28 September 2004
State Department Noon Briefing, September 28
Announcement of New Reconstruction and Stabilization Office, Recent Examples of Stabilization: Haiti, East Timor, Liberia, USAID Humanitarian Intervention, Budget/Personnel, Advance Planning, North Korea, Israel/Syria, Nigeria, Colombia, Greece/Cyprus, Iraq, China/Taiwan, China, Sudan, Mauritania
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher briefed reporters September 28.
Following is the transcript of the State Department briefing:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing Index
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
12:45 p.m. EDT
Briefer: Richard Boucher, Spokesman
DEPARTMENT
-- Announcement of New Reconstruction and Stabilization Office
-- Recent Examples of Stabilization: Haiti, East Timor, Liberia
-- USAID Humanitarian Intervention
-- Budget/Personnel
-- Advance Planning
NORTH KOREA
-- Violation of Commitments on Nuclear Program
-- Past Assertions and Claims
ISRAEL/SYRIA
-- U.S. Reaction to Syrian Car Bombing
-- U.S. Effort for Comprehensive Peace
NIGERIA
-- Monitoring of Situation in Niger Delta
-- Contact with American Companies
-- Status of Security in Niger Delta/Travel Warning
COLOMBIA
-- Extradition of Juan Carlos Sierra
-- Colombian Government and AUC Negotiations
GREECE/CYPRUS
-- Secretary Powell's Meeting with Greek Foreign Minister
-- Law Governing Re-transfer of U.S. Weapons
-- Ambassador Tom Miller's Meeting with Greek Minister of Defense
IRAQ
-- Comments Made by Jordanian King Abdallah on Elections
-- Determination to Conduct Election
CHINA/TAIWAN
-- U.S. Views on Mainland China and Taiwan
CHINA
-- Chinese Response to Inquiries Regarding Detention of Journalist Zhao Yan
SUDAN
-- Reported Coup Attempt in Khartoum
MAURITANIA
-- Reported Coup Attempt
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2004
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
12:45 p.m. EDT
MR. BOUCHER: Hello, everybody. Forgive me for my cold, but I promise I'll only breathe on the front row.
If I can, I'd like to start off with a brief announcement. I want to tell you that we're announcing today the Office of Reconstruction -- the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization. This is an office created by the Secretary to lead U.S. Government planning to help societies transition from conflict or civil strife to sustainable peace, democracy and market economies.
Experience over the past decade has demonstrated that ad hoc responses to complex emergencies are not enough. The United States must be prepared to rapidly identify and marshal its civilian resources for stabilization and reconstruction. The Reconstruction and Stabilization Office will monitor evolving developments, coordinate preventative and contingency planning and, when necessary, mobilize a response. The Office will work closely with the Defense Department to ensure strong civilian-military cooperation in planning and operations, and develop and maintain close links with foreign governments, international regional organizations and nongovernmental organizations.
Now, there's more information on the new office at www.state.gov/s/crs. The Office is being headed by Ambassador Carlos Pascual. As you know, he's been our Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia and also our U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. The fact that we're appointing a senior and experienced diplomat, I think, shows how important this kind of prior planning is to the Secretary and to making sure that we get on top of future crises.
QUESTION: A country has to be willing, doesn't it? The country you're going to stabilize, if that's the word.
MR. BOUCHER: Yeah. I mean, it would be done in cooperation with whatever authority exists. I said, you know, what are we talking to them about, what are some examples? Recent examples would be places like Haiti, East Timor, the kind of situation we faced in Liberia, where a country is trying to get reorganized after a significant, you know, conflict or civil strife or internal event that basically disrupted institutions, the lives of people and populations. And so we want to be able to mobilize our resources, our expertise from all the U.S. Government agencies in a coordinated fashion: get down there; help them rebuild; help people put their country back on track and take care of some of the dislocations that occur when you have that kind of situation.
QUESTION: Doesn't USAID already do a lot of this?
MR. BOUCHER: USAID does, you know, sort of the humanitarian intervention side: get the water system back up; get the food back up. And then we have others of us who have done, including AID people, but you know, help them conduct their first election, get a constitution installed, you know, get a judicial system up and running, police up and running.
All these different functions are somewhat scattered in the U.S. Government, but there's expertise around the government trying to do this in a more coordinated and planned way.
QUESTION: And this is going -- what level is this office headed by? I mean, is this an assistant secretary or is this just a director, office director?
MR. BOUCHER: It's a coordinator under the Secretary of State, so it's a fairly -- for us it would count as a fairly significant but independent office. But it's part of the S family, the Secretary's level.
QUESTION: What's the annual budget?
MR. BOUCHER: I don't know that they actually have a specific amount budgeted for them yet. They have -- let's -- the other way to measure it, for example, is to say they've got 25 people now, including detailees from a number of agencies and we expect it to grow to 45 people by next March.
QUESTION: To 45?
MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, to 45 by next March, and then they'll coordinate farther out with all the agencies that might get involved in these situations.
QUESTION: So that means people's job is to look at a country that is currently, or six months from now is at -- is in conflict but may be getting ready to end it and -- I mean, previously this was done on an ad hoc basis. I'm not sure how you can do any prior planning for something that's done on --
MR. BOUCHER: Well, sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. I mean, the -- you know the -- East Timor was something that was foreseen, that we had prior notice of. Other events like the -- this year's events in Haiti were not. So --
QUESTION: Well, you mean, by East Timor, you're talking about the election?
MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, the transition in East Timor from UN administration to the East Timorese Government taking charge and getting everything up and running.
QUESTION: I mean, could this be related --
MR. BOUCHER: But you could also look at situations around the world where there might be significant civil strife or there might be significant conflict and at least do a little thinking in contingency planning knowing --
QUESTION: Like Iraq, maybe? Elections coming up, scheduled doable by January, according to --
MR. BOUCHER: Outside conflict is always one of the factors that could be taken into account.
QUESTION: But are you talking about conflict entirely? I mean, look at Bangladesh. I mean, you can predict -- you know, you can predict flooding and you can predict the --
MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, but Bangladesh has a coherent governing structure.
QUESTION: Oh, all right.
MR. BOUCHER: And what they need --
QUESTION: Is help.
MR. BOUCHER: -- is help for them. And they have a structure that's in place to identify what they need and when they need it and how it can be delivered. What we're trying to deal with here is places that are, you know, failed states or post-conflict, brand new transitional arrangements that have to be made to work and that we want to work smoothly. So that's what they're trying to look at here, plan for that better.
QUESTION: Richard, what -- I'm sure nobody would care outside this building particularly, but within the building, I mean, who's in charge of a policy for planning, if it's -- you're talking about East Timor or are you talking about -- what happens to the East Asia planners who are supposed to be doing this? I mean, who's in charge of the policy?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, if it comes to contingency planning for a sort of disaster or a breakdown or a brand new situation, that's not something that ordinarily a bureau can do with their resources. When we do have these situations, we would normally set up a task force and bring together people from all over the building with different resources, abilities and assets, and have them, at least for the initial period, try to manage the situation. You can look at this sort of as setting up the task force before the crisis and doing a lot of the coordination and planning in advance.
One of the things that we've been trying to do at the State Department is identify all the people with language skills. So if you have a crisis somewhere where they speak Creole, you know how many Creole speakers you've got on your staff.
QUESTION: So the answer to that would be?
MR. BOUCHER: There's some.
QUESTION: Richard, you know, one of the criticisms that the Defense Department has come under with the situation in Iraq is that they didn't do a good job with post-war planning and on how to stabilize the country. Was this office created in direct response to, you know, what the Defense Department went through in Iraq, or was there another reason, another impetus for this being created?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I wouldn't -- I would not say that. I would say that's not the case, that it was created because, time after time, we find ourselves dealing with failed states, transitional governments, new situations, things that, to the extent we can, we should anticipate. And Secretary Powell wanted to make sure we did this planning in advance to the extent we can.
QUESTION: I'm sure you're familiar with the arms controllers' phrase, "putting the genie back in the bottle." With the disclosures yesterday, is there any hope in the Administration that the North Korean program can be ended? I don't know how you -- they haven't acknowledged, for one thing. They've gone a long way.
MR. BOUCHER: What are you talking about -- the disclosures yesterday? The claims yesterday?
QUESTION: Well, the disclosures yesterday about the conversion to fuel, to nuclear weapons. I mean, it's gotten -- hasn't it gotten beyond negotiating controls?
MR. BOUCHER: First of all, I don't have any specific information I can share with you on the status of North Korean nuclear programs or reprocessing or metal or weaponized, or whatever it was they claimed.
Second of all, we've seen a whole series of claims from the North Koreans about, "Watch out, we're doing this. Watch out, we're doing that." That doesn't alter the fundamental situation. The fundamental situation is that North Korea has violated its commitments, continued to violate its commitment, is bragging about violating its commitments and its promises, has alienated its neighbors, has postponed benefits, the benefits of interaction with the outside world, and has now stalled and apparently failed to show up for a round of talks they agreed to a few months ago.
So it doesn't alter the policy approach. It just reinforces the need to eliminate nuclear weapons programs on the Korean Peninsula. Statements such as this, rhetoric such as this, just reinforces the need to reach an agreement which says this is no longer going to be a danger and it's not going to happen again. And that's where U.S. policy, I think, has been very clear and very consistent.
We have a mechanism to reach that agreement, to allow North Korea to end these programs, but also to gain the benefits of interaction with the outside world, and we have a proposal on the table from the United States to enable North Korea to do that. And we look forward to their response.
QUESTION: That's why, I mean, I used the genie in a bottle. I mean, if you think sometime, in such programs they reach a point where there's not much other countries can do to constrain what's been going on.
You speak of boast -- we're taking at least some of these assertions seriously, I'm sure, aren't we?
MR. BOUCHER: We take all their claims seriously, but does it alter the fundamental situation? No.
QUESTION: Do they still come to --
MR. BOUCHER: There are numerous countries that have gotten rid of active nuclear programs. There are a number of countries that have gotten rid of, even of nuclear weapons on their territory.
QUESTION: Yeah, that's true.
MR. BOUCHER: So the fact that you have done this or done that doesn't prohibit you from doing the right thing. And the only answer to all this is that North Korea has to find a better course for its nation and its people.
QUESTION: Richard, can I just ask you, what do you mean by "apparently failed to show up"? It's now September 28th. Are you still saying that there's some hope for --
MR. BOUCHER: No, I'm not. I'm not holding out any hope. But I didn't quite want to call it quits until September 30th just for the formality of the matter.
QUESTION: Okay.
MR. BOUCHER: Sir.
QUESTION: The State Department yesterday -- well, the statements that came out from here yesterday was not very well received in the Middle East concerning the Israelis' terrorism, state terrorism, you know, concerning that incident in Syria that killed one of the Palestinians in the area and the -- it's being talked yesterday at the General Assembly of Israel refusing to abide by 40 resolutions of the UN Security Council, 600 resolutions by the General Assembly of the United Nations.
And if you can find yourself willing to listen to other advice of various, one of the most senior diplomats and foreign policy experts and leaders in the Middle East, the Foreign Minister al-Shara yesterday was saying that Israel bears a important share of the responsibility for intensifying and worsening the American predicament in Iraq by avoiding the resumption of the peace process, despite the hand extended in peace by the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese.
Do you find that new emerging facts would probably make some changes to the statement of yesterday concerning that incident?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, first of all, I want to associate myself with everything that was said yesterday. No, we don't intend to change it.
Second of all, I think it's important to remember that there are not foreign fighters crossing Israel's border into Iraq, that Israel is not holding assets that belong to the Iraqi Government. We have those problems with Syria, we have those problems with some of Iraq's real neighbors, and it doesn't really do anybody any good to start blaming everything in Iraq on the Israelis.
QUESTION: Not Iraq, Syria. They, you know, they --
MR. BOUCHER: I think the quote you had right there was blaming all the problems of Iraq on the Israelis.
QUESTION: But for the peace process, for not helping to advance the peace process.
MR. BOUCHER: We have much more direct concerns, with regard to Iraq, with regard to Syria. And we have sat down with the Syrian Government repeatedly -- the Secretary sat down with him last week -- and talked in a very positive way with Foreign Minister Shara about the steps that Syria could take, the steps that we could work on together with the Syrians to help improve our relationship, to help improve the stability of Iraq, one of Syria's very important neighbors, to help improve the security of the region by not supporting terrorism, by not supporting the bombers who go and kill Palestinians, as well as Israelis.
So I think it's important to maintain a certain perspective here.
QUESTION: But, sir, you don't agree with the fact that Israel wants to use its -- what it calls the long arm of Israel in order to what, in its opinion, take -- make justice for itself and without abiding by international laws that do not allow countries to invade other countries or explode cars in other countries?
MR. BOUCHER: I have to say I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but I don't think I agree. We have made clear to all parties that we, first of all, we look to pursue a comprehensive peace. We're willing to work with all the parties to do that. We have made clear to all parties that we expect them act as responsible parties in the region, and especially responsible neighbors to Iraq. Third, we have made clear our interests in having good relations with the different countries of the region. And finally, we have made clear that, at times of tension like this, it's important for all parties to exercise restraint. That has been a very clear and consistent message.
QUESTION: If I may just take it one more. I mean, the --
MR. BOUCHER: I don't want to turn this into a prolonged debate.
QUESTION: No, just a short --
MR. BOUCHER: And I'm not here to allow you to put assertions onto the record of our press briefing that may not have any substantiation.
Sir.
QUESTION: Richard, the spot oil price of crude is going perilously close to $50 a barrel, and there seems to be great concern that there could very well have war break out in Nigeria on the 1st of October. How concerned is the State Department about this and is there anything diplomatically that the U.S. is trying to do to step in and keep things cool there?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, we are watching the situation in Niger Delta, the Niger Delta of Nigeria, very closely. We've been in very close and continuing contact with American companies that operate in the region and with the Nigerian Government, as well. We've made clear to Nigerian authorities they have a responsibility to keep the peace in that area, keep for the sake of the people, as well as for the safety of American citizens and property.
The security situation in that region does remain unpredictable. We have warned in the current Travel Warning Americans the dangers of travel there and we continue to urge all American citizens to exercise caution when traveling in the Niger Delta. I would also note that we've encouraged Americans to register with the Embassy in Abuja, the Consulate General in -- U.S. Consulate Lagos.
As far as the overall security situation for American companies there, we are -- we do work with American companies, Nigerian authorities and legitimate nongovernmental organizations in the Niger Delta to address the security situation, as well as the underlying problems of extreme poverty and poor governance.
We have noted that although states in this area receive more revenue from the government than in other parts of Nigeria, these states are among the poorest in the country. And so those problems are things that we recognize and we have tried to work with the -- with American companies, with the Nigerian authorities, to try to rectify and try to help the people of that area.
QUESTION: I'd like to go back to the Syria for one second. Do you have any better understanding of what happened on Sunday with this car bomb?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't have any additional information on that.
QUESTION: Does the U.S. Government have any better understanding? Have you made any inquiries at all into the circumstances of this with either the Syrians or the Israelis or the Jordanians or the Turks or -- I don't know -- Martians, for all that matter? Do you care exact -- do you care what happened?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, obviously, we do care and we'd like to know what happened. This is -- you know, I mean, it was an act of violence. It was a -- but it's not -- the issue is not the U.S. Government. I mean, there are others being talked about, but we just don't know.
QUESTION: Okay.
MR. BOUCHER: I mean, we didn't have any prior knowledge of this action or any knowledge of who took it at this point.
QUESTION: You didn't have any prior knowledge of this action?
MR. BOUCHER: No. There have been accusations like that, as well.
QUESTION: This happened, though, at a time when the U.S. team -- I don't know if they were there then, but there is certainly a team there or was there yesterday and is there today, I believe, talking with the Syrians -- for the border. And I'm wondering how -- I understand yesterday there were some representations made to the Syrian authorities to the effect that our facilities, our personnel, should be protected.
Did you get adequate -- from any repercussions that might arise from this bombing. Have you've gotten an adequate response, in your view, from the Syrians about the safety and security of U.S. Government personnel and property?
MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. I'll have to check and see if we got responses on that.
Sir.
QUESTION: Thank you. On Colombia. Yesterday, President Uribe signed off the extradition of Mr. Juan Carlos Sierra. He's the highest AUC member to be extradited to the United States.
What is the opinion, or what does the State Department have to say, about this action taken by the Colombian Government yesterday?
MR. BOUCHER: Normally, we leave all the extradition matters for our Department of Justice to handle. I'll have to see if there's anything we want to say about it, though.
QUESTION: Just to follow up.
MR. BOUCHER: Okay.
QUESTION: In the United States, including the United States, there were rumors that, probably you can help me on this, rumors that the Colombian Government was negotiating with the AUC to the terms of no extradition for them to surrender. Do you have any knowledge or any information?
MR. BOUCHER: We've really left those discussions between the government and the groups, in this case, the AUC. Our position has been that we're not involved in negotiations. We're not involved either in dropping any charges or other legal action that we might want to take against individuals. But we've really left the matters of negotiation to the Government of Colombia and the different groups, or the groups, in this case, the AUC.
Yeah, sir.
QUESTION: On Cyprus. Do you know, Mr. Boucher, did Secretary Colin Powell and the Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis discuss also the issue of the American weapons used by the Greek army of Cyprus during their meeting in New York City, September 23rd, since there is not anything in your readout to this effect, at least today?
Do your best. You were there, anyway.
MR. BOUCHER: I know. But it, you know, was five or six days ago.
QUESTION: Excuse me?
MR. BOUCHER: They did talk about Cyprus. I'll have to double-check the notes and see if they got into the question of weaponry. But that has been a subject of discussion, I think you know, with the Greek Government and in other channels.
QUESTION: According to Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli and to the Spokesman of the Greek Foreign Ministry, Mr. George Koumoutsakos, the American weapons issue is pending on three years now. Therefore, the U.S. Government was discussing with the previous Simitis government, too, the disarmament of the Greek army of Cyprus, since the present Greek government under Kostas Karamanlis resumed power March 7th?
MR. BOUCHER: The law governing the transfer of U.S. weapons and how they need to be controlled, and depending on when they were sold, is somewhat complicated, but it's been around for a long time. So it's not a brand new issue. If there are instances where we think our law might apply or we need to clarify our law with some of our partners, then we do so. And that's the current matter now with the Greek Government.
QUESTION: To your best knowledge, did you send ever a single notification to Congress for any other country, i.e. to the state of Israel, for example, since it is in the same category violating also the U.S. law?
MR. BOUCHER: I don't know that we've ever concluded that any other country is in the same category of violating U.S. law.
QUESTION: So the answer is?
MR. BOUCHER: I'd have to see. If there's a case where law, U.S. law applies or might apply, we would raise it with any country.
QUESTION: Why you are misusing your power in exerting this unusual pressure to Greece now? What is the philosophy of your decision in order to understand what is going on exactly this particular moment?
MR. BOUCHER: What is going on exactly is there is U.S. law that governs the question of transfer -- retransfer of U.S. weapons and who has to maintain their control and how they have to be kept in inventory and things like that.
When we see circumstances where we think this law might apply, we raise these matters with other governments, and that's what we have done in this case.
QUESTION: In the context of this philosophy you are mentioning right now, may we assume that with this movement you are trying to disarm totally the Greek Cypriot national guard and the 950 Greek soldiers in Cyprus, leaving untouched the 40,000 Turkish troops armed illegally with American weapons, leaving the defenseless Republic of Cyprus totally unarmed for a third invasion by the Turkish military establishment?
MR. BOUCHER: No, you may not assume that. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Excuse me?
MR. BOUCHER: No.
QUESTION: No? Are you sure about that, Mr. Boucher? Are you sure about that?
MR. BOUCHER: You may not make that assumption. You asked me if you could assume those things --
QUESTION: Yes.
MR. BOUCHER: And I said no, you can't assume those things because none of them are true.
QUESTION: So, you can not predict any kind of (inaudible) to this effect?
MR. BOUCHER: I'm not predicting anything like that, no.
QUESTION: You and Mr. Ereli told us Turkey never violated the U.S. law to this effect, and then why your government imposed an arms embargo to Turkey in 1975? Could you please give us an explanation?
MR. BOUCHER: No, you can read it in the history books. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: On the --
MR. BOUCHER: I'm not here to explain the 1974 arms embargo. When was it passed? Was it passed in '75?
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR. BOUCHER: Yeah.
QUESTION: Right now, U.S. saying whatever the Turkish doing is legal.
MR. BOUCHER: No, this is by no means similar. This is not comparable in any fashion, in any way, shape or form.
QUESTION: But why isn't it comparable? This is the same issue.
MR. BOUCHER: Because it's not an arms embargo.
QUESTION: It's a violation of the --
MR. BOUCHER: It's a question of maintaining the custody of U.S. weapons when we transfer them to somebody. When we transfer U.S. weapons to another government, the other government is required to keep them in their inventory and not retransfer them. When we see circumstances that we think might violate that clause or potentially violate that clause, we raise these with other governments.
QUESTION: Any response to my pending question for the readout on the meeting between Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos and Under Secretary Marc Grossman in New York City the other day?
MR. BOUCHER: Is that -- a meeting didn't take place?
MR. CASEY: According to Mr. Grossman's office.
MR. BOUCHER: Let me double-check on that and see if they actually had the meeting.
QUESTION: And also, I was told from the U.S. Embassy today in Athens that Ambassador Tom Miller had a separate meeting with the Greek Minister of Defense, Mr. Spilios Spiliotopoulos, on the American weapons issue in Cyprus, but Mr. Ereli told us the other day that the issue has to do only with the Greek Foreign Minister and the State Department and is not an issue on an ambassadorial level. Therefore, may we know the context of the discussion between Ambassador Tom Miller and the Greek Minister of Defense Spilio Spiliotopoulos?
MR. BOUCHER: I'm sure the Embassy would be glad to help you with that?
QUESTION: How?
MR. BOUCHER: Give them a call.
QUESTION: May I use your name to call direct to the Ambassador --
MR. BOUCHER: I would call the Public Affairs section at the Embassy.
QUESTION: And the last question --
MR. BOUCHER: Why don't we do something else?
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: The so-called isolation of the Turkish-Cypriots. May we have your opinion who is isolated finally with the Turkish Cypriots: the powerful Turkish army of 40,000 troops or the defenseless and unarmed Republic of Cyprus?
MR. BOUCHER: There is no basis in fact for asking that question, I'm sorry. Neither one of your observations is accurate.
QUESTION: I was going to ask about Crete, but I guess I won't now. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Oh, don't. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: You've seen, I presume, the comments attributed to King Abdallah, your good friend in Jordan, in a French newspaper this morning talking about the elections in Iraq. And what do you --
QUESTION: (Inaudible.)
MR. BOUCHER: Oh, sorry.
QUESTION: Yeah, basically, he agrees with everyone but you guys, or pretty much every one but you guys, that if there were to be -- that given the current state of things, that an indisputable election in Iraq by January isn't possible. And I'm just wondering, I don't expect that you guys have changed your view in the past 36 or 48 hours about this, but I presume you do not agree with the King's assessment?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, I haven't seen the King's assessment personally, so I can't compare and contrast. I can say that we have not changed our view, nor has the Iraqi Government changed its determination to have these elections on time in January and throughout the country. And that is what we are supporting, that is what we are assisting them with, and that's what we are going to be moving forward on, not only in preparing the elections themselves, but also in improving the security situation so that we can have those sorts of elections throughout the country.
As Prime Minister Allawi said when he was here, there are great parts of the country that are already ready for elections and there are other parts of the country that are not quite there yet. But he described when he was here a strategy to go forward with military pressure, with Iraqi security resources, Iraqi political action, to try to make these areas safe and to do that over the course of the coming months.
So the only part I would differ with in what you told me is that the election will not be held given current circumstances. What part of the strategy is to create a different set of circumstance so that elections can be held throughout the country without too much problem.
Sir.
QUESTION: Yes, Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement expressing its concerns about Taiwan. I quote, "Many other countries also believe that Taiwan is pursuing a dangerous course toward independence." My question is: Does U.S. share that concern so that U.S. is one of the quoted "many countries"?
MR. BOUCHER: I'm not going to try to characterize our views in terms of what somebody else said about somebody else. I don't know if that has reference to us or not. I'd leave it to the Singaporeans to explain it. I think our views on this situation between China -- between the mainland of China and Taiwan has been expressed many times. I'll stick with what we said, rather than adopt somebody else's words.
QUESTION: Yesterday, Adam spoke a little bit about contacts between the United States and U.S. and Chinese diplomats about the status of this detained New York Times researcher. Today, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has come out with its standard line that this is an internal matter, it's none of your business and buzz off, basically.
I'm wondering: (1) Can you tell us anything about what the Chinese response was here and in Beijing to your appeal or your request for clarification; and (2) if there wasn't any yesterday, has there been any further contact?
MR. BOUCHER: I think, as you described the standard Chinese response, that's the standard Chinese response in public and in private to our raising issues like this where we are concerned about a situation but where it doesn't involve directly a U.S. national. So we've heard that before. That is the standard response.
QUESTION: Standard response (inaudible)?
MR. BOUCHER: At this point -- yeah. And at this point we're not aware that we have any clarification. I do want to make clear that, in our view, Zhao Yan's case has implications for journalists working in China. It has implications for the role of the free press in providing information to build a strong civil society that respects liberties and freedoms. So we have raised Mr. Zhao's detention with Chinese authorities in Beijing and Washington. We're seeking clarification of status and we've emphasized our concern for his welfare and our concern about these overarching issues. We'll continue to pursue our interest in the matter.
Sir.
QUESTION: I'd like a little clarification for our commentary on the point of the election of the -- in Iraq.
MR. BOUCHER: Yes.
QUESTION: You have mentioned that you are intending to hold the elections throughout Iraq. If the situation gets better, is that what you mean? Or regardless of what the situation is going to be, the election is going to be held no matter what?
MR. BOUCHER: The Iraqis have shown every determination to conduct this election on time. We are fully supportive of that. They have shown every determination to deal with a situation in various towns in the center of the country so that even in those places the election can go forward without any problem. That's the goal. That's the efforts that's being made right now. As far as what the exact circumstances will be when we get to that moment, we'll just have to see when we get there.
QUESTION: So the possibility does exist that there might be some areas that would be excluded if the situation did not -- shouldn't allow the election to go --
MR. BOUCHER: I'm sure the Iraqi Government will take into account whatever the final conditions are at the time for the elections. But we'll just have to see what those are when we get much closer.
QUESTION: And just very briefly, yesterday I asked about what your understanding was for the situation in Sudan over the weekend with the alleged coup attempt and thwarting of it. There was a taken question released last night, but it basically said exactly what Adam had to say during the briefing, which is that you don't know what's going on. So I'm wondering if now you do. And even if you don't, something similar seems to have arisen in Mauritania on the other side of the continent in the last 24 hours with an alleged plot.
MR. BOUCHER: I don't have any more information on the events in Khartoum over the weekend on whether it was a coup or some other action being carried out. So at this point, I'm afraid there is nothing we have to pass along that could clarify that situation for you. As far as the situation in Mauritania, I'll have to look into it and see.
QUESTION: Okay, thanks.
MR. BOUCHER: Thank you.
(The briefing was concluded at 1:25 p.m.)
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
