Full transcript at http://www.theuptake.org QUESTION: Ian, North Korea with the Ling and Lee trial, they’ve sentenced both girls to 12 years of hard labor. I saw Secretary Clinton on This Week yesterday alluding to it. Do you have anything further? MR. KELLY: Well, we’re very, very concerned about this sentence. And I know that Secretary Clinton is very engaged, and we plan to explore all possible channels. As we have all along, we call on the North Korean authorities to release the two young ladies, allow them to be reunited with their families, and we’re very, very focused on that right now. But yeah, the news was – concerned us very much. QUESTION: Can we go back to Lebanon for just one quick second? MR. KELLY: Yeah, sure. QUESTION: Can we go back with that? Sorry, guys. MR. KELLY: We will come back to North Korea. QUESTION: Just one thing. You said in the prepared statement that you read at the top that the United States will support an independent and sovereign Lebanon. Can we take that to mean that you would expect the U.S. Government, should Congress agree to go along with it as it has in the past, to continue financially supporting, in the rather generous way it has in recent years, the Lebanese Armed Forces? Is that – does that signal that when you’re saying we’re going to support a sovereign and independent Lebanon, that you’re going to keep doing the kind of funding that you have done in the last couple years?
