10 May 2003
Powell Says His Trip's Aim Is to Explain, Assess, Consult
(Holds press briefing May 10 on plane on way to Israel) (5210)
Secretary of State Colin Powell told members of the media on the way
to Israel that the purpose of his seven-day trip to the region is to
explain, assess and consult in order to get started on implementing
President Bush's roadmap for peace between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority.
The purpose of "my trip is to lay out the context in which we are now
operating, assess where the parties are, consult with the other
interested nations in the region -- the Arab nations who played a role
in this as well," Powell said on the plane May 10. He also discussed
his meetings a week ago in Syria, contacts with Iran, how the defeat
of Saddam Hussein changes the strategic situation in the region, and
the draft U.S. proposal to the U.N. Security Council to end the
Oil-for-Food Program.
A transcript of Powell's remarks follows:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of State
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Board Plane en Route Tel
Aviv/Jerusalem
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Washington, DC May 10, 2003
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you for joining me. This is a pretty demanding
trip, however, many countries it is in seven days, but thank you for
joining. It ought to be fun.
On this first stop let me put it in a little bit of a context. This
will be my first visit since last April, when we had a very bad
situation and I think those of you who may have been there and I can't
remember who it was, but you certainly remember reading about it and
watching it when we had Arafat holed up in the Muqata'a and we were
trying to break that free and you remember the siege of the Church of
Bethlehem. So, it was a bad time.
I made it clear to Arafat at that time that when we got over the hump,
breaking the siege and resolving the situation at Bethlehem, there had
to be a change in the way he was running his business, the way in
which the Palestinian Authority was being run. He had to make a
dedicated, committed effort to ending violence, and he simply had to
take those actions necessary to end terror and violence.
We watched for the next couple of months and it became clear to us,
anyway, that Chairman Arafat was not going to be making those kinds of
efforts in a way that would fundamentally change the situation. We had
been talking about the need for transformed leadership. About that
time also, you recall, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and then the
Arab League in Beirut came out over this extended period with their
declaration.
The President took all that into account, then on the 24th of June he
gave a speech that you are all so familiar with. In that speech he
called for transformed Palestinian leadership; he called for a
two-state solution again; he talked about creating a state with
provisional aspects to it on the way to a final settlement in a
relatively short period of time and he said the United States would be
there to help and he expected those parties to have responsibilities
and obligations and to be ready to make difficult choices as we moved
forward in the first step in the process.
As he saw it, there was a need for transformed leadership on the
Palestinian side. I had told Mr. Arafat in April that this was liable
to be the case, that I would not be able to keep working with them
until he showed greater responsibility or there was leadership that I
could work with.
Since the 24th of June we have watched things happen. We watched the
Palestinians put in place a new finance minister in the person of Mr.
Fayed, who began to work in a very responsible way and provide
confidence to us, the international community and the Israelis, that
they could start to send some of the revenues back in order to give
the Palestinians the wherewithal to start putting in place a
government and rebuilding their institutions. We thought that was a
hopeful development and said so. We worked with our Quartet partners
on what became known as the roadmap, a way to go forward -- if and
when circumstances allowed us to move forward, allowed them to move
forward.
Then over the last couple of months, we saw the emergence of a belief
within the Palestinian people that they did need to transform their
leadership, and you all watched as a political battle was fought out
in the PLC, as different candidates emerged and submerged and them
finally Mr. Abu Mazen came to the fore and fought it out and succeeded
in not only being named as a Prime Minister but then actually moving
up to the post as a result of an action of the PLC. He now has in
place a Cabinet, with some strong figures in it, particularly somebody
that we know well and are looking forward to working with, and that is
Mohammed Dahlan as the minister that will be in charge of public
security.
So, all of these elements started to come together, joined by other
elements such as Iraq. With Iraq dealt with in terms of the threat
posed by Saddam Hussein, even though there was a lot more work to do,
one of the strategic threats to the region, especially to the State of
Israel, was eliminated. That also gave us the opportunity to begin
talking to other nations in the region and thus my trip to Syria last
week, where as you all know, in my conversations with Bashar Assad, we
described the changed strategic situation as a result of the end of
the Hussein regime and the United States about to get re-engaged with
its partners in the international community in the Middle East peace
process, and lots of very strong markers for President Bashar Assad
and look forward to how they will respond to the conversations we had
last weekend. We expect that will unfold over a period of time.
So, this really is part of a continuing process, if you will, of
starting to re-engage. But I go there now with a new Prime Minister in
place and beginning to take action to make the right statements with
respect to terror and violence as he did the day he was confirmed. We
want to help him and help other leaders in his government now -- his
cabinet -- to put in place the institutions necessary to begin the
restructuring the Authority with principal focus on security, and
ending terror and violence, and bringing under control those
organizations that foster such terrorists and violence: Hamas, PIJ --
same pitch I gave at the other end of this trip to Bashar Assad.
Everybody has now got to come together, whether it is Syria, Lebanon,
the Palestinian Authority, to let these organizations know that we can
no longer tolerate their actions, which are denying the dreams of the
Palestinian people.
Another element in this is that President Bush has made it absolutely
clear publicly, in his speeches, in his presentations, and in the
conversations that I have had with him, that he is determined to see
progress toward the vision that he laid out last June 24th. The
roadmap is the way to get started toward that vision. The roadmap is
controversial, of course. There are elements to it that one party or
the other might not like, but it does reflect the President's view and
the view of others in the international community as to how we can
achieve that vision. We need to get started. People could comment on
the roadmap as we move forward, but let's not allow a comment period
that might be upcoming to stop us from moving out. We know it has to
be done at the very first steps of the first phase. So, let's get on
with it.
The President added to this tapestry that I am painting for you with
his speech last night in South Carolina, where he went beyond
security, he went beyond just the peace process and he painted a
picture of an economically integrated Middle East, integrated through
free trade: free trade agreements that go beyond just the ones we now
have with Jordan and Israel. He talked about other aspects of policy
for the development of the region, the Middle East Partnership
Initiative, which you are familiar with -- I also gave a speech on it
a couple of months ago -- and other efforts that will be undertaken
with respect to literacy, with respect to education, with respect to
judicial activities. You saw that he mentioned Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor playing a role in that.
All of these pieces, it seems to me, create a period of opportunity.
What I want to do in this brief visit is to assess with both the
Palestinian side and the Israeli side how they see it, make sure that
they see it in this broad context that I just tried to outline to you
and to make sure that they understand the President's determination to
move forward and to be helpful and show that America, with other
partners, intend to play a leading and powerful role as we go down
this road once again to peace. We now have partners at the Palestinian
side that we believe we can work with.
So, my trip is to lay out the context in which we are now operating,
assess where the parties are, consult with the other interested
nations in the region -- the Arab nations who played a role in this as
well. Egypt has played an important role recently with respect to
security issues, but Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and all the other
nations in the region have a role to play. On this trip I will be able
to visit with three of those nations and then when I go off to Russia
-- Russia is a member of the Quartet of course -- I will have a chance
to continue discussions there as well.
So, that is the context of the trip and I just wanted to kind of give
you the overall picture before we get into the [inaudible] which we
are now ready for.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, on Arafat, did the United States explicitly
ask or request that Arafat not be in your meeting with Abbas? He is
the leader of the Palestinian people, yet the administration does not
seem to want to acknowledge that. You want to marginalize him and we
understand why. But how do you feel he registers among the Palestinian
people? He is still there.
SECRETARY POWELL: He is still there. I have always acknowledged that.
He is the leader of the Palestinian people. As we have said before, we
don't think he has been an effective leader in the sense of getting
them closer to their ambition, which is to have a state of their own.
It is for that reason that we will be working with other Palestinian
leaders, the new members of the Cabinet as well as the new Prime
Minister, Abu Mazen.
If the Palestinian people, through their legislature, did not think
there was a need for transformed leadership, Abu Mazen would not be
the new Prime Minister. So, it is not just an outside desire for there
to be others to work with. The PLC did this. Obviously they realized
that there was nothing happening; there was no movement. They made a
judgment that a Prime Minister would serve their purposes as well.
We all recognize the historic role that Arafat has played and he still
remains the leader of the PLO and is seen as the leader of his people,
but we need new, transformed authorities that we can work with who can
operate with authority and can take decisions that will move this
process along. We believe that in Abu Mazen and Mr. Fayed and Mr.
Dahlan and a number of others, hopefully that leadership is now
present.
QUESTION: I take it he is not in the meeting. Is that at your request?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, I won't meet with Mr. Arafat.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up on what Barry asked. Some of the statements
out of Israel suggest that Dahlan is in charge of only a small
fraction of the Palestinian security forces. How do you assess if that
is true and how that affects their ability to carry out the agreements
that you want them to carry out?
SECRETARY POWELL: There was a great debate about his title and what
authorities he should have. I want to get a better assessment of what
authority he thinks he has and what authority the Prime Minister
thinks he has. So, I will be in a better position to give you that
assessment after the trip rather than before the trip. But it is still
something of a bifurcated arrangement where there are some elements,
external security as they call it, and the "mukhabarat," who actually
has control of that. But in terms of police and the PS -- preventive
security -- services, it is my understanding that Dahlan has those.
So, this is what I want to explore with him as part of our
conversations.
QUESTION: Just to look at it, from the Israeli side, a number of
Israelis, including Ariel Sharon, have suggested that the roadmap does
not completely fulfill the President's vision as outlined in the June
24th speech. What is your answer to that point? And secondly, what do
you think of the suggestions that the Israelis have made that the
up-front issues such as the "right of return" of Palestinians should
be addressed before moving forward on the roadmap?
SECRETARY POWELL: The President would not have presented a roadmap if
he didn't think it was consistent with his vision. We believe it is.
It doesn't mean that there are others who might wish to see
modifications or changes or variations to it. What is interesting, in
my judgment, anyway, is that there is solid agreement on many, many
elements of the roadmap, especially those early elements that we can
get started on. So, let's get started -- both sides -- and not in a
prolonged debate as to the level of perfection between a particular
document and a particular vision. We believe the roadmap is a faithful
reflection of the President's vision and it is a way to get started.
There are some very, very difficult issues, as there have been since
the beginning of Middle East peace discussions for decades that you
have got to take in time. One of those, of course, is the right of
return. If that becomes an initial up-front issue, then it will
complicate progress.
QUESTION: You say, "let's get going." So, what specifically do you
want both sides to do to get this going? And secondly, it has taken
seven, eight months to get this far. Does that mean that the roadmap
might slip when they talk about a three-year timeframe? Is it possible
that it will slip beyond 2005?
SECRETARY POWELL: I have ideas that I will present to both sides with
respect to what we want to see them do to get going. Then I will be
more than pleased to talk in greater detail about that after I present
it them on the next leg. But it is pretty clear what we need: action
on security on the Palestinian side, and on the Israeli side
everything they can do to ease closures, ease the difficulties that
the Palestinian people have in moving around, getting to hospitals,
getting to jobs, getting to work -- in order to get some economic
activity started again and to provide sufficient flexibility and
openness, so that if you want a security force to be able to do
security, they have got to be able to move around with some ease.
These are well-known steps, and we have a few other ideas that we may
also be presenting.
The second question Robin, as to timelines: "Does this all push it
further up?" I can't take a shot at that yet. We will have to see how
things go in the months that are in front of us, over the next several
months and how quickly we can get things going. If we get things
moving quickly and there is good faith on both sides and trust is
established, and the two sides start meeting each other on a regular
basis, only then can we make a judgment as to the rate of movement
toward the President's vision. But we don't want to remove that vision
of a relatively short timeline, otherwise you know, we just lose
momentum and people would constantly move the date out.
QUESTION: Is this possible?
SECRETARY POWELL: Anything is possible; I am just not predicting it,
or speculating on it or suggesting it.
QUESTION: On the security issues, the Palestinians say that Mohammed
Dahlan is a very effective man, but he just does not have the capacity
to do what he is being asked to do. There was talk of help from Egypt,
Jordan; CIA was supposed to send out some new folks. What are we doing
to give him the capacity to do what he is being expected to do, and
then I have one [to] follow on that.
SECRETARY POWELL: I will be meeting with him as part of the group
meeting and get a better sense of what he does need. The Agency is
prepared to help. They're already talking to them. The Egyptians are
already involved, others are involved and we are looking at other
forms of help, not just from the Agency. There may be other agencies
of the United States government that might be able to play a role or
other international agencies who have experience, knowledge and
capacity in security matters and police matters, and might be able to
play a role.
QUESTION: When you talked about the changing environment and the new
demands on Syria, Lebanon and so on, and these groups that had to be
contained, you didn't mention Iran. There have been all sorts of
stories lately -- the Iranians suddenly want to have diplomatic
relations with us. I just wondered if you could comment on the
changing relationship with Iran, whether you think that there is any
potential there now, because of their role supporting these
organizations, and also in Iraq.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Barbara. Obviously Iran is part of the
tapestry of major supporters of terrorist activity. When I talked to
the Syrians last week about ending any means, of ending any access
that they may have been giving for transportation of weapons from Iran
to Hizbollah.... Obviously we want to go after where these weapons are
coming from and that's Iran.
We have not pursued our dialogue with Iran as openly as we have with
Syria, of course. Syria -- we have diplomatic relations, we have many
ways of speaking to them; I have been there three times. But we do
have channels that we are using with the Iranians, and communicating
to them that they ought to review their policies in light of the
changed strategic situation, and with a particular emphasis on their
nuclear weapons development program, which now is getting the
attention, more broadly, from the international community, and
especially the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency]. So yes, Iran
has a role to play in this. How many questions did you have?
QUESTION: If they say they want diplomatic relations with us, what
would we say to them?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't expect them to say they want diplomatic
relations with us any time in the near future.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you will remember from (inaudible --
cross-talk). You always said that you wanted a
government-to-government dialogue with Iran, has something changed?
SECRETARY POWELL: I just said we have channels through which we talk
to Iranians.
QUESTION: So, you don't want a government-to-government dialogue?
SECRETARY POWELL: I didn't hear anybody say a government-to-government
dialogue; she said "diplomatic relations."
QUESTION: (Inaudible).
SECRETARY POWELL: The issue of diplomatic relations is not on the
table right now on either side. But in terms of ways of communicating
with the Iranians, we have such ways, and we use them on a regular
basis, and very recently.
QUESTION: You remember from your past visits to Israel, Palestine,
that the Israelis always said they needed calm, and therefore they
couldn't move forward whenever there was an attack, and we had the
seven-day calm period and so on, and that held things up for months.
Has anything changed now? Or are we going get back to the same pattern
of no progress because there has been some other attack? How are you
going to handle that when it arises, as it undoubtedly will?
SECRETARY POWELL: I haven't heard the Israelis talking about total
calm, or "seven days [with] no incidents," or formulations of that
kind. What I have heard them say is with this new leadership they are
looking for 100 percent intent, and 100 percent effort. One hundred
percent effort means putting in place security elements that will not
only try to keep violence down, but will go after those organizations
that are committed to violence. One hundred percent intent to me means
that the new leadership of the Palestinian people from the Prime
Minister on down will say the kinds of things that the Prime Minister
said on the day he was inaugurated: That "this has to stop, it is not
getting us anywhere."
And so, that kind of expression --- rhetorical expression of intent to
the people, and to the leaders -- is what they are looking for, and
they are looking for it steadily, in order to change attitudes within
the Palestinian people, and 100 percent effort is what I will be
talking to the new government about, especially Mr. Dahlan -- how can
we help them?
QUESTION: On Syria, Mr. Secretary, it's now been a week since we were
in Damascus. What are you hearing from your ambassador, your people in
Damascus about any steps that might be taking?
SECRETARY POWELL: I have one or two reports from Ambassador Kattouf.
The message was heard, and the only thing --- I don't want to take it
too far --- it is going to take time. There were some reports out of
the region that some of the organizations were saying that in light of
these changed circumstances they are going to stop their activities.
Whether that is coming through the back door as a response or not, I
don't know, but it is not what they say, it is what they do. It is not
what they tell us they've done, it's what they have actually done. And
so we will continue watching.
I am not, you know it's only been --- when did we do that, last
Sunday, last Saturday? It has only been six days. It's in their
interest. I hope that as they sit there and examine this all, they
wonder what they get out of continuing with some of the policies of
the past. I could answer the question for them, but they have to
answer it for themselves. I did answer it for them, but they have to
answer it for themselves, because there are consequences for not
changing and there are benefits for changing. I think it is a pretty
simple quadratic equation.
QUESTION: You were talking about how Iraq changed the strategic
environment. And I wondered if it helps the United States put a little
more pressure on Israel --- you are talking about easing closures, but
there are bigger issues about settlements. They talked about some
withdrawals of settlements, symbolic withdrawals. Is this a time when
you can put a little bit more pressure on Sharon?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think the President has made it clear that he
wants to see his vision of 24 June achieved. He now is turning his
time, attention and energy toward that, and that will require
sacrifices [that] have to be made by some, meaning things you would
rather not do otherwise. Both sides have obligations and the President
expects both sides to meet these obligations as a way of moving
forward. The President has spoken very clearly about settlement
activity, and he did it again last night. It must end. Now, "must end"
and what do you do with those that are there already, is a difficult
question, and it gets very complex very quickly. Settlements vs.
outpost, natural growth vs. non-natural growth. But I know what the
President means, he means that settlement activity must end.
QUESTION: A very quick follow on that: Settlement activity must end
now, because the roadmap in Phase One says there should be a freeze
right away, the outpost should be dismantled?
SECRETARY POWELL: Phase One calls for settlement activity ending in
Phase One. Now, (inaudible) a little less precise, but it's clear, and
this is not shocking, this comes from the Mitchell Report when
settlement ending --- settlement activity ending --- was a
confidence-building measure, and was accepted at that time by the
Israeli government. So it's not as if this is a surprise that is
coming at them, that the President still feels strongly, since the
President endorsed the Mitchell Report two years ago -- that
settlement activity has to be dealt with as part of any comprehensive
settlement.
QUESTION: How do you assess the first reactions in the international
community to your draft resolution on lifting the sanctions on Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: It has been interesting. On Wednesday afternoon, I
took the Secretary General through the concept of it before giving it
to him, and then I gave it to him. So he has had it since Wednesday
afternoon. We sent it to some of our permanent colleagues -- permanent
members of the Security Council -- overnight, and so the French, the
Germans, of course the British, the Spanish, and a few others have had
a chance to look at it now. We haven't gotten any responses yet from
the Chinese. I spoke to the Chinese foreign minister [the] night
before last. And so yesterday, Friday, John Negroponte gave it to
everybody, blanket [distribution].
And there is a retreat this weekend that all of the permanent
representatives are on with Kofi Annan, so they'll all be cloistered
at an estate in New York, not doing what they thought they might be
doing on a beautiful spring afternoon, but playing with the
resolution. By Monday, I will have a better assessment of where
everybody is.
Initial reaction though, from capitals, is one of -- everybody wants
to move forward, a great deal of pragmatism, no re-fighting of the
past, no screaming and shouting, if I can put it that way, but a lot
of questions. And the questions revolve around the Oil-for-Food
Program. The control of revenues that come from the sale of oil, and
the exact authority that the Secretary General's representative or
coordinator, whatever it ends up being called, will have and the exact
nature of the coalition's thinking with respect to an interim
authority and how that grows into a government. These are the
questions I would have expected.
The questions will become more detailed and intense as lawyers spend
the weekend pouring over the resolution. It took us a couple of weeks
to write it, so I'm sure it will take a couple of days to try to
figure out what they don't like or what they do like about it. I am
pleased that it has not run into any kind of train wreck yet. In fact,
pretty good response, but there is a considerable amount of work in
front of us.
Yesterday when I was out front --- I guess it was with the Amir --- it
might have been one of my other "out fronts," I made a point that
might have gotten lost -- I think that's where I made it -- but we are
running into a time crunch with respect to the oil. Let me say it
again in case you didn't catch it when I did it.
The fields are not in as bad a shape as we thought, and production is
ramping up quickly. And production is reaching a point where before
the end of the month, say by a week after next week, the 21st or
something like this, sometime during that week, all of the storage
capacity available will be filled.
At that point if you are not able to lift the oil, meaning move it and
sell it, put it into the marketplace, there are two consequences: One,
it is a loss of revenue that would be available to the Iraqi people,
and so we want to be able to lift the oil, have the U.N. take action
in time so that the oil can be free, no title problems; no
indemnification problems to dealt with, so the oil could be lifted and
generate revenue, revenue which would then go into a fund that will be
for the benefit of the Iraqi people. But of course the coalition
provisional authority, as the government, would have some
responsibilities, but we would want it supervised by the World Bank,
the IMF, anybody you could name, to make sure there was no suggestion
that it was for any other purpose than to serve the Iraqi people.
The other reason we want to start lifting the oil, is if you don't
lift the oil, and the system shuts down, because you can't bring
anymore oil out, because you just can't put it anywhere. Then the
distillation, and the refineries, and the cracking activity stops. It
is that cracking activity at the refineries that gives you your
gasoline, and your cooking gas, your propane for the citizens. And you
are in the awkward position of having this oil in the ground, but you
are bringing in gasoline from other countries, whereas you can make
your own, if the refineries are functioning, and they are functioning.
And so, there is a supply/demand mismatch right now, which is causing
the lines that you see in Baghdad. So, part of our effort to solve
that would be to keep the refineries going. Stopping them or slowing
them down isn't the proper solution.
QUESTION: The debate on the first step boils down to: Do the
Palestinians crack down on the extremists or do they negotiate with
them? Is the United States prepared to accept Abu Mazen negotiating
with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which Israel rejects?
SECRETARY POWELL: What has to be done is to end terror and violence,
and to take on those organizations that are responsible for terror and
violence. How they plan to take them on is what I will be talking to
them about.
Thank you very much.
(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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