17 June 2003
Powell to Discuss North Korea, Burma at ASEAN Regional Forum
(June 17 briefing en route to Phnom Penh, Cambodia) (4190)
North Korea, Burma, Aceh, and HIV/AIDS are the topics Secretary of
State Colin Powell plans to highlight in his upcoming discussions with
his counterparts at the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian
Nations) Regional Forum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Speaking in reporters June 17 en route to Cambodia, Powell said
counterterrorism and maritime and border security will also be high
priority topics.
The United States, he stressed, wants to see pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi released by the Burmese regime as soon as possible and
"allowed to participate in the political process in Burma in a
democratic way."
Regarding North Korea, Powell said he will once again emphasize that
the Pyongyang leadership must end its nuclear weapons development
program through "multilateral dialogue," adding that President Bush
"is still confident that we can achieve a political and diplomatic
solution."
The United States, he said, will "make the point that we will not be
intimidated by their (North Korean) rhetoric or their actions."
"I'm pleased at the unity we've been able to achieve with the
countries in the region," Powell said. "Everybody is saying the same
thing to the North Koreans with the respect to the unacceptability of
their actions, that they want a Korean Peninsula without nuclear
weapons."
He also noted that offers of aid and normalization to North Korea from
neighboring countries have dwindled.
Following is a transcript of the June 17 briefing:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(Phnom Penh, Cambodia)
June 18 2003
ON-THE-RECORD BRIEFING
SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
ON BOARD PLANE EN ROUTE PHNOM PENH
June 17, 2003
SECRETARY POWELL: Thanks for joining us on this longest of all trips.
I think we've been in the air for about three days, as best I can
figure it out. But it is an important meeting, to have the opportunity
to, for a day and a half, sit and talk with some 20 Asian Pacific
nations. I call it Asian Pacific because when you get to the ARF
forum, after the ASEAN meetings which took place today, you include
Canada and the United States and so many other countries that
expanded, so it's a good opportunity to speak to 20 countries plus
European Union representatives will be here, and a number of
additional observers.
Out of ASEAN today, I don't have a complete report of all the
statements, but I believe they put out a good statement on Burma.
We'll pick that up in interventions tomorrow in the ARF meeting.
Coming out of the ARF meeting, I'm expecting several things: a
statement having to do with maritime security, piracy and crimes on
the high seas; and also, another statement on border security which
includes protecting your border physically, but also includes the
kinds of things we're doing to secure our borders back in the United
States with documentation and knowing who's going across border.
These two statements really flow from something that's called the
Intersessional Ministerials (ISM)- everybody following me, anybody
need any crayons? But the Intersessional Ministerials is when
assistant secretaries get together, such as my Assistant Secretary for
Counterterrorism Cofer Black, and they hammer out these issues and
they bring them to us at the ARF. So these two items on maritime
security and on border security were dealt with in the intersessional
meetings a few months ago, will be brought to us tomorrow, and we will
encourage another intersessional meeting between our sessions for the
further work of this kind.
We'll also take note of what's happened since our meeting last year
where I introduced a new program dealing with ASEAN coordination,
ASEAN cooperation program, where we'd work with nations on development
programs and infrastructure programs and some 11 projects have been
started under that initiative, and we'll also touch on the initiative
that the President launched at Los Cabos at the APEC meeting in Mexico
last fall, which is called the Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative (EAI),
and this really talks about free trade agreements, bilateral trade
agreements such as the Chile Free Trade Agreement, and the discussions
we have underway with the Philippines, Thailand, and other nations to
reduce trade barriers as part of the President's free trade policy and
desire to open trade to all nations. So here in ARF we will talk about
trade, we will talk about infrastructure development, we talk about
counterterrorism, and then we will take note of the two initiatives I
just mentioned and how that helps the region, and then we'll shift to
some regional issues of concern in ARF and among those will be North
Korea. I will make an intervention on North Korea, I will also make an
intervention on Burma, and I will make an intervention -- all part of
a larger, one intervention, parts of an intervention -- and an
intervention on the situation in Aceh, and then a fairly long
intervention on HIV/AIDS, and all that will be in about 10 minutes, or
longer, depending on how fast I speak or how quick my editing pen is
overnight. As you know there are a lot of speakers who have to get a
lot out, but it's not just what is said on the intervention but the
various meetings you have in the course of the day and I'll have lots
of bilaterals. I can't list them all because they're all still being
set up, but with Minister Lee of China and I'm sure we'll discuss both
Koreas in more depth, and Igor Ivanov will be there, Alexander Downer
from Australia, Foreign Minister Sinha, India, and Bill Graham of
Canada, and many others and in the course of the day, I expect I'll
have a chance to see all of them.
Then, the Post Ministerial Conference, which comes after that on the
following day has a slightly different group of attendees, but
basically the same format and the issues will be a little more of a
global interest, not just regionally-oriented, and that's where I'll
have the chance to talk about the Middle East and what the President
wants to see happen, what happened at Aqaba and what's going on right
now, and I'll also have the chance to talk about the situation in
Iraq, and after that we will go on to Dacca. OK? So how's that just
for openers?
QUESTION: Could you give us a more specific sense of what you plan to
say, both about Burma and about North Korea?
SECRETARY POWELL: Things that will be familiar to you on Burma. If
you've been following what we have been saying, and if you noticed my
op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, we want to see Aung San Suu Kyi
released as soon as possible, and allowed to participate in the
political process in Burma in a democratic way, and we thought that
there had been movement in that regard in recent months but that all
of that has now been blocked by the government and they're going
backwards. And just as we did last week at the OAS meeting in the
Western Hemisphere, that same message should apply here when this
group of nations increasingly is committed to openness in the
political process and increasing commitment to democracy has to speak
out when we see things going in the wrong direction in the region. And
on North Korea, I don't know who'll be there for North Korea -- I
don't think it'll be the Foreign Minister - but, the North Koreans
will be in the room when I will once again make the case that they
have to stop this nuclear weapon development program that they have
underway and the way to do it is through multilateral dialogue. The
President is still confident that we can achieve a political and
diplomatic solution, and I'm pleased at the unity we've been able to
achieve with the countries in the region. Everybody is saying the same
thing to the North Koreans with the respect to the unacceptability of
their actions, that they want a Korean Peninsula without nuclear
weapons, and frankly nobody is doing much in the way of providing help
to the North Koreans right now, and it's sort of tragic when you think
of where we were, say 14-15 months ago, when there was a movement --
the Japanese were moving through a process of providing aid and
normalization -- others were anxious to do things, and then we learned
about the enriched uranium program and it came to a halt. There is a
way forward, and we're going to make sure that the North Koreans
understand what that way forward is, and make the point that we will
not be intimidated by their rhetoric or their actions.
QUESTION: Following up on North Korea, can you tell us what you think
the IAEA will do this week, and how does the, on North -- oh, I'm
sorry, I've got it mixed up - on North Korea, I want you to connect it
to the interdiction program, about which much has been written in the
last week or so. You mentioned piracy and other forms of maritime
security, but isn't this also directed at North Korea's shipments,
including to Japan?
SECRETARY POWELL: The specific statement that you'll see tomorrow
won't, but as you look at what happens on the high seas with respect
to piracy, with respect to trafficking in persons, with respect to
drug running, with respect to the shipment of weapons of mass
destruction, you can see that there could be a broader agenda for
discussing maritime security. There was another meeting in Madrid
earlier this week or last week, where we started to move forward on
the other initiative that we started, I guess two weeks ago, where we
contacted a number of nations most interested in this, to see if we
could not start coming up with approaches to the problem of
interdicting weapons of mass destruction and making it more difficult
for them to traverse the airways and seaways and landways of the
world. Whether these efforts will blend together at some point, it's
too early to say, Steve.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you were talking about countries that have
aided North Korea, and you said you've seen a real swing toward
cutting off aid to North Korea. Does that include China, any more than
that brief interruption in oil shipments?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think that China's still providing aid to North
Korea and they haven't cut off, but I was really referring to was the
momentum we saw last year, when there were all sorts of initiatives
coming from the South. One of them did come to pass the other day when
they finished the rail line going through, put the final bolt in the
rail line over the weekend, but otherwise there hasn't been much else
going North, and the big initiative that has stopped was what Prime
Minister Koizumi had indicated would be possible in the way of
billions of dollars of assistance, and a path towards normalization,
and then you had the return of the kidnapped ones to Japan, and that
plus the North Korean nuclear developments essentially stopped that
path for now. The Japanese have been speaking as strongly as we have,
frankly, in the recent weeks and months about the need of North Korea
to do something about this. But China, I can't say that they have cut
off anything, or that they have added anything more to what they had
traditionally been doing, I don't have that much insight into Chinese
programs.
QUESTION: Does it do any good for everyone else to cut off aid to
North Korea, if China's still giving them aid?
SECRETARY POWELL: Did I say everyone should cut off aid?
QUESTION: Let me rephrase it. Does it do any good for countries to
change their attitudes about helping North Korea if China is still
giving them oil and other forms of aid?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think it does, because North Korea, even with
Chinese aid, is suffering mightily. It is a country that is in great
difficulty, live in a potemkin capital, but the countryside is in dire
straits -- and that is with Chinese aid. They need more than Chinese
aid and Chinese fuel. They need aid from other neighbors and they need
aid from the rest of the world, and that's the message we convey to
our friends and our partners in the region.
QUESTION: First of all, what is the status of U.S. food aid to North
Korea? Has that been restarted, is it in the process of being
restarted? And secondly, just on the issue of interdiction, there was
a report over the weekend that the U.S. was considering trying to
seize counterfeit money that the North Koreans apparently distributed
in their diplomatic pouches. I was wondering if there was any truth to
that?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think the, and Richard will correct this if I get
it wrong, I think we committed 40,000 tons in the first tranche, but
we wanted to wait and see how it's being distributed before we made
additional allocations for this year.
QUESTION: It hasn't been distributed?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know. We can find out. I don't know if it's
gone in or not yet. I don't know if you know, Richard? We can find out
from AID or the World Food Program. We'll get the answer for you,
Glenn. Counterfeit money is criminal activity, and if we can find it,
we will seize it, but I don't have any comment on diplomatic pouches.
I think I saw a report of it, but I don't have anything to add to it.
We can see if there's any guidance that the Department can provide
you, but I don't have any.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, can I go back to Burma for one question, and
that is you say that you want to see Aung San Suu Kyi released as soon
as possible, but really it's too late, isn't it? Even if they do
release her right now, at least from the United States' point of view,
you're still going to go ahead with this new policy to punish them, or
to put more pressure on them, is that correct?
The second thing I wanted to ask is about the host country. Senator
McConnell's other big issue with you and foreign policy issue has been
Cambodia, aside from Burma. You told him about two months ago that
you'd be bringing up the elections as well as the Khmer Rouge trials
with them -- what are you going to say about that?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think it's necessary for us to take a harder line
with Burma, as you see coming from the Hill as well as statements
coming out of the Administration and what I've been saying. Let's see
whether the Burmese react or not, and we'll determine after their
reaction not just for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi but also what
will they allow her to do or what will they allow her party to do, and
that will determine what our policy will be.
With respect to elections in Cambodia, I failed to mention that my
intervention will also talk about the need for free open elections
next month, I think it's July 27th if I'm not mistaken, and the need
for parties to have access to the media and all the other instruments
of free, open and fair elections.
QUESTION: And the trial?
SECRETARY POWELL: It may come up in bilaterals, I don't know if it's
in my intervention, I'll have to look.
QUESTION: Can we shift to the Middle East and ask, first of all, can
you make any announcements about additions to the trip and more
specifically the Israelis apparently are saying they're not prepared
to do any kind of ceasefire with Hamas until there is an end to
terrorism, which is the same policy in the past. Is the United States
disappointed with Israel or either party that there is not more
progress and what are we planning to do about it?
SECRETARY POWELL: There have been talks for the last several days that
suggest the two sides are trying to find a way to move forward with
respect to establishing security, perhaps first in the northern part
of the Gaza Strip. There are also discussions between Palestinian
leaders and Hamas and other organizations as to whether or not they
will stop terrorist attacks, and I hope that over the next day or two
I will get fuller reports of those discussions and whether there is
any promise there and any possibility.
It would not be enough in the long term for Hamas to simply say,
"We're not gonna do it right now, we're not gonna give up the
capability." Ultimately, these terrorist organizations have to not
only stop conducting terrorist attacks, we have to eliminate their
capability to do so, and that has to be one of the goals as we move
forward in the road map. And to listen to what Mr. Abbas said, the
armed intifada must end, the armed intifada ending means you take it
to its logical conclusion.
There's no need for this kind of capability to exist in any
organization, and we have to come down hard on organizations such as
Hamas, which try to claim that they're a political organization at the
same time that they have an armed wing that is conducting terrorist
activities. And that's what we have been saying, especially vigorously
in recent days and my European Union colleagues discussed it at their
meeting Monday, with some differences of opinion, but at least the EU
is finally 'fessing up to the reality that you can't deal with Hamas
as two separate things that are not connected, and you can't finance
one part without realizing that you are helping to finance the bad
part.
QUESTION: Alright, on North Korea. It's been eight months since the
discovery of the enrichment program, precious little has happened
since then diplomatically. There has been, you know, the brief meeting
in October and you had the brief meeting in October, you had the
meeting in China, is there anything new with respect to North Korean
willingness to reach a diplomatic solution, which you say is possible?
SECRETARY POWELL: Since last October, when this all blew, I guess
that's about eight months, we have convinced North Korea that
multilateral is the way to go, although they are holding out at three
and we believe it has to be more than three and we'll press that
point.
I think we have aligned the international community in a way that
makes it clear to North Korea that they will not have any support or
friends helping them with this. We got the IAEA to take a position, it
is before the UN, and we will make judgments in the weeks ahead as to
whether we want the UN to take any action, and North Koreans, what
they have done is made a lot of statements and made a lot of claims
and tossed out a lot of rhetoric and shifted their arguments and their
latest argument was that they need nuclear weapons in order to cut the
size of their conventional forces which was something I had never
heard from them before, and to save money which is an interesting
concept for North Koreans.
So, its been about, I guess, eight months, and these things take time,
that's usually what's called diplomacy, and we'll keep working away at
it. I'm still hopeful of a diplomatic solution and I don't think we
are in crisis mode. It's a dangerous situation and we worried about
it, we're working on it, working on it very hard, and we believe that
we can find an answer.
QUESTION: Question on Iran, the IAEA was to present its report
yesterday. Is the United States pushing to have the issue taken to the
United Nations and to discuss further sanctions, and secondly, what is
the U.S. doing or thinking about the student demonstrations in Tehran,
do you think this is a turning point and are we doing anything to
encourage them?
SECRETARY POWELL: Dr. El Baradei made a presentation this Monday to
the Board of Governors. They then moved on to another agenda item, so
discussion didn't take place. Discussion will take place Tuesday, or
more likely Wednesday on what he presented. And the BOG, Board of
Governors, will have to make a judgment as to whether a resolution is
the appropriate action or whether a chairman's statement is
appropriate, so there'll be a debate on this later in the week, and
we'll wait to see the results of that debate before we make a judgment
as to what next steps should be taken.
There are alternatives, go to the UN, ask for another meeting before
the next scheduled one in September, and all of those are under
consideration but I can't tell you yet what we're gonna do until I see
the results of the debate.
What was your other one, I'm getting older, I can't remember two. Ah,
we have long said that there is desire on the part of the people of
Iran, especially the young people of Iran to see reform in their
political system. They are not happy with the leadership they are
receiving from their secular or religious leaders, so-called secular
or religious leaders, and it's now manifesting itself in the streets
of Tehran and other cities.
I don't know if this is a turning point, but it certainly validates
the point we were making all along that there is dissatisfaction among
the Iranian people. I hope what these young people are saying is we
can have a better life and why are we pressing ahead on terrorism and
weapons of mass destruction at a time when we have greater needs in
our society, and the United States has always encouraged peaceful
demonstrations for people to express their views, and this has been
our policy and will continue to be our policy, and that's that.
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SECRETARY POWELL: Our policy is to encourage people to demonstrate for
their views, and I think we've said this kind of consistently for
months and months and months and months, and every now and then it
spikes when somebody thinks something is about to happen or our policy
is about to be changed. Well, the policy isn't gonna be changed except
our policy with respect to political developments whereas I just
described them. We are concerned still about al-Qaida residing in
Iran, and we are concerned about terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction and all of these issues are being dealt with in a
comprehensive way.
QUESTION: The talks are still suspended indefinitely?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think I said that. I don't think I said that
or want to say now.
QUESTION: The Iranians are accusing of the United States of fomenting
the demonstrations and you just said that the U.S. is encouraging
them, you want to address the Iranian charge, please?
SECRETARY POWELL: The difference between fomenting, we are not out
there inside Iran fomenting them but if people wish to demonstrate
peacefully and demonstrate for their rights and for a better life,
that's seems to us to be a proper thing to do, and we support those
kinds of political systems which allow that kind of openness of
expression and freedom of expression.
Iran, as usual, is always just trying to deflect its problems onto
others. And with respect to discussions, we have ways of having
messages go back and forth to Iran, so I don't want to get into a
debate as to how we do it and how we might do it.
QUESTION: No, no, it's just to clarify, I don't understand. The issue
of we suspended the....
SECRETARY POWELL: It's your story, you're asking me about your point
of view.
QUESTION: No, no, no, no, no, no. Alright, we did not hold the talks,
we did not hold the talks.
SECRETARY POWELL: You're asking me if we suspended and I'm saying.....
QUESTION: Are there plans for talks with the Iranians anytime soon?
SECRETARY POWELL: I'm not gonna tell you if there are plans for talks
with the Iranians anytime soon. You've asked me the question, "since
we've suspended them, are we gonna start them again or are they gonna
stay suspended?" I don't think we've ever said anything's been
suspended. Did we? Correct me. I don't know. I never said it. Others
have said it. Then you need to, oh really. Well then, we'll have to go
find out who they are. If it wasn't Boucher, it wasn't me, I don't
know who it was. To suspend a meeting, a talk, for one reason or
another doesn't mean you've suspended something forever and that's the
conclusion that was leapt to.
(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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