 Please take your seats. We're about to begin our keynote speaker. And actually, for those of you who are in the back, I would encourage you to move up. There are quite a few, a lot of people at the back of the room, and quite a few seats open in the first five rows or so. So please come up and so you can see and hear better. It's my pleasure to introduce to you our keynote speaker, John DeRochet, who is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Egypt and Maghreb Affairs, a position he's held since September 2014. John has served extensively in the Middle East, as well as Africa, including positions in the US missions in Baghdad, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Monrovia, among many other assignments. And I know John from our time together at the State Department, he's really a very much a respected expert on this region. Now, John has kindly agreed to speak to us about US government views of security, democracy, issues in North Africa, and the Sahel. So he's going to make some moderate conversation. Centuries, we've seen an ebb and flow of people and empires and tribes and religious and languages and cultures across this very diverse area. And the influence that that area has had across the continent and beyond the African continent. And so when you look at that very broad historical perspective and all that's happened in history, perhaps the developments in the region today, we shouldn't think of it so unprecedented. That may be so, but it's also not much consolation for those of us who try to develop and set US policy in the region as the region itself faces a number of challenges. Continued instability in Libya and Mali, the growing presence of violent extremist organizations, the migration issue, the democracy in Tunisia that is new and admirable, but also very fragile. And tense relations between two of the key countries in the region, Morocco and Algeria. And so I'd like to sort of talk about how the US government looks at some of the challenges in the region and how we're trying to find meaningful opportunities with our partners in the region to build security and stability and economic growth. And I think I probably should start by talking about Libya, which I don't think there would be much disagreement, would be the largest and most immediate threat, the conflict there, of the largest and most immediate threat to regional stability. So in mid-December, we saw the signing of the Libyan political agreement and were signed in order to form a government of national accord that came out of dialogue that went on for a year or longer that seeks to end the conflict and reconcile the various rival factions there. On January 25th, the Libyan House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly 97 to 7 to approve that political agreement and to endorse the presidency council of the government of national accord. But as you know, it's not as simple and straightforward as all of that. There are plenty of obstacles, and the political process there remains complicated. And the steps that needed to follow the agreement on the LPA, the Libyan political agreement, and then the House of Representatives vote have not happened. That needs to happen quickly. I mean, fundamentally, at its heart, pardon me, Libya needs a stable and inclusive government that is united against ISIL and other violent extremist groups in order to restore security. Libya's economy has deteriorated significantly because of the conflict. Oil exports have fallen to less than 25% of what they were at their peak. And as those of you who watch this region closely know, ISIL has been active in the oil region of Libya as are our other terror groups. And obviously, restoring that oil production and at the same time strengthening the important economic institutions in Libya is going to be one of the first fundamental steps that's going to have to happen if Libya is to have a successful future. Let me turn for a moment to Mali. And Mali, we're cautiously optimistic about the ongoing talks between the armed groups and the Mali and government. Still, we think the government of Mali needs to take a greater ownership of the peace and reconciliation process. It also will require a successful implementation of the peace of court, I should say. We'll also hinge on the government of Mali's undertaking some robust service delivery in the North and the international community's ability to strengthen Munozma's capabilities to enable it to more effectively carry out its mandate. Now, in both the Libyan and Mali cases, we can't, and I'm going to spend a little time talking about violent extremist organizations, and we can't overlook the role that they are playing. I mean, the conflicts that are taking place within these countries are horrible enough and painful enough for the citizens of those countries. The additional factor of adding these violent extremist organizations add a horrible new dimension to it, not only for people in Libya and people in Mali, but as a threat to the broader region. On Libya, ISIL is quite entrenched insert and is looking to expand its territories and build networks in Libya. The vacuum of authority that exists in Libya has enabled ISIL to develop its most developed branch outside of Syria and Iraq, beyond cert. As of late last year anyway, and in the beginning of this year, there is ISIL presence, if not quite as entrenched, but there's ISIL presence in other parts of the country in Benghazi and in Tripoli in Ajdabiya and in other areas. ISIL was exploiting that ungoverned space and has used that ungoverned space to launch attacks both within Libya and elsewhere. Mali, the security environment remains fluid and the potential for attacks throughout the country, including in Bamako, remains high. Terrorist groups operating there continue to threaten small arms attacks against soft targets that are very difficult to protect, very similar to the terrible attack that we saw at the Radisson Blue in Bamako last November. From Safe Havens in Mali, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, continues to exploit weak governance, insecurity and economic fragility to attempt to expand its influence. And the group has demonstrated a willingness to work with local militants to incite insurgencies as well as with transnational organized crime groups to accumulate wealth and weapons and fighters. The net effect of this has been a real drain on Sahel resources, a crowding out of legitimate commerce, increased corruption and impeded economic competitiveness and trade. While profit-minded criminals generally do not seek political power, the recent attacks in Mali and Burkina Faso show that AQIM can leverage these networks to create environments where they can thrive. So, I mean, in addition to these issues that I've outlined with the violent extremist organizations in these two specific countries, I should just mention that more broadly, of course, a very troubling aspect of regional insecurity is the pattern of human trafficking that helps finance criminal and terrorist networks. Human trafficking, of course, violates human rights and does so very fundamentally. It also, even further, degrades security by leveraging corrupt officials, forced borders and lacks enforcement to orchestrate illicit trade. It has become a lucrative source of revenue for transnational organized crime and terrorist organizations estimated to produce tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year. The ongoing migration crisis, we believe, will fuel an increase in the global volume of human trafficking victims as men, women and children continue to undertake risky migration and inevitably fall prey to sex trafficking or forced labor or debt bondage or other crimes. And this continuing rise in global displacement and dangerous migration, both forced and opportunistic movements within countries and across national borders will continue to allow criminal groups and terrorist organizations to exploit vulnerable populations. So I've laid out pretty well what we see as really major threats. What I'd like to do is talk a little bit about some of the individual countries that I focus on in my work and one thing that's become very clear to me in my time in this job is that it's very hard to speak generally about these countries. It's very hard to draw broad conclusions or make broad statements. They're all very different. They face very different challenges, respond to them in different ways. And so let me just spend a little time talking about each of them. Of course, one positive thing we've seen in the region coming out of the tumultuous changes over the past few years has been Tunisia's transition to a democratic government. Tunisia recently celebrated its fifth anniversary as a democratic nation. Since the revolution, the country and its leaders have addressed and in many cases have managed to overcome some very deep divisions on key political issues. They've developed a new constitution and elected a new government. And all of us praise Tunisia for that and we certainly should do so. We saw the Nobel Prize. There's many other accolades that Tunisians have legitimately earned, but it would be foolish of us to not also recognize at the same time that Tunisia faces very real challenges. First and foremost, it has a young, impatient population that feels it has yet to see the benefits it expected from the revolution. And of course, Tunisia also confronts the threat of terrorism from groups in Libya, in addition to groups operating within Tunisia itself. Tunisia, of course, is known to be the source of a lot of foreign terrorist fighters that operate in the region, some of whom could be returning from Libya or returning from Libya and other places. The attackers at the Bardo Museum, the attackers in Seuss, both attacks claimed by ISIL, we believe trained in Libya. These attacks and the terrorism threat have of course done real harm to Tunisians tourism sector, which is critical to revenue and jobs and just exasperated, exacerbated problems that the Tunisian government had already inherited problems of high unemployment, particularly youth unemployment and high budget deficits. What we want to do, we see Tunisia as a very important partner in a very difficult region. And what we want to do is cement a partnership with Tunisia, help the country confront its economic and security challenges and continue our economic security and governance support going forward, which I'll talk a little bit more about. And not just us, but also with international partners who also understand how important it is for Tunisia's democracy to succeed, to work together, just so that we're all pulling towards the same goal. A few words about Morocco and Algeria. They may not be on the front page as much as say Libya is, but it's essential to examine those countries as well and as we look at a security model from North Africa. In Morocco, the Moroccan leadership has been very effectively managing the need and the demands for reform with maintaining stability. But Morocco also has some challenges. There are also, as folks know, it has a foreign fighter issue of its own. A number of Moroccans have gone abroad to join jihadist movements. I see just yesterday or the day before another press item from Morocco of another group that had been rounded up that posed a threat. And on the other hand, there's been important steps taken and Morocco has done a great deal to open up and to diversify its economy. Of course, the US has a free trade agreement with Morocco, which has been very beneficial to both of us. But like a lot of the region, most of its neighbors, Morocco's economic well-being is in many ways tied to the well-being of Europe to the North in ways that are very much outside of Morocco's control. In Algeria, a real bulwark against insecurity in the region is facing a political transition and the drop in oil prices presents very serious economic challenges for that oil-based economy. Over the long term, it's going to, Algeria needs to look at how it might diversify its economy away from hydrocarbons and look at ways that bureaucratic and regulatory reform could increase foreign investment and generate that kind of economic diversity. Also, just speaking a bit more broadly, one thing that we have to mention is that despite sharing very many common interests and common challenges, the countries of the Maghreb don't have a very strong regional coordination mechanism that political relations among some of the countries in the region are very in their strength. Trade among them is, as in the broader Middle East, trade among countries is very very low, which we think is unfortunate. And then, of course, tensions over the issue of Western Sahara stand in the way of what could be greater regional collaboration. So how do we, given all that I've laid out, how do we try to, as the US, look at this going forward and try to choose a path forward? What we try to do is find areas of common interest with our partners in the region to build the security and stability and economic growth that we need. In Libya, of course, in Libya our focus is, has to be the government of national accord and completing the process of forming a government of national accord. That very strongly needs to be concluded, the government needs to be seated and triply as soon as possible. When the Libyans reach that point, we're ready to assist the GNA in restoring stability and rebuilding the economy. We recognize the challenges that Libya faces, but we need a political accord to really be able to begin to address them. Political and security efforts have to reinforce each other. I mean, fundamentally, if the Libyans going to succeed, the ungoverned spaces where ISIL can operate need to be filled with Libyan government authority. We are, not just us, but the international community will be ready to provide security assistance to a government of national accord when they request it. It's very important that, however, that outside groups not provide support to any of those who do not agree to work with the Libyan government or try to undermine a unity government. That's something that we need to work very hard on. On the Mali side, I'll just say that we are working on a number of steps. We're working to implement the accord for peace and reconciliation in a thorough inclusive way. We're working to stabilize the security situation in Northern Mali and support efforts counter violent extremism. We're working in partnership with the Malians to strengthen democratic processes, institutions, and advanced development goals, particularly in food security and health. We've been actively supporting implementation of the accords, engaging both with the government and the Northern armed groups every step of the way. And we continue to press all Malian stakeholders to take full ownership of the process and ensure a lasting peace. And likewise on the security side, we're committed to working with the government of Mali to implement security assistance in coordination with other donors to strengthen democratic institutions and civilian control. We've also provided a lot of support to the judiciary in Mali, to military law enforcement through training and other support. And the attack on November's attack on the Radisson Blue underscored the need for the cooperation on counter terrorism. And we're doing a lot there on security sector reform work and other training efforts to try to bolster the situation there. More broadly across the region, we put a lot of energy and effort into security cooperation and building security capacity, training and equipping partner forces for joint action, funding regional coordination, building up capacity building mechanisms like the Transahara counter terrorism partnership and the global counter terrorism fund. Our basic goals revolve around building internal and border security, enhancing technical ability to interdict and prosecute criminals and terrorists, while at the same time, ensuring that law enforcement capacity is balanced with the required respect for a rule of law and for human rights. One initiative I'll mention in this regard is the Security Governance Initiative, the SGI, which is a multi-year partnership between us and a number of African countries. The ones I'll mention specifically here are Mali Niger and Tunisia. And what we've done in that program is develop interagency teams of our technical experts to start consultations with their counterparts and see if we can together, pardon me, identify key focus areas for each country. And the focus, not surprisingly, for each country is a little bit different, but the things that we have found the most value in working on are border management, police policies and procedures and police engagement with the community, management of security sector human and material resources, which gets to sort of trying to break down a lot of the stove piping that occurs in between institutions, trying to address radicalization problems through the criminal justice system and just helping to coordinate and manage security sector priorities in these countries. Not all about security. We want to boost economic growth in the region by encouraging trade, encouraging trade across borders, reopening borders, rolling back bureaucracy to encourage trade and investment, trying to nurture entrepreneurship. A few examples, Tunisia. We are supporting a Tunisian-American Enterprise Fund. Which is looking to invest in small and medium enterprises in Tunisia. We've established a joint economic commission last year with Secretary Kerry visited Tunis. That's going to meet again in May, here in Washington to work together on ways to strengthen the business environment and encourage bilateral trade. We have a Science and Technology Innovation Fund to build research ties. That's all beyond our normal economic support fund efforts to help build job creation, to help entrepreneurship, to help small business and so on, which is something we've been doing continuously. On the Algerian side, we've restarted high level trade talks in 2015. These things are sort of at their start, but it's a good start. There's a lot of U.S. business interest in Algeria. General Electric and Boeing and Varian and a number of others have done significant deals over the past few years. Very much I mentioned earlier on that there's a discouraging lack of economic activity between countries in the region. That's something that we are ready to work on if partners in the region are interested in doing so as well, because we think that's good for everyone. Let's see. A little bit more about Tunisia. We work a lot with Tunisia on counterterrorism and border security. As I mentioned, we have our economic support programs that deal with entrepreneurship and civil society and so on. We'll support regional elections that are coming up. And we have strong security relations with other partners in the region. Morocco is a major non-nato ally, as is Tunisia as of last year. Morocco hosts Africa Lion, which is a large military exercise in Africa. And it has signaled a willingness to look at greater leadership roles in international counterterrorism for example, co-chairing the GCTF Global Counterterrorism Forum. And with Algeria as well, Algeria is, Foreign Minister Lamama likes to describe it as an exporter of stability. And Algeria works a lot with its neighbors to promote regional security. We talk a lot to the Algerians about this, particularly about Libya, because of course of the geography, Algeria has an understandable concern about the situation in Libya. Algeria co-chairs the Sahel Working Group of the GCTF, and also is part of the Transaharan CT Partnership. And it's shared its best practices on de-radicalization and kidnapping for ransom with partners for example. It's been partnered particularly well with Tunisia and Niger on issues like smuggling, weapons proliferation, and violent extremist groups in these countries, which we think is very useful. So, what we're looking to do is build some sustained close collaboration that matches each of these countries individual circumstances. Just today, I think under Secretary Shannon, I think he's in Mali today, he had finished his travel through the countries of North Africa just this week. It was the first trip he made as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and is spending a lot of time on these issues. And our initial reports has had some very useful conversations with counterparts in Rabat, Naljeer's, and Tunis, and in Mogadougou. And the challenges that the region faces, you've all been discussing, and you all know very well. And there are things that are not going to be addressed quickly. What we are looking to do is build long-term relationships and long-term programs with these countries that nothing's gonna get fixed overnight. A lot of these challenges we've been building up for years and addressing them, this is going to take some time as well. But that's where we see this from a U.S. government perspective. I hope that's been a useful contribution to the conversations you've had today. We wanna talk a little bit more, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much, John. So let me just ask you a couple of questions. I'd like to start with kind of a broad issue. So, I mean, for example, during this morning, during the panels on North Africa and the Sahara, we were speaking a lot about long-standing problems, which is exactly where you ended that are going on, whether we are talking about economic marginalization of peripheral and border areas, the interior in Tunisia, whether we're talking about corruption, a major issue in a lot of the countries of North Africa and the Sahara, or issues, for example, in Mauritania of different groups within the society, different racial groups with very unethical rights and so forth, so that there are all these underlying issues that are making different populations and especially young people quite vulnerable to radicalization, right? So here's the question. As you look at what the U.S. government is doing, nature of U.S. government engagement with these countries as a whole. How do you feel we're doing in terms of the balance of military and security engagement versus other kinds of engagement? Now, you mentioned that some of these other things are long-term, but things like education, economy, anti-corruption efforts, these type of things that get a little bit more at the underlying problems that arguably are driving the turmoil in the region and opening up the ground for whether it's ISIS or Boko Haram or whatever. How's the U.S. government doing? Because I have to tell you, at least in the outside of government community, there's a sense that maybe without necessarily meaning to do so that the United States has rushed much more into the security and military space and withdrawn a little bit more from the other kinds of engagement as opposed to what we might have been doing 10 years ago or 20 years ago. It's an interesting question. I don't think we have, but I think that, I mean, partly because of the security situation that the region faces, I think the security situation draws a certain level of attention that's inevitable. But I do think that the two do sort of go hand in hand. My background is on the economic side. I try not to be an economic determinist and say if we just take care of the economic problems, everything else will solve itself. It's because I think that's unrealistic, but at the same time we know that these economic difficulties contribute to the larger security problem. And I mean, you have to address them both because if you want to have the flow of investment that creates jobs that helps deal with some of these, and I mentioned it in the Tunisia context, but youth unemployment is a problem throughout the region, you've got to have an environment, a secure environment where investors feel comfortable. Think they can put their money, they can put the money profitably and have a safe investment. We've certainly, I don't feel like we've neglected the economic and development side to the security side. I think again, the security thing gets a bit more attention, understandably particularly, as we've seen the growth of ISIL and violent extremist organizations in the region. But I feel like in working with my colleagues and then working at, pardon me, the fora that we work in with these countries that we've done a pretty good job of hitting the right priorities. Let me follow up on your comments on Libya. So now, how do you look at this within the State Department and in the interagency with the US military and so forth? It seems to me you have a delicate balance to strike here between wanting to undermine the reach and the military capability and so forth of ISIS and Libya, but also wanting to support some kind of a political process that can potentially reunify the country at some point. I mean, how do, what's the effect of airstrikes and potentially working with different partners on the ground on the political process in Libya? What's your thinking about how all that works out? Yeah, it's a challenge, but we don't believe and we don't think that these efforts need to work across purposes. And they shouldn't if they're done right. Fundamentally, as while the process has been very slow and very frustrating and it feels like sometimes two steps forward and one and a half steps back, the Libyan political process driving towards the formation of the unity government has got to be the foundation of how we approach this and that's the driving effort behind what we do. Because again, without such a government that is able to exert its authority, you can't tackle the ISIL problem, you can't tackle problems of other extremist groups and then the larger economic or criminal problems that the country faces. So, I mean, that's what fundamentally drives everything. Now, the president has said that when faced by threats and plots from terrorism, we will take action against them. And we did so, of course, earlier this week as everybody is aware. That's not the first time we've done this in Libya. We also did this last year against the leader of ISIL in Libya and again, I don't think that these things need to be in competition with each other, that it's not an either or thing. It's something that has to be looked at and addressed carefully but they're both very key driven by this fundamental requirement which we and well, most of all Libyans, but Libya's neighbors, our European partners ourselves have put in so much energy over the past year because until we get that, until we get a unity government that can exert its authority, these other problems can't be tackled fully. Is there tension there regarding the time? I mean, ideally, yes, you would have a unity government and you would have at least the beginning of a unified armed force and so forth to work with on the ground and yet it seems as though the United States has felt compelled to act because ISIS was moving out and beginning to take more territory and so forth. So how do you balance those requirements about the need to act now versus hold on and wait until you've got the pieces in place? Well, I think so far, I think that we've shown that that's possible. I think, I mean, the reality is, I came into this job, gosh, a year and a half ago or a bit more, where we are today in Libya as drawn out as it's been and the struggle that it's been has been, it's gotten a lot further along than I think I might have anticipated at that time. I mean, partly the reality of that is, frankly, I think a recognition among a lot of Libyans about the threat that ISIL poses to them and I think there's a number of factors, I think that's one of them. But we've seen this process move forward. Again, it's frustratingly slow and we and all of Libya's friends need to push it forward but I think so far we've managed that and what we need to do now is to get the House of Representatives to approve the cabinet. We saw some very unpleasant things yesterday where, I mean, the good news is that last night a strong majority of the House members signed a letter of expressing their support for the Government of National Report and the cabinet that's been proposed and unfortunately a very small number of hardliners physically prevented the House from meeting so that they couldn't actually vote to implement this sentiment which is really unfortunate. That's what we've got to push through. We've got to make sure that those spoilers can't control the process and get to the point where we feel that on government space. That's been the problem from the beginning of the Libyan transition with the Mason political institutions not being able to have any act in any kind of security without physical threats. Let me ask something about Tunisia. So look, during the morning sessions, we heard some questions and expressions from the speakers that just not enough has been done for Tunisia by the United States and by Europe that it's hard to understand, although certainly US assistance to Tunisia has ramped up quite a bit from what it was before the revolution, it's still quite small in absolute numbers and quite small compared to what other countries toward it get from the United States at this point. How do you see it? I mean, you've expressed, and US officials always express a sort of goodwill toward Tunisia since that you can work with the government that you want to support them and so forth. And yet, what are the obstacles to doing more with and for Tunisia in order to support this fledgling democratic transition? Sure. I mean, I have to take a bit of issue with the premise of your question. Although I have heard, certainly I have heard the sentiment that you just described, I've heard it myself. We and Tunisia's partners, but just speaking for the US government, have put a lot of our assistance resources into Tunisia. Up to FY16, it had been totaled 750 million. There's another 140 plus million in FY16, so we're talking over that period of time close to a billion dollars, which in US assistance programs for a country of that size is a pretty substantial commitment. And we think that commitment demonstrates how we are looking to help. We are right now, the secretary, when he was in Tunis last fall, noted that we were going to move forward and negotiate with the Tunisians over an additional loan guarantee. Those discussions are going on now. Pardon me, there'll be another substantial benefit from Tunisia that will be the third one of $500 million that we will have done when we complete that process. And so we think, is there ever as much assistance money as you'd like to have? I mean, unfortunately, no, there's always constraints. It's all, if it goes to one country, it's got to come from somewhere else, but I certainly think if you just look at the trend, the effort has been very strong and the result has been very good. The support that Tunisia has is very strong in this town, if I'm not even sure what to say. I think, though, I'd also just need to add that a point that we always emphasize and the Tunisians, to their credit, have undertaken some pretty ambitious reforms, but I've worked in countries that receive a lot of U.S. assistance. I've worked in countries that receive not so much. Foreign assistance can help, but it won't address problems that fundamentally need to be dealt with at home with fundamental economic reform. And like I said, the Tunisians have done an admirable job of, I mean, it's a new democracy, it's a new government, but I give them credit for not shying away from taking some very difficult steps. They've done some banquet capitalization. They've done a public-private partnership law. They're working on a new investment code. They really need to move that agenda forward and have made great progress so far admirably. And it's not always easy. There are, some of these economic models are hard to change and don't change quickly, and it's not without controversy, but that, in the end, those reforms are gonna provide the kind of growth and stability that Tunisian needs over the long term. We'll certainly contribute what we can, but what we contribute can only build on what is a foundation set by the Tunisians themselves. I'm just gonna ask you one last question we're just about out of time, but as you also have Egypt in your portfolio, I wanted to ask about two security issues related to Egypt. Egypt isn't part of this conference per se, but for example, obviously, Egypt is pretty deeply involved in the Libya issue, has very significant border security concerns, and has been one of several outside powers in the region that have intervened in Libya. So how do you see Egyptian involvement in the Libyan case right now, and to what extent are the United States and Egypt able to be on the same page regarding Libya? And the other one is just briefly on the Sinai. Obviously, Egypt has an insurgency in the Sinai, and I think it's no secret that the United States has wanted the Egyptian army, a long-time partner of the United States, to adopt more effective methods in addressing that issue. And how is that going? I, maybe I shouldn't admit, but I have to admit that for somebody who works in this part of the world, my Arabic is not as good as it ought to be, but one phrase that sticks in my head because of conversations with Egyptian counterparts is El Quamia Tain, because every time you start a conversation with Egyptians, particularly in the security sector, they point out that they share a 1,200 kilometer border with Libya, and the phrase El Quamia Tain appears very early in every conversation, and even as poor a language student as I am, it sinks in after a while. Obviously, Egypt has very serious concerns about what's going on in Libya. I spent a lot of time talking about the country to Tunisia's west, or to Libya's west, but of course the country to Libya's east, you know, has those same sorts of concerns. We have found, you know, we've been working not only with Egypt, but with a lot of Libya's neighbors and other partners as we move forward in this process, and certainly everything that I've seen is that the, you know, an agreement that the government of National Accord has to move forward, we have to occupy, we have to get a authoritative Libyan unity government in place that we can start to partner with to start to fill up these open spaces, and again, nobody understands that threat more than those who live closest to Libya, and they get that very well. On the Sinai, that I'll just say that, you know, clearly Egypt does face, you know, a serious challenge there, it has made no bones about that. We continue our conversations with the Egyptians about, you know, how experienced that we've had, might be helpful to them, but probably wouldn't be appropriate to get too much into the detail of that, but it is something that, you know, we're ready to talk to our Egyptian partners now. Thank you very much, John, really kind of you to be with us today. And for those of you here, we're gonna take a short break and we'll convene our last panel here at two o'clock, but first, please join me in thanking John DeRoshaper. Thank you. Thank you.