I would expect to do that here. Let me answer it that way.

 

Q The secretary basically -- I asked him -- he spoke with us on the Hill --

was fairly supportive and said that there was -- as far as I can understand

-- there's not really been a suspicion that they were allowing coercive

abortions to take place in China. Has the administration changed its view

on that, or --

 

MR. BOUCHER: Well, once again, I'll refer you to the assessment when we

release it. We just sent a team explicitly to go look at those questions,

to go look at the U.N. activities and the other things that were going on.

And therefore, we'll have that assessment for you when we can give you the

determination that goes with it.

 

Yeah, Ben.

 

Q Will -- (off mike, to colleague.)

 

Q Well, I've got one more --

 

MR. BOUCHER: Okay.

 

Q I understand funding has been suspended for six months from the United

States to the UNFPA. Is that correct?

 

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah. Well, we announced that some time ago, didn't we? Yeah.

But I'd have to --

 

Q It's pending the outcome of this investigation.

 

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah. I think we announced that before -- when we announced

the team. Have to go back and see what we said at the time. Yeah.