But she will also have to answer concerns that Mr. Obama's intense focus on the insurgency in Pakistan, as well as the war in Afghanistan, will get in the way of the American-Indian relationship. India is sensitive about being put under pressure by the United States to ease tensions with Pakistan.

In a column published Friday in The Times of India, Mrs. Clinton wrote that she looked forward to discussing climate change, economic development and nuclear nonproliferation. And, she added, "We should encourage Pakistan as that nation confronts the challenge of violent extremism."

Her fleeting reference to Pakistan drew the most attention: the newspaper made it the headline for the column.

Commentators here warned Washington not to try to pressure India into a deal with Pakistan over Kashmir - something the United States favors because it may persuade the Pakistani Army to shift troops from the country's eastern border with India to the west, where the army could better fight Taliban insurgents.

"India is not in that class of nations, nor is it an age in which Washington can bend nations in that manner," said an editorial Friday in the financial newspaper Mint. The paper welcomed Mrs. Clinton with a photo and headline, "Cold Wind from Washington."

India and Pakistan agreed this week to resume negotiations over Kashmir and other issues, though Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India insisted afterward that his government still demanded that Pakistan bring to justice those who planned the Mumbai attacks in November. India had halted those talks after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai killed 166 people.

"I really see events trending in a very positive direction between India and Pakistan, in part because of the shared sacrifice, commitment and understanding that now exists about the threat," Mrs. Clinton said in an interview with an Indian broadcaster, CNN-IBN.

The bloodshed from the attacks in November will loom large in Mrs. Clinton's visit: she is staying at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower, one of the two hotels that were taken over for nearly three days by terrorists. She will take part in a ceremony commemorating the victims of those attacks.

During Mrs. Clinton's visit, India is expected to announce two sites for American-supplied nuclear reactors, according to American officials. India pledged to award contracts for the reactors to American companies, in return for a landmark civilian nuclear trade agreement between the countries.

The visit may also produce an agreement that would allow the United States to monitor the "end use" of military equipment sold to India, to ensure that it is not diverted to other purposes or sold to other countries. That could open the door to the sale of 126 fighter jets to India.

With Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Mrs. Clinton traveling to many countries before India, there has been some talk here about why this visit has taken so long.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met survivors of the Mumbai attacks, talked climate change with Indian industrialists and was serenaded by village women as she visited India's financial capital on Saturday.

On a trip aimed at deepening U.S.-Indian ties, Clinton's first act was to attend a commemoration of the victims of the November 26-29 militant attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.

In a sign of solidarity, she stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, one of two luxury landmarks, along with the Trident/Oberoi, which were the primary targets of the Islamist gunmen who besieged India's financial and entertainment hub.

"I wanted to send a message that I personally and our country is in sympathy and solidarity with the employees and the guests of the Taj who lost their lives ... with the people of Mumbai," Clinton told India's Times Now in an interview.

She also wanted to give "a rebuke to the terrorists who may have tragically taken lives but did not destroy the spirit (and) resilience of the people of this city or nation."

Speaking earlier, Clinton said the bombings of two Jakarta luxury hotels that killed nine people on Friday were a "painful reminder" that the threat of "violent extremism" still lurks.

"It is global, it is ruthless, it is nihilistic and it must be stopped."

India blames Pakistani militants for the violence and has paused five-year-old peace talks with its nuclear-armed rival until it is satisfied with Pakistan's action against militants and commitment not to let its soil be used to launch attacks.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani agreed on Thursday to fight terrorism jointly, but Singh insisted Pakistan must punish those responsible for the Mumbai attacks if it wants formal talks.

While saying it was up to the two sides how to proceed in their talks, Clinton said Pakistan had begun to show much greater determination "to take on the terrorists," apparently referring to its military campaign against Taliban insurgents.

CLIMATE CHANGE, GROWTH

The U.S. secretary of state also met some of India's business titans, including Reliance Industries Ltd. Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata.

Clinton's agenda encompasses everything from reining in climate change and promoting economic growth to advancing nuclear and defense deals potentially worth tens of billions of dollars to U.S. companies.

She said she was "optimistic" that the two sides would be able to conclude a defense pact allowing Washington to monitor whether U.S. arms sold are used for their intended purposes and to ensure the technology does not spread to other countries.

Such a pact is necessary under U.S. law for U.S. firms to bid for India's plan to buy 126 multi-role fighters, one of the largest arms deals in the world at $10.4 billion and a potential boon to Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co.

The United States also hopes that during Clinton's trip, which takes her to New Delhi on Sunday, the Indian government will announce two sites where U.S. firms would have the exclusive right to build nuclear power plants.

During a visit to a handicrafts shop, Clinton carried out an Internet video call with village women and later beamed as she was surrounded by a group of women who sang for her.

By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters, July 18, 2009

MUMBAI, India - Off the injured list and back on the world stage, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday gave an impassioned defense of American demands that India and other countries do more to tackle terrorism and global warming.

Opening a three-day visit to India, Clinton sought to emphasize common interests, symbolized by the terrorist attacks in this seaside city last November that killed 166 people. "It must be stopped," she said, adding that the United States cannot do it alone.

Part of the backdrop to Clinton's visit is a sense of unease among Indians that the Obama administration is focusing more on its anti-terror campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, at the expense of attention to the world's largest democracy.

Clinton is the highest-ranking administration official to stop in India, where she has been widely popular since visiting as first lady in the 1990s.

Showing no visible effects from elbow surgery in mid-June, Clinton met with business leaders, was serenaded by female entrepreneurs and participated in a televised discussion at a college on what's wrong with education in India and the U.S.

It was the first event of her day, however, that underscored most strongly the central message she carried from Washington.

"The bottom line for me is, our government is committed in the fight against terrorism," she told reporters at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower after meeting privately with a group of survivors of last year's attacks on the Taj and an adjacent hotel.

"And we expect everyone" who shares the American desire to end violent extremism "to take strong action to prevent terrorism from taking root on their soil and making sure that terrorists are not trained and deployed - and we believe that around the world."

Her voice rising, she noted the lasting effects from the Sept. 11 attacks and said no one should doubt U.S. resolve.

"We are fighting wars to end the threat of terrorism against us, our friends and allies around the world," she said at a poolside patio at the Taj that had been strewn with bodies after last year's attack. She indicated that in New Delhi, the capital where her trip continues Sunday, she would speak with government officials about how India can play a stronger role against terrorism.

In an event closed to reporters, Clinton met at the Taj with workers who survived the attacks. One was the hotel's general manager, Karambir Kang, who lost his wife and two children during the three-day siege.

In a memorial book, she wrote: "Americans share a solidarity with this city and nation. Both our people have experienced the senseless and searing effects of violent extremism. And both can be grateful and proud of the heroism of brave men and women whose courage saved lives and prevented greater harm" last November and on Sept. 11, 2001. "Now it is up to all nations and people who seek peace and progress to work together. Let us rid the world of hatred and extremism that produces such nihilistic violence."

One of the most contentious issues between India and the U.S. is the administration's push for India to accept limits on carbon emissions as part of an international climate change agreement. To emphasize the importance of the matter, Clinton traveled with the special U.S. envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.

Clinton urged India to take a leading role and to avoid the missteps that occurred during U.S. industrialization.

"We acknowledge now with President Obama that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem that we face with climate change," she said. "We are hoping a great country like India will not make the same mistakes."

Obama said in a statement in Italy this month that the U.S. had "sometimes fallen short" of its responsibilities in controlling its carbon emissions.

Clinton also met with 11 business leaders, including Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the largest privately held company in India. She told them she agreed that different countries ought to approach climate change in different ways. But she also said, "There does have to be a framework that India and China in particular sign on to that produces results."

Echoing remarks made by Ambani at the meeting, Clinton told reporters later that India should leapfrog the developed world to come up with its own innovative way to encourage environmentally friendly growth.

"We believe India is innovative and entrepreneurial enough to figure out how to deal with climate change while continuing to lift people out of poverty and develop at a rapid rate," she said.

The broken elbow that has kept Secretary of State Hillary Clinton off the world stage for several weeks did not prevent her from addressing her department employees and interns Friday, as she began to mark her first six months on the job.

Clinton has not been accompanying the president on trips out of the country nearly as much as her predecessors did. When President Obama returns this weekend from his current trip to Russia, Italy and Ghana, he will have visited a total of nine countries without his secretary of state in their less than six months in office.

But aides dismiss suggestions that Obama and Clinton are growing apart. Indeed, on Friday Clinton hailed the foreign policy progress she and the president have made, saying the administration is patching up "strained alliances" and striving to influence "adversaries" to change their behavior.

Making sure to throw in a couple cracks about her injury, Clinton forecast tough challenges ahead but said the administration is making strides.

"We've been on this job for almost half a year. We've been working hard and some of us have the scars to prove it," Clinton, her arm still in a sling, said to laughter.

"I have not been throwing sharp elbows," she joked. "We are seeing encouraging results from all of our efforts, including my physical therapy."

The secretary of state plans to make what is being called a major policy speech next week at the Council on Foreign Relations to mark, more officially, her first six months in office.

She seemed to give a preview Friday, crediting the administration with making strides toward restoring ties with countries around the world.

"We are repairing strained alliances. We're cultivating new partnerships. We're working to engage and change the behavior of adversaries. And we are prioritizing development along with diplomacy as part of our global agenda," she said.

The administration is grappling with a host of international challenges, not all of which look any closer to being resolved.

Speaking from Italy, Obama on Friday continued to condemn the Iranian crackdown on pro-reform demonstrators in the wake of the country's disputed elections. The breakdown in the wake of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election has imperiled U.S. hopes of restoring ties with the Islamic regime. North Korea also continues to defy international warnings by conducting repeated missile tests.

And the administration was recently caught in a difficult spot, having to stick up for leftist Honduran President Manuel Zelaya after he was ousted from office.

But Obama seemed to make some progress toward resetting relations with Russia during his talks this week with President Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.

Clinton did not go on that trip, but officials said she would have, if not for her broken elbow.

It's unclear whether Clinton will accompany the globe-trotting Obama more in the latter half of the year. Clinton has met up with Obama in Europe, Trinidad and Tobago and Egypt this year, but the president has gone without her to a slew of countries.

Like her predecessors, Clinton has kept a vigorous international schedule of her own. She's visited Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Central America, as well as Canada and Mexico, on her own time. Clinton plans to head to India on a separate trip next week, after her policy address.

Clinton said Friday that the Obama administration is facing very high expectations on the world stage.

"It may not be fair, but that's kind of the way it is," she said, noting that foreign leaders have made "very aggressive demands on our country."

Clinton took a shot at former President George W. Bush, saying at least one foreign leader told her that the reason they didn't make such demands over the last eight years was because, "We knew we would never get a response."

Clinton added: "We don't have the luxury of being bystanders."

Clinton said that the department has had to work "overtime" to deal with what she called an "unprecedented set of challenges" on the world stage.

"We don't have the luxury of deciding which issues to deal with," she said. "We need to work better, work smarter and work together with more partners in and beyond our government."

Clinton also announced she would be instituting a new review process within the State Department to assess the agency's needs and progress every four years.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday she hopes North Korea grants amnesty to two jailed US reporters after indicating they have expressed "great remorse for this incident."

When Laura Ling and Euna Lee were jailed last month for illegally entering North Korea, Clinton urged Pyongyang to show mercy and free them on humanitarian grounds, but on Friday the chief US diplomat appealed for amnesty.

Clinton's comments, her first calling for amnesty, came a day after Ling's sister Lisa indicated that the pair now admit having broken North Korean law and need help from the US government.

"The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened," Clinton told foreign service employees and others at a State Department meeting.

"What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be returned home to their families as soon as possible," Clinton said when asked about the women's plight.

A North Korean court on June 8 sentenced Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, to 12 years of "reform through labor" for an illegal border crossing and an unspecified "grave crime."

Ling and Lee were detained by North Korean border guards on March 17 along the frozen Tumen River, which marks the North's border with China, while researching a story on refugees fleeing the hardline communist state.

The pair were on reporting assignment for San Francisco-based Current TV, a company co-founded by former vice president Al Gore.

Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip Crowley did not reply directly when reporters asked repeatedly if Clinton herself was sorry about the incident.

"Clearly, this is a regrettable incident," Crowley told the daily news briefing at the State Department.

"We look to try to see how this can be resolved. We have called repeatedly for these journalists to be released, and we hope that North Korea does so as soon as possible," the spokesman added.

In a television interview broadcast Thursday, Lisa Ling said she had received a telephone call from her sister Laura who she added "was very specific about the message she was communicating.

"And she said, 'look, we violated North Korean law and we need our government to help us. We're sorry about everything that happened but now we need diplomacy," Lisa Ling told KOVR television.

After the punishment was announced last month, Ling and Lee's families issued a joint statement that apologized on their behalf if the reporters accidentally strayed across the border, and asked North Korea for "compassion." The families said at the time they were "shocked and devastated" by the harsh sentences.

Crowley declined to reply when asked whether the administration was adopting new language because it had reason to believe North Korea would react unfavorably to the previous statements.

AFP, July 10, 2009

In a shift, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today called for the North Korean government to grant "amnesty" to two jailed American reporters, dropping previous demands that they be freed on humanitarian grounds.

"The two journalists and their families have expressed great remorse for this incident and I think everyone is very sorry that it happened," Clinton told State Department officials at a town hall meeting in Washington. "What we hope for now is that these two young women would be granted amnesty through the North Korean system and be allowed to return home to their families as soon as possible."

Clinton's shift in tone, foreshadowed by a State Department spokesman yesterday, came after the sister of one of the reporters said that they had admitted breaking North Korean law.

Lisa Ling told KOVR-TV in Sacramento that her sister in a phone call said, "We violated North Korean law and we need our government to help us. We're sorry about everything that happened but now we need diplomacy."

The two were arrested near the Chinese border while they were researching a story for San Francisco-based Current TV on refugees fleeing the impoverished communist country. Former vice president Al Gore is a co-founder of Current TV.

The two journalists, Laura Ling, 36, and Euna Lee, 32, both reporters for San Francisco-based Current Tv, were sentenced in June to 12 years of hard labor after a trial in which they were accused of entering the country illegally and committing "hostile acts."

Ms. Ling reportedly called her sister, Lisa Ling, also a journalist, this week and said in the course of a 20-minute conversation that they had broken North Korean law, but her sister did not say how. Human rights advocates in South Korea have said they were on a reporting assignment about the plight of North Korean women sold through human traffickers and refugees fleeing hunger in North Korea when they were detained March 17.

Mrs. Clinton at first said the charges against the women were "baseless," while the administration pressed for them to be freed on humanitarian grounds.

Her comments on Friday appear to reflect a changing picture that has been complicated by the North's test of a nuclear missile in May and its decision to fire seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan on the Fourth of July.

A scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday in a South Korean daily that the two women were not in a prison camp, but rather in a guest house in Pyongyang, a development that seemed to suggest that the North still wanted talks with Washington on the women's release.

The scholar, Han Park, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, was quoted by the JoongAng Ilbo as saying the North Korean authorities told him the two women were "staying well in a guest house in Pyongyang."

Mrs. Clinton's comments during a town-hall-style meeting at the State Department came in response to an employee who did not identify herself, creating the appearance that the question was planted in an attempt to send a message to North Korea.

A department spokesman, P. J. Crowley, avoided questions about whether the administration had been in direct talks with North Korea.

Experts said that Mrs. Clinton appeared to be trying to keep the issue of the journalists separate from the conflict over the North's nuclear ambitions.

"It's clear to me they don't want this tail to wag the nuclear dog," said Michael Green, a top Asia expert for former President George W. Bush. "They are trying to keep it in a separate lane."

But Mr. Green said the North was unlikely to release the women without getting something in return. Although North Korea does not expect the Obama administration to abandon its effort to impose sanctions on the North for its recent nuclear test, he said, it is likely to want a "high-profile visit" by an administration official to demonstrate that "it's possible to return to business as usual."

Add another critical initiative to Hillary Clinton's portfolio: finding hot showers for her employees at the State Department.

America's top diplomat was handed her latest assignment on Friday during a Q-and-A with staffers.

One young woman asked Clinton about "biking and running to work, and whether you would support an initiative to get us access to showers."

The crowd in the Dean Acheson auditorium at the State Department cracked up as the former First Lady said, "I don't know what portable showers look like."

But "we'll look into it," she pledged.

The town hall-style event marked Clinton's first extended public appearance since breaking her elbow during a tumble last month. Yesterday, her right arm was held in a black sling emblazoned with a State Department patch.

After six months on the job, Clinton told her team "we need to get in the habit of looking to the horizon and planning for how we want things to be."

Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew said, "We don't think we're doing everything as well as we should" and "there are areas of our program that we need to change."

By Richard Sisk, New York Daily News, July 11, 2009

When the president travels out of country, his secretary of state customarily follows.

Not so with Hillary Clinton.

More and more, President Obama is ditching his top diplomat when he travels abroad. By the time Obama returns from Ghana on Sunday, the last stop on his latest three-country tour, he will have visited nine countries without Clinton.

That's highly unusual for a new secretary of state. Though Clinton has accompanied Obama on several key international visits this year, including Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago, Obama has spent far more time than his predecessors without his foreign policy point person.

Some analysts say this could be a product of Obama's acute interest in diplomacy and international affairs, or perhaps his wariness to promote on the world stage a former rival whose star power could detract from his.

But they wonder whether Clinton, who as first lady traveled the world, is being used to her fullest potential at a time when crises are flaring all over the globe.

"Whenever the president is on foreign travel, it's typical that the secretary of state would travel with the president," said a former top State Department official in the Bush administration. "It seems that (Clinton has) had a bit lower profile over the past couple months as opposed to when she entered office."

The former official said Clinton entered the post with the "widest public recognition" of any secretary of state, but that she's since drifted more into the background.

"That could be by design, on her part or his part," the official said.

Aides to both Clinton and Obama took pains to describe the close working relationship between the two, citing Clinton's attendance at weekly meetings with Obama and Vice President Biden and her participation in other meetings the president holds with foreign leaders.

"The secretary and the president consult often, and share common foreign policy objectives," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. "She is proud to be part of his team."

Recently, Clinton's absence on the world stage can be attributed in part to her broken elbow. She right away canceled plans to attend meetings in Italy and Greece after her injury from a spill last month.

The State Department announced last week she wouldn't be going to Russia either, where Obama was meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, before heading to Italy and then Ghana. Aides said she had used her personal relationship with Russia's foreign minister to shape this week's summit but that the injury prevented her from attending.

Kelly called the injury a "serious break" and said she was spending some time working at home to recover.

It's unclear, though, whether she would have accompanied Obama to the other countries on his itinerary.

Clinton's absence only expands the list of nations Obama will have visited without Clinton: Ghana, Italy, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Turkey and Canada.

With that kind of globetrotting schedule, it may be hard for anyone to keep up.

But Madeleine Albright marched practically lockstep with former President Bill Clinton around the world when she joined him in his second term.

In fact, the last four secretaries of state were pretty much buddy-buddy with the president overseas during their first six months on the job -- whether the president traveled a lot, or a little.

-- Secretary of State Warren Christopher accompanied Clinton on all three foreign trips the president took in the first half of 1993.

-- Albright and Clinton hit up a whopping nine countries together during their first six months together. Clinton did veer off on his own to visit former Prime Minister Tony Blair in Britain and later to visit Denmark dignitaries.

-- Secretary of State Colin Powell tagged along with President George W. Bush on three foreign trips in their first six months, with Bush going on his own once to Britain.

-- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made three separate European tours with Bush after she took her post in the first half of 2005. In July, Bush took a solo trip to Scotland and Denmark. But Rice accompanied Bush on every trip after that for the rest of the year, through South America and then through Asia.

Clinton and Obama aren't quite as tight. The president's chief rival in the Democratic primaries did not accompany Obama on his first foreign trip in office to Canada. She was on a multi-country tour through Asia at the time.

She later met up with Obama in April for stops in three European countries, but left when Obama headed to Turkey -- his first visit as president to a Muslim country.

She met up with Obama again later that month for the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, after the president made a solo stop in Mexico while Clinton went to Haiti and the Dominican Republican.

And she joined him in Cairo, Egypt, in early June for one day, in the middle of Obama's Middle Eastern and European tour. Obama had already visited Saudi Arabia, and then went on to Germany and France without her. Clinton had spent three days prior to the president's departure in El Salvador and Honduras.

Like her predecessors, Clinton has kept a vigorous international schedule of her own.

She's visited Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Central America, as well as Canada and Mexico, on her own time. While the president was in Russia on Tuesday, she met in Washington with ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. She announced that Costa Rica's president would serve as an international mediator in the leadership crisis in Honduras.

Clinton plans to head to India on a separate trip late next week. To mark her first six months on the job, she is also scheduled to deliver a major policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Brian Darling, an analyst with the conservative Heritage Foundation and former counsel to Republican senators, acknowledged that Clinton travels a lot on her own but said she loses out by not accompanying Obama.

"The president views himself as diplomat-in chief. ... He loves diplomacy. He clearly very much enjoys meeting with the leaders of foreign countries so he's taken over the role of what Hillary would normally do," Darling said. "I think it may denigrate the influence Hillary may have when meeting with foreign leaders."

Darling, as well as the former State Department official, noted that Clinton also is surrounded by special envoys to diplomatic and security hotspots. High-profile names include Pakistan and Afghanistan envoy Richard Holbrooke, Mideast envoy George Mitchell and U.S. representative to Six-Party Talks with North Korea Stephen Bosworth. Darling said their roles detract from Clinton's influence as well.

But Clinton apparently is having her voice heard one way or another.

The Washington Times reported last week that it was Clinton who urged Obama to toughen his language on Iran's crackdown on protesters in the wake of the country's disputed election.

Obama had taken heat from some who thought the president was being too soft on the regime.

The Times reported that Obama, who later said he was "appalled and outraged" by the crackdown, did not inform Clinton ahead of time, though, that he was taking her advice.

Several officials confirmed to FOX News that Clinton and Obama did not initially agree on the tone the president should take toward Iran. But they denied there was any rift between the two and suggested the leak on the Iran story could be traced to former Clinton aides still in "campaign mode."

"What we're seeing here is the fruits of a very effective interagency process," said Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley. "The president is getting the best advice he can from his advisers. Sure, there are debates. But this is part of a healthy give-and-take that yields good policy."

PRAGUE - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton condemned Friday's hotel bombing in Jakarta and said the United States is prepared to provide assistance if requested by the Indonesian government.

"Our sympathies go out to the victims of these tragic attacks, their families, and the people and government of Indonesia," Clinton said during a refueling stop in Prague. She's starting a weeklong foreign trip to India and Thailand.

Authorities believe the explosions that ripped through two luxury hotels in Jakarta, ending a four-year lull in terror attacks in the world's most populous Muslim nation, were the work of bombers who had been staying in the hotels as guests. Eight people were killed and at least 50 others were injured. At least 18 foreigners were among the dead and wounded.

The blasts were at the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels, which are located side-by-side in an upscale business district in the capital.

A State Department spokesman in Washington, Noel Clay, said several Americans were injured.

Clinton condemned the attacks as reflecting "the viciousness of violent extremists" and said they "remind us that the threat of terrorism remains very real."

"We have no higher priority than confronting this threat along with other countries that share our commitment to a more peaceful and prosperous future," she said in a statement.

Clinton said the State Department is working to help American citizens injured in the blasts.

Declaring that "no nation can meet the world's challenges alone," Mrs. Clinton said the United States was pursuing multifront diplomacy with a host of countries and other players, even adversaries like Iran. She condemned Tehran for cracking down on postelection protests, saying its actions were "deplorable and unacceptable."

With a few exceptions - during the presidential primary campaign, she had derided the idea of engaging Iran - the speech sounded like one Mrs. Clinton might have given as a candidate, when she sought to make her foreign policy credentials a trump card over the rival who is now her boss.

She even marshaled a cheering section of special envoys and other senior American diplomats in the first few rows at the Council of Foreign Relations. Faced with a White House that has tended to centralize control over policy, Mrs. Clinton is defending her prerogatives as an influential, but loyal, member of the president's team.

In recent weeks, the administration's top Iran policy maker was reassigned from the State Department to the White House's National Security Council; Mrs. Clinton's candidate to lead the United States Agency for International Development has been tangled up in a vetting process; and she has failed to get her choices into some plum ambassadorships, notably Japan, which went to a fund-raiser for President Obama.

Also, the White House recently scuttled Mrs. Clinton's effort bring Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist and confidant of both her and former President Bill Clinton, into the State Department.

The injury to Mrs. Clinton's elbow - she fractured it in a fall last month, and it is being held together with pins and wire - has compounded the challenge. Her recuperation from surgery sharply curtailed her schedule, forcing her to cancel two overseas trips, including one to Russia with Mr. Obama.

Though she departs Thursday for India and Thailand, she is in constant pain and faces grueling physical therapy five times a day, according to people close to her. Among the exercises: repetitively squeezing a gelatinous ball.

Still, her aides and people at the White House dismiss suggestions that Mrs. Clinton has been shunted to the sidelines. Her relationship with Mr. Obama is strong, they say, and she remains an influential voice in all key debates.

The recent personnel issues are part of the pull and tug of any administration in its early days, they argue, and say little about Mrs. Clinton's broader role.

"Secretary Clinton is a key member of a very strong team," said Denis R. McDonough, a spokesman for the National Security Council. "The president values her inputs, her team's inputs."

Mrs. Clinton is said by her aides to brush off the scuttlebutt about her low profile. They note that she kept her head down early in her Senate career, too.

She professes to be amused, if baffled, by a recent column on the blog Daily Beast in which Tina Brown wrote, "It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa."

Other foreign affairs experts say the doubts about Mrs. Clinton's role reflect an unrealistic view of the job of secretary of state, particularly in an era when the White House usually drives foreign policy.

"There's a reflex assumption on the part of a lot of people that the secretary of state is going to be out there, on every conceivable issue," said Strobe Talbott, a deputy secretary of state under President Clinton.

"But to do that on every conceivable issue is way too much, particularly when we have so many issues," said Mr. Talbott, who is now president of the Brookings Institution and once wrote about sidelined secretaries of state, in the Nixon and Carter administrations, for Time magazine.

Mrs. Clinton has told colleagues about a recent phone conversation with Henry A. Kissinger, a secretary of state who was not sidelined, in which he told her he could not recall a time when there appeared to be less friction between the State Department and the White House. Mr. Kissinger confirmed the account.

At the same time, however, the White House has exercised a tight grip on critical foreign policy issues, particularly Iran.

A few weeks ago, a senior administration official said, Mr. Obama telephoned Mrs. Clinton to inform her he was moving the State Department's top Iran adviser, Dennis B. Ross, to a job in the White House.

Mr. Ross will offer advice on a range of issues, from the Middle East to Afghanistan. That, some officials said, could cause him to rub up against George J. Mitchell, the special envoy for the Middle East, and Richard C. Holbrroke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who report to both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama.

A senior State Department official said Mrs. Clinton had supported Mr. Ross's move because she and Mr. Obama agreed that the National Security Council needed more "strategic heft."

Mr. Obama, officials said, was frustrated by his recent trip to Saudi Arabia, when he met with King Abdullah and failed to extract any meaningful gestures toward Israel to revive the peace process, though other officials denied that had prompted Mr. Ross's reassignment.

The White House has also asserted its privilege in naming ambassadors, passing over Mrs. Clinton's preferred candidate for Japan - Joseph S. Nye Jr., a Harvard expert on foreign policy - in favor of John V. Roos, a Silicon Valley lawyer who is close to Mr. Obama. Aides to Mrs. Clinton said she accepted such decisions with equanimity. But she has been vocal in her frustration about the way White House vetting requirements have delayed the nomination of a new director of the Agency for International Development.

On Wednesday, she said, "It's hard to justify not having our full government in place six months after we started."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday deplored Iran's crushing of dissent after June's election but said the Obama administration still wanted talks with Tehran over its nuclear program.

In what the State Department billed as a major foreign policy speech, Clinton said neither she nor President Barack Obama had illusions that such a dialogue would guarantee success and said the opportunity for talks was not open-ended.

"But we also understand the importance of trying to engage Iran and offering its leaders a clear choice -- whether to join the international community as a responsible member or to continue down a path to further isolation," Clinton said.

"Direct talks provide the best vehicle for presenting and explaining that choice," added Clinton.

The State Department released in advance excerpts of the speech, which was to be delivered to the Council on Foreign Relations later in the day.

So far, Iran has not responded to appeals for talks with the United States and other major powers seeking to convince Tehran to give up sensitive nuclear work the West believes is aimed at building a bomb and Iran says is to generate power.

Clinton has said the United States watched last month's election in Iran with great admiration but was "appalled" by the manner in which the government used violence to quell protesters who disputed the result.

"As we ... have made clear, these actions are deplorable and unacceptable," said Clinton.

Reuters, July 15, 2009

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is warning Iran that it has only limited time to accept the Obama administration's offer of engagement or face new penalties and isolation over its nuclear program.

In remarks prepared for a major foreign policy address to be delivered Wednesday, Clinton says the time for Iran to respond to America's overture is now. She says "the opportunity will not remain open indefinitely."

Clinton accuses Iran of using "deplorable and unacceptable" actions to put down recent postelection protests. She says neither she nor President Barack Obama has illusions about the regime but says direct talks are the best way to get Iranian officials to change their policies.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday the United States is ready to engage in talks with Iran on nuclear and other issues but added time is limited.

In extracts of a speech she plans deliver, Clinton renewed US condemnation of the Iranian leadership's violent crackdown on those protesting the June 12 presidential election, but said Washington still backed diplomatic engagement.

"These actions are deplorable and unacceptable," Clinton said about the crackdown.

"We know very well what we inherited with Iran. We know how far its nuclear program has advanced," she said in remarks released by her aides.

But she said the previous Bush administration policies of isolating Iran had failed to alter its alleged "march toward a nuclear weapon, reducing Iranian support for terror or improving Iran's treatment of its citizens."

"Neither the president nor I have any illusions that direct dialogue with the Islamic Republic will guarantee success," she said.

"But we also understand the importance of trying to engage Iran and offering its leaders a clear choice: whether to join the international community as a responsible member or to continue down a path to further isolation," she added.

"Direct talks provide the best vehicle for presenting and explaining that choice... Iran can become a constructive actor in the region if it stops threatening its neighbors and supporting terrorism," said the chief US diplomat.

"It can assume a responsible position in the international community if it fulfills its obligations on human rights. The choice is clear," she said.

"We remain ready to engage with Iran, but the time for action is now. The opportunity will not remain open indefinitely," she added.

AFP, July 17, 2009