1:16 p.m. EST
MR PATEL: Good afternoon, everybody. Happy Wednesday. I don’t have anything off the top, Matt, so —
QUESTION: Really? Only Wednesday?
MR PATEL: — feel free to kick us off.
QUESTION: Okay. Well, I’ll just start off with something that I don’t think you’re going to be able to answer but I’ll ask anyway, because it is a topic of the day. This plane crash in Russia, what’s your understanding of what happened, if you have one? And do you have any way to independently verify or confirm how it went down, what was on it?
MR PATEL: I don’t have any independent verification to offer on any of this at this time. I have seen the public reporting, and our hope is that relevant authorities investigate the reporting to establish the facts around what happened, but beyond that I don’t have any other comments to offer or perspective on this.
QUESTION: Right. And who – and the relevant authorities in this case are Russian authorities?
MR PATEL: Correct.
QUESTION: And you’re – okay. So – and you’ll accept what their verdict is?
MR PATEL: Matt —
QUESTION: Because they seem to have already – I mean, the Russian ministry – Russian authorities already have said what happened. Are you saying that you don’t have any reason to doubt?
MR PATEL: No, that’s not at all what I’m saying. I think what I would just say again, to take a step back, is that we don’t have any independent verification to offer on the public reporting that’s been out there and would just encourage both Russian and Ukrainian authorities to undertake their own respective investigations and establish facts, but I don’t have any other comment or perspective to offer at this time on this.
QUESTION: Okay. Thanks.
MR PATEL: Humeyra.
QUESTION: Vedant, I just want to ask about NATO enlargement. So obviously Türkiye’s parliament approved Sweden’s NATO bid yesterday. Now Hungary seems to be the sole holdout. Has there been any outreach from this building or any other building in the administration to the Hungarian Government over the past couple of days, recently on this? What have you told them? Will you ask them to speed it up?
MR PATEL: I don’t have any specific engagements to reach out – to read out to you, Humeyra. We of course continue to remain in close touch with our Hungarian Allies, and the Hungarian Government itself has publicly said that it supports Sweden’s accession to NATO. It’s also repeatedly said that Hungary would not be the last to ratify —
QUESTION: And here we are.
MR PATEL: — Sweden’s NATO accession. And so we look forward to Hungary concluding their ratification process and the Alliance welcoming Sweden into NATO without further delay, and of course we also welcome the steps that the Turkish parliament took earlier this week. We look forward to President Erdogan taking whatever steps he needs to within that system for – to formally finalize that process as well as look – we look forward to receiving Türkiye’s instrument of ratification in Washington.
QUESTION: Right. I mean, if they had asked you, would you have recommended Hungary to reconvene the parliament a little bit earlier than mid-February —
MR PATEL: This is —
QUESTION: — and get it done now?
MR PATEL: This is not a U.S. process. Of course, we view the NATO Alliance as critical, but it is not – we are not the only country at the table here. And each respective member of the Alliance needs to work through their respective processes to get this done. We of course welcome the progress that we saw in Türkiye this week, and we look forward to our Hungarian partners also moving along on this process also.
QUESTION: Right. And I just note what you say about President Erdogan. Like, he said doing whatever he needs to; it’s basically he needs to sign and it needs to be published in the official gazette —
MR PATEL: Correct.
QUESTION: — and receiving the instrument of accession. Can I…
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