27 May 2003
U.S. Official Calls Middle East Roadmap Only Way to Move Forward
(U.S. forming coordinating group to help parties work together) (3030)
A senior State Department official said May 23 that the roadmap to
peace in the Middle East is "the way to move forward, it is the only
game that we have" to resolve the conflict between Israel and the
Palestinians.
The official, speaking on background to the press en route to Andrews
Air Force Base, said that the Bush administration's willingness to
address concerns raised by the parties over the roadmap did not
necessarily mean that the plans would be revised in favor of one party
or another.
"That's why we used the word address," said the official. "We don't
know yet what will happen with any one of these concerns. Some of
them, I think, will be easily dealt with. Others will be more
difficult. We'll have to address them and find a solution, but there's
no suggestion that all of them are going to be satisfactorily resolved
in the favor of one party or the other. They're all going to be
addressed to find a satisfactory solution."
The official said the United States is willing to help with the
implementation of the roadmap, coordinate between the two sides, and
to investigate claims made by one side against another. He said a
small coordinating group of U.S. civilians was now being assembled to
go to Jerusalem
"We're already assembling a small team of people so that if this moves
forward, in a satisfactory manner, in the days ahead we can put some
people on the ground to help the two sides start to work together," he
said.
The official also restated the Bush administration's view that
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "should be isolated," and encouraged
those countries that continue to meet with Arafat to send him the
message that "he has to do everything in his power to support
[Palestinian Prime Minister] Abu Mazen, support the effort to get
started on the roadmap, and to end terror and violence."
"I think this is time for him to realize that if he has any interest
in peace, if he has any interest in the Palestinian State, he ought to
be using his power, his authority, his influence on the Palestinian
people, to help the new Prime Minister get the job done. We have seen
indications where he is undercutting him," said the official.
Turning to Syria, the official said the United States has seen "some
indications of curtailment" of support for terrorist organizations in
Damascus, but "not yet what we're looking for."
"We're not going to be fondly inclined toward a Syria which continues
to provide the means by which terrorist organizations such as Hamas
and Islamic Jihad can do their jobs out of Damascus, and we are not
going too look fondly toward nations such as Iran or Syria which serve
as origination and transshipment points for weapons going to
Hezbollah. We've made that clear to both of them," he said.
Following is a transcript of remarks by a senior administration
official en route to Andrews Air Force Base May 23:
(begin transcript)
Press Statement
Office of the Spokesman
On Board Plane
May 23, 2003
Remarks by Senior State Department Official En Route Andrews Air Force
Base
QUESTION: Could you tell us how the breakfast with Dominique de
Villepin went?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Dominique and I had a lovely French
breakfast, roughly 50 minutes long. We had a good discussion of the
bilateral relationship, a good discussion of where we have been, and a
good discussion of how we should move forward together. But it was for
the most part a private meeting and a private discussion. There are no
memcons. So that's about all I'd like to say about it. He and I talked
to each other in very straightforward, candid terms.
QUESTION: You suggested something about monitoring. What might we be
willing to do on the ground?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We've said for 2 years now that we
were prepared to put in U.S. monitors if we got started moving, to
observe what's going on, to coordinate between the sides, to look into
claims or charges that one side might make against the other. We're
not talking about an armed, interpositional force. We're already
assembling a small team of people so that if this moves forward, in a
satisfactory manner, in the days ahead we can put some people on the
ground to help the two sides start to work together. I am not prepared
yet to call them monitors. Let's just call it a coordinating group on
the ground, which might grow into a larger group over time that could
serve a monitoring function -- U.S., United States folks.
If I could just, just in the way of laying out the whole roadmap
process, because I get asked questions from time to time that suggest
maybe not a complete understanding of the sequence. We formed the
Quartet in April of 2002, put out a statement, you remember my 10-day
excursion last April. Then we broke the siege of the muqata, we broke
the Church of Nativity scene, and we saw no real movement on the part
of Mr. Arafat, and after reviewing our policy, the President made his
speech on June 25 -- excuse me -- June 24. Thank you, the 24th of
June. After, also we had the Arab League initiative, the Crown
Prince's initiative.
It was later in the summer, in the middle of July, when the Arab
foreign ministers were in Washington for a meeting with me, that we
realized that in order to make the vision a reality, you had to have a
roadmap and it had to have a political dimension to it. In an Oval
Office meeting with the President, we discussed this issue with the
Arab foreign ministers, the three of them that were there -- Prince
Saud of Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Muasher of Jordan and [Foreign
Minister] Maher of Egypt.
It was at that meeting that we all came to the realization that we had
to work hard for something that came to be known as the roadmap, and
then for the rest of the summer and fall, under the leadership of
Assistant Secretary Bill Burns, the Quartet worked on it. Worked on it
with the parties, worked on it with a number of people. It wasn't
easy, lots of drafts, lots of controversy, but we kept working on it
and never turned loose of the need for a roadmap. Otherwise, the
vision was just a speech.
On the 20th of December, the Quartet assembled again in Washington,
and at that time, we finished our work on the roadmap and froze it.
That's it. And presented it to President Bush, and then as you know,
in the early part of the year, we were waiting for a change of
leadership of the Palestinian Authority, waiting for the Israeli
Government to get it its election and form a new government, and for
the pieces to start to come into place. When Abu Mazen was made Prime
Minister, we released the roadmap. The President has been for the
roadmap ever since 20 December, and certainly strongly for it ever
since its release
Then we got Iraq behind us, and the pieces came into place for us to
make a concerted effort now to get moving down the roadmap and get it
accepted by both sides.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) maybe not who they are, but what types of people
and what they would actually be doing?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They will be in the region, probably
Jerusalem, and it would have people who are knowledgeable about
security matters. It would have some other elements to it. Bill Burns
is still structuring it, working with Elliot Abrams over at NSC, so I
don't want to go into greater detail, but just see it as a small
coordinating group that would be coordinating our efforts, the efforts
of the Quartet, and the efforts of the two parties of course, to make
sure that we all are talking to on another and we get started. I don't
have a name of a leader yet for you.
QUESTION: Civilian? Government?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah, for the most part, the initial
core group will be my folks. Not all State, there may be some other
government agencies that have a role to play.
QUESTION: Including uniform?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't know, I don't think so at
the moment. Certainly those with an intelligence or security
background who have been involved in this before.
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Exact number to be determined, but
let's say between 7 and 10 to get started.
QUESTION: What happened to the Tenet or Zinni plan, and is that still
going to be put into effect, and could you describe it a little bit?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think the elements of the Tenet
and Zinni plans have applicability and will be subsumed in the roadmap
work. Tony Zinni did a lot of work last year that is still relevant
and useful with respect to the kind of capabilities that you need, as
did George Tenet. So all of that is available to serve as a resource
for the roadmap effort.
QUESTION: Formally incorporated?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I wouldn't use the word formally
incorporated. The roadmap is what we have, and I don't know that they
were formal plans to begin with. They all were trying to get a handle
on security, Tenet and Zinni. The roadmap does that, but the roadmap,
more clearly than the Zinni-Tenet efforts, talks about the political
horizon and the political solution.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, in your negotiations, in your dealings with
the Russians, in your discussions with the Russians today and
yesterday, did you talk at all about the Iranian situation, involving
the nuclear situation, and also, how the heck all their night vision
goggles got into Iraq?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On Iran, we spoke about it last
night at the G-8 dinner, all of us did. I've had extended discussions
with the Russians over many months, but especially last week when I
was in Moscow, I had discussions on Iranian nuclear developments with
both President Putin and Foreign Minister Ivanov. I think they share
our concern about what the Iranians may be doing, and we will be
working closely with the IAEA to learn as much as we can about it.
I think the caution for all nations now is to make sure that we are
watching what actions we might be taking, or any nation might be
taking, that would (inaudible) the capability to Iran at a time when
the IAEA is still looking into the nature of their programs.
So the direct answer is yes, but more extensive discussions were held
with them last week in Moscow.
On the night vision goggles, I don't know what got in. This has been
raised with the Russians in the past. They have indicated -- night
vision goggles are almost a commercial item, you can get them almost
anywhere -- and they denied making any kind of concerted effort to
provide it as a military capability, but night vision goggles are not
hard to come by in any sporting good store these day.
So I have not discussed it because I don't know what actually got in
or the exact source. We had concerns about such devices getting in. We
had intelligence to suggest these devices were getting in, and we
raised it with the Russians.
QUESTION: Could you elucidate for us at all what sort of arguments you
made to convince the Israeli Government to come out publicly in favor
of the roadmap or what efforts might have been done to pressure them
to do so?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We've had the most intensive
discussions over the last several weeks with the Israelis at a variety
of levels. I've had conversations both in person and on the phone with
the new Foreign Minister, Mr. Shalom. Delegations, as you know, have
come to Washington on a fairly frequent basis. Mr. Weisglas, working
with Dr. Rice's office and Elliot Abrams and my Assistant Secretary
Bill Burns participates in those conversations.
And then I had conversations with Prime Minister Sharon that went to
the heart of this issue. I reported those conversations back to the
President. We were expecting to discuss all of this directly,
President to Prime Minister, I guess it's this past Tuesday, the 20th,
when we had all of the bombs over the weekend.
We were anxious not to lose the thread at this point, not to lose the
momentum that was building up, and so the President called Mr. Sharon,
as you know, discussed this with him, and another delegation came from
Israel a couple of days ago, met again with Dr. Rice and Bill Burns
and Elliot and others, and we just made it clear that we've got to
move forward. Even in the presence of this kind of violence. And so
the roadmap is the way to move forward, it is the only game that we
have, and we made a convincing case.
QUESTION: Address Israel's concerns by no means necessarily means
satisfy them?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That's why we used the word address.
We don't know yet what will happen with any one of these concerns.
Some of them, I think, will be easily dealt with. Others will be more
difficult. We'll have to address them and find a solution, but there's
no suggestion that all of them are going to be satisfactorily resolved
in the favor of one party or the other. They're all going to be
addressed to find a satisfactory solution. What will serve the
interests of both parties so that we can keep going down the roadmap.
QUESTION: The Europeans keep meeting with Arafat and saying that they
have no intention to marginalize him. How big an impediment is that,
or is it at this point irrelevant? And what can you tell us about any
preparations about the possible summit with the President and the two
Prime Ministers?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We believe that Arafat should be
isolated. We give that message to our European friends and other
friends, the Japanese Foreign Minister for example, at every
opportunity. They have a different view. The one thing I do know is
that they are giving Mr. Arafat a strong message that he has to
support the new Prime Minister, and he has to do everything in his
power to support Abu Mazen, support the effort to get started on the
roadmap, and to end terror and violence.
So while we have a different view from our European colleagues and
other colleagues about seeing him, I know that they are conveying a
strong message to him, the kind of message he needs to hear, but what
we have found over the years is that Arafat doesn't respond very well
to such messages. Therefore, we stopped delivering them to him. We
made it clear last June 24th that we needed new leadership that we
could work with. That's the same thing that the Israelis have been
saying.
The Palestinian people, through their legislature, provided that new
leadership, and now we must work with Abu Mazen, do everything we can
to help him get started on the roadmap, beginning with the end of
terror and security, and not let Mr. Arafat interrupt, interfere, or
undercut the new Prime Minister in his efforts.
It's a consistent message I give to my European friends and I'm
confident they are conveying that message to Mr. Arafat.
Summit? I think I'll just leave that one and wait until announcements
are made, if they are to be made, by those who make White House
announcements.
QUESTION: Do you have any evidence that Arafat is being supportive to
Abu Mazen? For instance, your joint news conference with him was not
carried live, when it certainly could have been. It was available to
Palestinian television. Do you have any evidence that he is
supportive, and do you have evidence that he is, in fact, undermining
him?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't think he's being as
supportive as he could. You've just given a pretty good piece of
evidence. I think this is time for him to realize that if he has any
interest in peace, if he has any interest in the Palestinian State, he
ought to be using his power, his authority, his influence on the
Palestinian people, to help the new Prime Minister get the job done.
We have seen indications where he is undercutting him.
QUESTION: In terms of security issues?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't want to specify, no, I don't
want to get more specific than that.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, any indications that either Syria or Iran are
reducing in any way support for terrorist groups?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes, we can continue to believe that
both of those countries are state-sponsors of terrorism, they're on
our list. I've had direct conversations with the Syrians about why it
is in their interest (inaudible) to start changing their policies with
an engaged United States in the Middle East.
We're not going to be fondly inclined toward a Syria which continues
to provide the means by which terrorist organizations such as Hamas
and Islamic Jihad can do their jobs out of Damascus, and we are not
going too look fondly toward nations such as Iran or Syria which serve
as origination and transshipment points for weapons going to
Hezbollah. We've made that clear to both of them.
In the case of Syria, you all know that I went there three weekends
ago to deliver that message. We have seen some indications of
curtailment of activity in Damascus but not yet what we are looking
for. There's been some response, but not what we're looking for yet.
[End]
Released on May 25, 2003
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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