White House Daily Briefing, October 26, 2000
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary October 26, 2000 PRESS BRIEFING BY JAKE SIEWERT The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room 1:45 P.M. EDT Q: Do you have any reaction to the suicide bomb in the Middle East and the approval of this law on the House floor to hold the financial support to the Palestinians? MR. SIEWERT: We certainly - that was a very unfortunate incident. There does, on the whole, appear to be somewhat less violence over the past couple of days, and we hope that trend continues. As I've said many times here, there's too much violence, too much bloodshed, and it's vitally important that we see a clear reduction in the violence over an extended period of time. We've seen some improved security coordination among both parties, and we're going to continue to do what we can to help foster better cooperation and urge both sides, as the President has in his calls with Chairman Arafat and the Prime Minister, to do what they can to implement the Sharm el-Sheikh accords. On that congressional action, that was simply a sense of the House resolution. We don't think it's particularly useful or helpful. Q: How do you think it's going to affect the efforts of the White House? MR. SIEWERT: I think people should understand on all sides that this is simply a House resolution, it doesn't have the force of law, doesn't come to the President for signature. And we here in the administration don't think it's particularly useful. So others should probably make that judgment, but they should understand that it's a symbolic gesture by the House. Q: Did the White House lobby against that coming to the floor? MR. SIEWERT: We made clear that it was -- Q: You lobbied against the Armenian resolution coming to the floor. You worked with the Speaker to make sure that wouldn't even come to a vote. Did you -- MR. SIEWERT: I don't know. We made clear for a long time now that we didn't think that was a particularly useful way to conduct business up there. And we think that - we've urged both sides through out diplomatic channels and through the President, personally, to end the violence. And we're doing everything we can, and we don't think that resolution really furthers that goal. Q: Do you believe that resolution undermines the U.S. role in the Middle East? MR. SIEWERT: No, but I think it is important that people understand that it's simply a sense of the House resolution, doesn't have the effect of law. .... Q: Jake, the Israeli Foreign Minister is coming next week to the country. Do you expect that he will have talks here in Washington? MR. SIEWERT: I don't know. Q: - is going to New York next week -- MR. SIEWERT: We'll see. I don't think that's part of our -- Q: Where do you stand on the possible visit by Barak and Arafat? MR. SIEWERT: Well, as you know, the President has encouraged Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Barak to fully implement Sharm el-Sheikh. Both sides have agreed to take concrete steps to reduce the violence and they're both interested in finding a path back to the negotiating process. We remain focused on seeing Sharm implemented. There was, as you know, three tracks envisioned at Sharm, and we are primarily focused on the first and second track at the moment; trying to, one, end the violence and, two, put in place a fact-finding mechanism that we've been working with the U.N. on and other parties. But eventually - we have said for a long time that we need to find a way back to the political process and the President has raised that as a possibility. But I think it's clear that we need to do more right now to end the violence. Q: According to some officials from Israel, maybe Prime Minister Ehud Barak is going to think twice about the possibility of coming out after this first suicide attempt, or bomb. Do you think it can maybe delay the possibility of -- MR. SIEWERT: It's hard to delay - we haven't set any timetable for that or any schedule. What we're focused on right now is urging both sides to fully implement the security arrangements that were envisioned at Sharm el-Sheikh and do everything they can to reduce the violence in the streets there. END 2:17 P.M. EDT
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