Military

09 February 2005

Rice Says NATO Members in Clear Agreement on Alliance Agenda

Iraqi elections remind many in NATO of their own struggles for freedom

Washington -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says the United States and its European allies in NATO are in agreement on the issues before them and will be taking practical steps to advance the alliance’s agenda.

Following an informal working lunch for NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, February 9, Rice emphasized the unity within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during discussions on matters from the Middle East to the Balkans.

The secretary said she reported to the ministers on her meetings earlier in the week with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and that the NATO countries pledged to support the efforts of both leaders toward peace.

On Iraq, Rice said, it was “the best discussion … that we have had as an alliance since the Saddam Hussein regime fell.”  This was due in part, she said, to the desire for freedom shown by the number of Iraqis who voted in their recent elections despite intimidation.  This action “was reminiscent for this alliance of what many around that table had gone through” to secure their own liberty, she explained.

Topics of discussion at the ministerial luncheon included “new contributions to support the evolution of Iraq, and particularly to support its security forces and their training,” Rice said, reporting that “a number of countries immediately agreed to contribute.”

In response to a question on Iran’s suspected pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, the secretary urged that country to “take the opportunity the Europeans are giving them to live up to their obligations [under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty]."  Great Britain, Germany and France are attempting to persuade Iran to renounce nuclear weapons.

“I believe that everybody is telling the Iranians that they are going to have to live up to their international obligations or next steps are in the offing,” Rice said, adding that “the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] statutes would suggest that Iran has to be referred to the U.N. Security Council” where sanctions could be imposed. 

She also said there are concerns about “Iran’s continued support of rejectionist groups in the Palestinian territories when we are all working toward a peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”

However, Rice said she believed that a diplomatic solution was possible if Iran understands “the international community is quite serious about it living up to its obligations.”

Among other issues discussed were U.S. concerns over the possibility the European Union may do away with its embargo on selling arms to China.  Rice said talks on that matter with European colleagues were “fruitful.”

“I do feel that we are being listened to,” she said.

See State Department transcript of Rice’s remarks.

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)