28 April 2003
Powell "Encouraged" by Transformation Within Palestinian Authority
(Also comments on North Korea talks, humanitarian needs in Iraq) (2530)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said he is encouraged by "the
transformation within the Palestinian Authority that will allow the
Palestinian people to have a prime minister who can be a responsible
partner" in moving forward to the goal of a Palestinian state within
three years.
Powell made his remarks following a meeting at the State Department
with Jordan's foreign minister, Marwan Jamil Al-Muasher on April 28.
Powell said the United States welcomes the appointment of a
Palestinian prime minister, and expressed his hope that Abu Mazen can
offer "new reinvigorated leadership."
On Iraq, Powell said the U.S. has turned its attention to dealing with
humanitarian needs, including repairing electrical grids and making
sure Iraqis have clean water.
"Work is also under way to help the Iraqi people create a new
government that will be representative of all the Iraqi people,"
Powell said.
Foreign Minister Muasher said he was encouraged by what he heard from
Powell regarding President Bush's resolve to move ahead with the "road
map" for Middle East peace and added that Jordan supports the new
Palestinian government and intends to work with it.
Calling on Israel to lift curfews, stop the demolition of homes, and
end settlement activity, Muasher said, "I think what we all want to
see is tangible differences on the ground, differences that would
indicate to Palestinians in particular that there is, indeed, hope
that the peace process is finally relaunched and that their lives have
changed."
On Iraq, Muasher said it is important to start a political process in
Iraq "that would lead to the formation of a credible and
representative Iraqi government so we can get on with the process of
rebuilding Iraq and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq."
Turning to North Korea, Powell termed the trilateral meeting held with
the Chinese and the North Koreans April 23-25 in Beijing "quite
useful." He said the North Koreans acknowledged "a number of things
that they were doing and, in effect, said these are now up for further
discussion."
Powell said the North Koreans "did put forward a plan that would
ultimately deal with their nuclear capability and their missile
activities. But they, of course, expect something considerable in
return. And so we are studying that plan." He said the United States
is "staying in the closest touch with the South Koreans, the Japanese,
the Chinese, Russians, Australians and others" on the matter.
Following is the transcript of remarks by Secretary of State Powell,
and Jordanian Foreign Minister Muasher on April 28 at the State
Department:
(begin transcript)
Secretary of State Powell Remarks with Jordanian Foreign Minister
Marwan Jamil Al-Muasher Following Their April 28 Meeting
Secretary Colin L. Powell
C Street Entrance
Washington, DC
April 28, 2003
SECRETARY POWELL: Good morning, everyone. It's been my pleasure to
host Foreign Minister Muasher of Jordan. We had a good conversation
and, as you might expect, we talked about the two topics of the day of
greatest interest to us, and that was where we are in Iraq, and now
that, for the most part, the serious hostilities are over, although we
have not yet finished cleaning up all the pockets of resistance;
nevertheless, you can see that our attention has turned to dealing
with humanitarian needs, and I am pleased that food is not a problem
in the country and we're hard at work fixing the electrical grid and
making sure that the people of Iraq have clean water and the other
things needed for satisfactory daily life.
We will begin the effort of rebuilding the ministries. And as you know
from the meeting taking place in Baghdad today, work is also underway
to help the Iraqi people create a new government that will be
representative of all the Iraqi people.
So we discussed this issue in some detail and then we moved to the
Middle East peace process, and I reaffirmed President Bush's
commitment to the release, with the other members of the Quartet, the
roadmap as soon as Prime Minister Designate Abu Mazen has been
confirmed by the PLC, and we hope that will be in the next several
days. And both the Minister and I expressed our hopes that both
parties, the Palestinians and the Israelis, will grab this new
opportunity to achieve progress along the path to peace through the
use of this roadmap.
So we are encouraged by this development, the transformation within
the Palestinian Authority that will allow the Palestinian people to
have a Prime Minister who can be a responsible partner working with
Israel and working with the United States, members of the Quartet, and
the countries in the region, the leaders in the region, to move
forward to our goal, which is to create a Palestinian state in the
period of time that President Bush suggested, within a three-year
period of time.
And so, Mr. Minister, as always, it's a great pleasure to have had you
here.
FOREIGN MINISTER MUASHER: Thank you, sir. Let me thank Secretary
Powell for this very productive meeting. We discussed, of course,
again the two main issues on the region's mind -- Iraq and the peace
process. We emphasized the need to start the political process in Iraq
that would lead to the formation of a credible and representative
Iraqi government so we can get on with the process of rebuilding Iraq
and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq.
On the peace process, I'm very encouraged by what I heard from the
Secretary about the President's resolve to get ahead with the roadmap.
We are all looking forward to the time when the roadmap will be
announced, in a few days hopefully. More importantly, I think there is
serious work ahead of us in making sure that the roadmap is
implemented at a very early time and in an honest manner that would
restart the peace process that would give the people hope that they
can live in peace and security and that would get us to the time when
a Palestinian state will be established alongside Israel and where the
occupation -- again, the Israeli occupation -- will end.
I look forward to working with the Secretary on these issues and I
believe that the time has come in the Middle East to truly look at all
the problems of the Middle East in a way that would end all conflicts
there.
Thank you.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, is the U.S. -- are you getting support from
Europeans and Arab governments -- I could ask the Minister, too -- on
your, what should I say, hopes for a transformation of the leadership
of, frankly, a sidetracking of Yasser Arafat, bringing to the fore Abu
Mazen? Is the U.S. alone on this or is it reinforced?
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, I don't think we're alone. Clearly, we have been
ahead of our European colleagues with respect to calling for
transformation in the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, but I
think I can speak for the members of the Quartet when we say that we
welcome the appointment of a Prime Minister who we believe can be a
partner to work with members of the Quartet and others in the region
to move the peace process along. Chairman Arafat is there, but I
believe we need new, reinvigorated leadership of a kind that we hope
Mr. Abu Mazen will bring to the table, a kind that Mustafa Fayad, the
Minister of Finance, is bringing to the table.
And this is not the time to look back. It's a time to look forward and
do everything we can to help the new Prime Minister.
QUESTION: Mr. Minister, is that something you have something to say
about?
FOREIGN MINISTER MUASHER: This is, the Palestinian reform process is
that, a Palestinian process that is internal and that is ongoing, and
we believe that the recent developments have been very encouraging.
You have a new government, you have a Prime Minister with authority,
and you have ministers that are authorized with going on with some
very serious work, both on security and finance, among other things.
We support the new Palestinian government and we intend to work with
it in order to make sure that the proper conditions are created on the
ground that would help in relaunching the peace process.
QUESTION: Mr. Foreign Minister, you've spoken about moving ahead with
the roadmap, but also that you would like to see more of a U.S.
engagement, not only rolling out the roadmap. Could you describe what
kind of U.S. engagement you would like to see going forward?
And, Secretary Powell, on North Korea. The North Koreans, there have
been some reports out through the Chinese that the North Koreans
offered to scrap their nuclear program, not do any testing, in
exchange for security guarantees by the United States. Is there
anything you could say on that?
Thank you.
FOREIGN MINISTER MUASHER: Well, I think what we all want to see is
tangible differences on the ground, differences that would indicate to
Palestinians in particular that there is, indeed, hope that the peace
process is finally relaunched and that their lives have changed. We
would like to see Israel lift the curfews, stop demolition of homes.
We would like to see an end to settlement activity and we would like
to see the security situation also stabilized. So these are the kind
of early activities that we will be looking
at to see whether we can, indeed, translate the roadmap into a
tangible difference on the ground.
SECRETARY POWELL: The trilateral meeting that we held with the Chinese
and the North Koreans last week in Beijing, I think turned out to be
quite useful. The North Koreans acknowledged a number of things that
they were doing and, in effect, said these are now up for further
discussion. They did put forward a plan that would ultimately deal
with their nuclear capability and their missile activities. But they,
of course, expect something considerable in return. And so we are
studying that plan. We are examining it with our friends and allies.
We are staying in the closest touch with the South Koreans, the
Japanese, the Chinese, Russians, Australians and others. And so I
think it was useful to get it all out on the table and see where we go
from here.
They've never used the word "testing." You suggested they threatened
to test. But they never used the word "test" and they said that it is
the kind of capability that one can display in one way or another. And
we're taking all of this seriousness and now that Assistant Secretary
Kelly is back, we'll be spending quite a bit of time going over his
notes and his impressions on what he heard.
Let me take this opportunity to thank the Chinese Government for not
only hosting this meeting but being a full participant in this first
multilateral session.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, have you asked the Jordanians in any manner
to help work with the Syrians for moderation, and also to ask for
special policing and other type of army-type infrastructure to go in
to Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, it didn't come up in the course of -- the second
part of your question didn't come up in the course of our
conversation. And I don't know if the Minister wishes to say a word to
that point.
With respect to Syria, we always discuss Syria when we are together,
and as you know, I plan to travel to Syria in the not too distant
future and have a full range of conversations with the Syrian
leadership over issues that are on our mind that are of concern to us
and that we have been speaking about rather openly in recent weeks.
And I'm sure we'll have complete and comprehensive discussions with
the Syrians, and I hope that in light of the changed circumstances in
the region, not only with respect to what happened in Iraq but
with the likelihood that the roadmap is about to be placed down over
the next several days, I hope that these two elements -- changed
circumstance in Iraq and the roadmap -- will have caused the Syrians
to review all of our their policies and give some consideration to
changing those policies which we believe have not been helpful in the
past.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, there were reports over the weekend that
North Korea actually told the State Department on March 31st that it
had begun this reprocessing, although the press didn't find out about
it until a later date. And there are some allegations that the rest of
the administration didn't find out about it, or other agencies. Can
you address that?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah. That's nonsense. Over a period of time, the
North Koreans have made different statements about reprocessing and
whether they are or are not reprocessing, and we always examine those
statements and we try to determine the validity of those statements.
And our intelligence community still cannot give us any validation or
confirmation of what North Korea has said at various times and in
various places with respect to reprocessing.
So what we were told on the 31st was shared within the administration.
I'm not sure if everybody in the administration got it, but it isn't
relevant because it didn't seem to be anything that was terribly new
or different from what we had been told on a regular basis over the
last several months. It was not, in our judgment, anything that was
particularly new or newsworthy.
Thank you.
QUESTION: Can you answer one more question, please, sir? In Cuba, the
Cubans have really cracked down on people just trying to exercise
their rights. The Pope, this weekend, condemned this. Is there
anything that the U.S. can do now to help these people or to help the
situation?
SECRETARY POWELL: We are reviewing all of our policies and our
approach toward Cuba in light of what I think is a deteriorating human
rights situation within Cuba, and we have been rather forceful in our
denunciation of these activities and I am very pleased that His
Holiness has also commented on the situation. Long terms of
imprisonment -- 12, 15, 20 years -- for speaking out and trying to
exercise basic human rights, this just once again illustrates the
nature of that regime under this dictator. Fidel Castro has been doing
this for many years.
And so I hope the whole world will now see this regime for what it is,
a regime that is one of the last of its kind on the face of the earth
and really is an aberration in the Western Hemisphere when you look at
how all other nations in our hemisphere, except for Cuba, are trying
to find the way forward with democracy and free enterprise system and
individual rights and liberty, and Castro continues to do nothing but
oppress, suppress his people, suppress opinion. And we're reviewing
all of our policies.
Thank you.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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