Military

20 January 2003

Transcript: Powell, Counterparts Talk Terrorism, Iraq, North Korea

(State Department spokesman briefs on Powell meetings Jan. 19) (470)
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher spokes to the press the
evening of January 19 following a series of bilateral meetings between
Secretary of State Colin Powell and several foreign ministers. The
transcript of Boucher's remarks follows:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
Press Statement
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Washington, DC
January 19, 2003
Remarks to the Press
MR. BOUCHER: Let me begin on the record as Richard Boucher.
QUESTION: Can you go be on the record as someone else?
MR. BOUCHER: I was thinking about it. The Secretary this evening met
with Foreign Minister Tang of China, Foreign Minister de Villepin of
France, and Foreign Secretary Derbez of Mexico. In all his meetings he
discussed U.N. issues, including the session on terrorism coming up
tomorrow, the questions of Korea and Iraq, and then there were some
bilateral issues that came up in each of the meetings with some
others.
On Korea, I'd generally characterize the discussions as recognition by
all that Korea's nuclearization has created an international problem,
and they discussed how the international community can respond,
including looking towards a meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors
soon to probably refer the matter to the United Nations, as the
Secretary mentioned this morning on one of the shows.
On Iraq, everyone stressed the importance of Iraqi disarmament, a hope
that Iraq gets the message and responds to the points being made by
the inspectors, by Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei in Baghdad this weekend.
We are all looking forward to the report that the inspectors will make
to the Council on January 27th. And then we'll discuss with other
governments what the next steps should be.
In terms of specific meetings, with China there was also a discussion
of bilateral relations and how to strengthen our ties, which have been
good and growing more positive. They discussed the possibility of
upcoming visits, strengthening counterterrorism cooperation, trade
cooperation.
With Mexico, this was the Secretary's first meeting with Foreign
Secretary Derbez. They look forward to a very strong and productive
relationship, a close one. They talked about ways to move forward on
migration issues, moving step by step and keeping in mind that
security was an important fundamental for all of us. On water, they
talked about continuing the work on water beyond the agreement that we
reached recently. They talked about moving forward on FTAA and NAFTA.
He discussed Venezuela with both the French Foreign Minister and the
Mexican Foreign Secretary, more with the Mexican Foreign Secretary
because they're on the Friends of the Secretary General group.
Emphasized our common purpose of helping Secretary General Gaviria and
look forward to an early meeting to help organize the work of the
Friends on that.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)