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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