US State Dept to open up to the world on Twitter

As part of its efforts to harness digital technologies for public diplomacy, the US State Department has decided to open up its daily press briefings by letting people across the globe tweet their questions in several languages, including Hindi and Urdu.

"Beginning this week, the Department's Spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, will take questions from the worldwide public selected from the Department's 10 official Twitter feeds (Arabic, Chinese, English, Farsi, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu) and answer them at the podium during the Daily Press Briefing each Friday afternoon during the month of January," the State Department said in a statement.

The daily press briefings are being opened up for the general public this month, which is being observed as the US Department of State's 21st century statecraft month.

On this occasion, the department and its overseas missions have developed a range of initiatives to showcase America's diplomatic leadership in harnessing digital networks and technologies in service of its foreign policy goals, it said.

Throughout the month, officials in Washington and missions overseas will host digital engagements across multiple platforms on a wide of array of issues to directly engage publics, domestic and foreign, on the foreign policy issues that matter to them, the statement said.

Questions to Nuland can be submitted using the hashtag #AskState to any of the Twitter feeds: