20 June 2003
Powell Hopeful of Progress on Middle East Roadmap
(Says U.S. urging Israel to consider consequences of targeted
killings) (2860)
Speaking en route from Bangladesh to the World Economic Forum (WEF)
meetings in Jordan, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he is hopeful
of progress on the Middle East roadmap. Powell spoke prior meeting
with senior Palestinian and Israeli leaders before the WEF meetings
June 21-23.
Briefing reporters June 19, Powell said progress can be seen in the
Palestinian and Israeli security authorities' discussions of a
handover in Gaza and the removal of settler outposts, but cautioned
against unrealistically high expectations.
Asked about Israel's policy of targeted assassinations, Powell said
that the United States has made the point to Israel that it needs to
consider how its actions affect the chances of achieving the goals set
out at the June 4 Aqaba summit.
"You have to consider the consequences," he said. "Is that going to
help us get closer to peace and does it give us the opportunity for
progress toward peace or does it not?"
In response to a question about Palestinian efforts to negotiate a
cease-fire, Powell said that a cease-fire is one step toward
eliminating the capability to conduct terrorist acts. "We believe that
terror has to end and we also need to eliminate the capacity to
perform terrorist activities," he said.
Following is the transcript of Secretary of State Colin Powell's June
19 press briefing en route to the Dead Sea, Jordan.
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(Dead Sea, Jordan)
June 20, 2003
PRESS BRIEFING
BY SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
ON BOARD PLANE EN ROUTE THE DEAD SEA, JORDAN
June 19, 2003
On Board Plane
SECRETARY POWELL: Hi, you've been with me all day long, so you know
what I've been doing, so why don't we just go to questions and keep
this relatively brief?
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the Palestinians are apparently trying to
form, or discussing anyway, a national unity government that would
bring together thirteen different factions including some of the
religious factions. Can you tell us what progress is being made and if
you think that will satisfy Israel's demands in dealing with extremist
groups?
SECRETARY POWELL: I really can't talk to that until something actually
happens. I know that they are talking to a variety of groups, but I
don't have anything to add to what you've been reading about, seeing,
and the spot repots that I've gotten from my staff. You'll have to
bear with me. I just haven't gotten there yet.
QUESTION: Can you tell us what you are hoping to achieve?
SECRETARY POWELL: Let's keep in mind that tomorrow is another day, it
is not anything special. It fit in with the rest of my schedule; it
gave me an opportunity to go into the region, since I am in Jordan and
to get a status report from both sides and from my team as to how the
discussions have been going over the last two weeks. So it is not as
if this was a special day or I that I was expecting something special
to happen tomorrow.
I hope there has been progress. The reports that I have been getting
is that there have been good conversations between the Palestinians
and the Israelis on the security issues, but as of the time we left
Bangladesh, we still don't have an outcome or result, and they are
meeting again tonight. And with respect to what Abu Mazen is doing
with Hamas, I'll get an update on that. But there is not reason to
expect that it's suddenly all going to come together tomorrow. I'll
know tomorrow what progress they have been able to make.
QUESTION: You have been using language lately that reflects the
Israeli position, the demand for dismantling the groups now, whereas
the Palestinians have been talking about more of a two phase, let's
try to negotiate a cease-fire and if that does not work, then we try
to physically disarm and dismantle them.
SECRETARY POWELL: I think I have been using my position, not the
Israeli position. We believe that terror has to end and we also need
to eliminate the capacity to perform terrorist activities. So I view a
ceasefire or truce or whatever you chose to call it as just one step
toward eliminating the capability to conduct terrorist acts. I also
believe that the Palestinians understand that they have to deal with
this problem in it entirety, whether it's a ceasefire or truce or
whatever one chooses to call it, it has to be just one step. If you're
going to start a train going in the other direction, the first thing
you have to do is stop it. And I think that what we hope will be done
in this first step.
QUESTION: Can you provide us with some sense of whether or not there
has been a new understanding reached between the United States and
Israel on the question of targeted assassinations? And furthermore,
there are some that argue that restraining Israel's ability to conduct
these targeted assassinations somehow sullies the war on terror, that
the United States that the ability to use a Predator missile to take
out a group of people in Yemen and that the Israelis should not have
restraints put on their ability to attack targets that they think
cause a threat to them. Just help us understand the distinction there.
SECRETARY POWELL: The point that we have made to them is that you have
to consider what the consequences of your actions are. Does it help or
hurt as you're moving forward trying to achieve a particular outcome
or objective? And the Israelis have always made it clear that if they
have solid evidence of, as they call it a "ticking bomb," or they know
something is coming and they can do something about it and keep a bomb
from going off, they view that as legitimate self-defense, then that's
perfectly understandable.
When you expand that circle out into going after targets that are not
ticking bombs, then I think you are in a ... making a different
judgment call. You can, perhaps, take somebody out, but have you
improved chances to get away from this whole environment of strike and
counter-strike? I think what the Israelis have been looking at in
recent days is how they should go about this in a way that does not
make it more difficult to achieve the goals set out in Aqaba.
In my conversations when I was with them here some weeks ago, they
were talking in terms of ticking bombs. That, I believe, is the policy
they are following now, but I don't want to speak for them, but that's
my understanding of the kind of thinking that they are going through
right now.
QUESTION: Has there been a change in the last week of what their
policy, of what your understanding of their policy is?
SECRETARY POWELL: I'm not going to characterize, or describe, or speak
for their policy. Just laying out the kinds of discussions that we've
had with them. And I think they understand the distinction. And the
targeting of the high profile figure last made it more difficult to
move forward with the roadmap, and I think the Israelis understand.
But I also know that they've made it clear that if they know that a
suicide bomber, a ticking bomb that's on the way in, they have a
legitimate right of self-defense to preempt that attack. That's
understandable, that's self-defense. It's an obligation that any
nation has.
But when you expand out of that concept of self-defense into a broader
targeting, you have to consider the consequences. Is that going to
help us get closer to peace and does it give us the opportunity for
progress toward peace or does it not?
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, can you tell us about your encounter
yesterday with a North Korean diplomat? We understand now that they
are talking about bilateral talks as a prelude to multilateral and
maybe they are moving in that direction if you have that sense. And
also, if the IAEA statement on Iran is out, can you talk about it?
SECRETARY POWELL: I just haven't seen the statement yet, it hasn't
come up to me, so I can't.
With respect to the North Korean Ambassador, it was at the tail end of
the minister's lunch and he was representing his country. It was a
fairly modest size dining room with about four large tables in it, as
various people were breaking up and heading to the doors. He was just
finishing a meeting with Foreign Minister Kawaguchi. And we met by the
door, shook hands, and just exchanged views for about what must have
been no more than three minutes. I reinforced the points I had made in
the open session, that it had to be a multilateral forum, but that the
United States and everybody else at the conference wanted to do
whatever we could to help the North Korean people but it had to begin
with the end of their nuclear weapons program and it was in their
interest to get moving in that direction. And since it was an issue
that affected all parties in the region, a multilateral forum was the
best.
And he expressed their desire, of course, to talk directly to us and I
said that we are committed to a multilateral forum, and as I said in
my intervention yesterday, once you're in that multilateral forum, you
can speak to whoever you wish who is at the table. That was pretty
much it. It was nothing that was earthshaking or groundbreaking - an
exchange of views - but giving to him privately what I have been
giving publicly, or in the open session.
QUESTION: I'm sorry, back to Israel and the Palestinians. Is there any
progress that you can measure or discuss on the outpost settlement
issue?
SECRETARY POWELL: The only report I've heard today is that they've
dismantled one outpost that was occupied. It's a little different from
the unoccupied outpost that they had been removing. But that is the
only thing that I've heard. The overall policy? No, I haven't heard
anything.
QUESTION: What I'm asking is, there's been a concentration now on
Gaza, but I think a week or two ago there was a lot of discussion of a
desire by the United States for real progress. I think by now, the
illegal outposts might well have all been eliminated. I think that was
my understanding of the US position. Can you assess how Israel has
satisfied what we want on that?
SECRETARY POWELL: They are removing the outpost. There are more
outposts, but they are on track with respect to the first tranche that
they said they would take care of. What they told us at Aqaba they
would do, they have been doing. They initially did it with those that
were unoccupied and now, I understand, they've gone after this one,
that I've gotten a spot report on, is an occupied one. And, of course,
there are other outposts and this is about the pace they said they
would do it. So I think I would say they are on track with respect to
that commitment.
QUESTION: Have you had any feedback from Ambassador Wolf since he
arrived in the region, any sort of assessment of what he's finding on
the ground? And secondly, do you know who you're going to be meeting
with in Israel yet?
SECRETARY POWELL: I haven't talked to John, but I have gotten a steady
stream of e-mails. He has been in almost nonstop discussions with
Palestinian Authority figures and with Israeli figures and I'll get a
fuller report when I land in Jordan and when I see him, probably in
the morning. The schedule right now is that, subject to change upon
landing of course, that I would see the Israeli leaders in the
morning, Foreign Minister Shalom, Prime Minister Sharon, and then I
would see Prime Minister Abbas in the afternoon. But it's still
somewhat tentative, so we'll try to give you the final schedule when
we land.
QUESTION: Just looking ahead to the World Economic Forum, what in your
speech or your intervention or whatever it is, are you going to focus
on MEPI?
SECRETARY POWELL: It will be MEPI and the President's 10-year Middle
East Initiative, and some other issues, I'm still working on it now.
Just started working on it, really.
QUESTION: But is there anything new that you're. ...
SECRETARY POWELL: I'll let you know, perhaps even before the speech.
No, it will be, I think I'm giving it on Sunday evening, so that's a
long way away.
QUESTION: You said before that this trip was a convenient diversion,
you almost described it as a coincidence that you happen to be in town
but since a lot of Middle East peace experts say that visits by you
are necessary to keep progress going and obviously a visit by you is a
target to try and make progress, I mean, isn't that part of your
thinking that these interventions if you will, will push them, isn't
that something that you all want to do with this visit?
SECRETARY POWELL: Sure, and I fully expect that to happen. They know
I'm coming and it will be a public event. We're pushing hard. But I
didn't want to leave the impression that there was some big event that
is scheduled for tomorrow or we knew that something is going to
happen.
There's been some really tough work going on. I remember the first
week after Aqaba, which is just last week, Aqaba two weeks ago
tomorrow, right? Yeah, two weeks ago today, right, yesterday or was
that Sharm? What's today, Thursday? Okay. Two weeks ago yesterday, and
the first week we ran into some difficulties with the suicide bombings
and with the killing of the soldiers. Remember we had the killing of
the Israeli soldiers, and then the Israeli assassinations followed and
then the big bus bomb, and so that really dominated most of the week.
Then John Wolf got in place on Friday or Saturday morning and so it's
really been five or six days since we got over that problem and I
think that we still have a problem. As you know, there has been a
suicide bomb that killed one.
And so by the Middle East standards I think not a lot of time has
passed since Aqaba and we'll see where we are tomorrow morning, but
the fact that we have the Palestinians and the Israeli security
authorities talking about a handover, in Gaza and talking seriously
and not talking past one another, and we're in the room with them,
John's is in the room with them tonight, I think that is a progress. I
just don't want to hype it to the point that tomorrow if that progress
is continuing but has not culminated in an agreement, that I've led
you to believe that there was agreement that was imminent.
But yes, I'm going to try to do everything I can to press both sides
to move quickly because we just don't want to keep talking, we want to
keep something done. We'll see where we are tomorrow. I hate to be so
circuitous about it but that's really where we are.
QUESTION: Do you think it's realistic still given the timing to
believe that we can achieve a provisional Palestinian state by the end
of this year?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think it's out of the question but we need
to see a lot of progress quickly and hopefully over the next several
days and what's happening now, we'll start to see the kind of progress
needed. We need to just get those few footholds and the first stage of
the roadmap, start to built confidence and trust, then we should be
able to move more rapidly. We've got to build up the capability of the
Palestinian Authority security forces as quickly as possible.
Now if I hadn't been going to Davos [correction: Jordan], I might have
been coming here anyway. You're going to see much more engagement by
the members of the Administration's team and keep in mind, in addition
to my visit here, Dov Weisglass was in Washington the day I left, was
it the day I left? Yeah, Monday. Condi and I had a long conversation
with him on Monday, so we are engaged on a direct, personal basis,
almost real time constant basis. And, sometimes it's when coming to
see us, and sometimes it's one of us being here, and with the
continuous on-the-ground presence of John Wolf and the team that will
be building up over the next couple of weeks, I think you'll see
constant engagement and you'll see us all involved. I hope we'll see
progress tomorrow but I just didn't want to overstate it or over hype
it before anything has really happened.
(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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