THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release October 6, 2000
PRESS BRIEFING
BY
JAKE SIEWERT
The James S. Brady Briefing Room
11:45 A.M. EDT
Q Okay, the Middle East now. Is the Middle East process
completely dead?
MR. SIEWERT: We don't think so. We think that we have spent the
last several days urging all parties to stop the violence, to restore
calm in the area. Secretary Albright was able to work with the parties
in Paris toward some understandings that would allow -- and they made an
effort with her to reach out to their security forces and their police
to urge them to restrain -- urge restraint and try to stop the violence
there. We're going to keep monitoring that situation and working with
the parties.
The situation there, obviously, remains tense and difficult and
we're going to expect both leaders to do what they can to restore calm.
Ultimately, as I've said before, we think that these are --
differences need to be resolved at the negotiating table, not in the
streets. Right now, our focus is on restoring calm in the streets, but
sooner or later, both parties are going to need to sit down and decide
the tough issues and decide them at a negotiating table.
Q In retrospect, does the President feel that the failure of the
Camp David talks this summer was tragic because it could have prevented
or would have prevented what's going on now, the violence?
MR. SIEWERT: Well, there's no doubt that we would like to resolve
some of the final status issues. We believe the Camp David process was
important at helping narrow some of those differences. But we didn't
finish up the work and that's something that, ultimately, is incumbent
upon both countries* to recognize that they have serious differences,
those differences remain -- but they need to be resolved at the
negotiating table. But we believe that the Camp David process was
critical in identifying those issues, and that's something that needed
to be done before they could move on to resolving the most final and
most difficult issues.
Q Is there any sense, Jake, that this happened because the
outside world tried to force a peace agreement on the Israelis and
Palestinians?
MR. SIEWERT: I don't think so. I don't think anyone would say
that the efforts to restore peace and try to bring calm to that region
and try to resolve some of the differences between the parties is not a
worthwhile one. What the President said from the beginning is that
there are longstanding historical tensions there that need to be
resolved, and we're going to do everything we can to resolve them.
END 12:10 P.M. EDT
#2-10/06
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
