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08 January 2005

Coalition, Iraqi Forces Seek to Facilitate Voting for Sunnis

Armitage says Iraqi Shi'as, Kurds encouraging their countrymen to participate

By Stephen Kaufman
Washington File White House Correspondent

Washington -- The Bush administration hopes to encourage more Sunni participation in Iraq’s elections with “as rigorous security procedures as possible,” according to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

Armitage spoke with three Arabic language media services at the State Department in Washington January 7.  He told Egypt Television’s Mohamed Elsetouchi, “Both the Iraqi forces, the Iraqi police forces, and the coalition forces are going to be doing their utmost to provide security in ways that benefit the Sunnis, particularly, and allow them to vote, should they desire.”

He said the legitimacy of the January 30 election results will need to be judged by the Iraqi people themselves, as well as the international community, and said both Iraqi Shi’a and Kurds are reaching out to Sunni tribal elders in an effort to encourage Sunnis to fully participate.

“We don't want to have a repeat of what happened in the 1920s, when the Shi’a opted out of the political process, and then for 70-odd years thereafter found themselves on the negative end of the stick,” Armitage said.

A “great majority” of the Iraqi people want the elections to be held, he said, and only some Sunnis are calling for the postponement of the vote.  “What do they hope to accomplish?” he asked.  “They have no program.  They only want to delay to give some encouragement to the insurgency.  We won't have it.”

He told Abu Dhabi Television’s Hany El-Konyessi of the need to get “as wide a participation as possible.”

“Our polling data shows that where Sunnis feel they will be secure, they want to vote in relatively high percentages; but where they're fearful for their lives, then they won't,” he said.

After the election, the deputy secretary said, there will be other ways to try to bring the Sunni community into the mainstream of Iraqi political life, such as in the drafting of Iraq’s new constitution.

Asked about his meetings in Damascus, Syria, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Deputy Secretary Armitage told Al Hurra Television’s Michel Ghanour that he had clearly expressed the Bush administration’s position that Syria needs to prevent former Iraqi regime elements from operating between Syria and Iraq, allow Lebanon’s spring parliamentary elections to be held without foreign influence as part of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, and should “seize the opportunity presented by the upcoming Palestinian elections and hopefully [move] forward on the peace process.”

“I think the message has been delivered and the message was received, it appeared to me, and now we'll watch to see if the Syrians follow through,” Armitage said.

He urged Syria to have “a more friendly, congenial relationship” with Iraq, especially following Iraq’s January 30 elections.

Asked about U.S. sanctions under the Syria Accountability Act, Armitage said that no decision has been made to implement additional sanctions.  President Bush has the authority to move forward with a second group of sanctions, he said, but has “chosen not to do it yet.”

“He's waiting to see the outcome of Syrian behavior over a length of time and then will make a decision on what to do,” he said.

Concerning former Iraqi regime elements in Syria, Armitage acknowledged that, “In some cases, we don't have exact locations” of their whereabouts, but asserted that Syrian authorities “know these people.”

“[T]hey've known them from the previous regime, and with a good effort, they can find them.  And we're counting on Syria to help bring these fellows to justice and to stop their activities,” he said. 

Turning to the Palestinian presidential elections, Armitage told Abu Dhabi Television “there's a lot of hope and there's a lot of energy … awaiting the outcome.”

“[I]t seems to me not a bad idea to have Palestinians finally able to vote on their future.  My own view is a reasonable process will lead to a reasonable solution which most Palestinians will endorse because they want to live in peace and security in their own state called Palestine, and it's about time they be allowed to do so,” he said.

He said the United States will continue to provide financial support to the Palestinians and will “work vigorously” to try to implement an Israeli disengagement from Gaza.

“There is the possibility to move forward, and I think with enlightened Palestinian leadership supported by the international community, the Palestinian people can be let out of the wilderness they've been in for, lo, these many years since 1967,” he told Egypt Television.

On U.S.-Egyptian bilateral relations, he said there had been “real progress” after what he described as “a rather difficult period.”

Asked about the possibility of a free trade agreement between the two countries, Armitage said “It's much easier to negotiate something like a Free Trade Agreement when your relationships are a little warmer than when they're cold.”

“[W]e find a lot to celebrate and salute in the U.S.-Egyptian relationship,” he said, adding Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote a letter to members of Congress “to make that point crystal clear.”

Lastly, looking ahead to his probable successor as deputy secretary, Robert Zoellick, and Condoleezza Rice -- who was nominated to replace Powell -- Armitage told Abu Dhabi Television to expect “muscular” and “energetic” U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East.

Besides ongoing efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and the global War on Terrorism, “now is the time to have a little bit more rigorous diplomacy devoted toward things like the peace process, like reform in the Middle East,” as well as U.S. relations with its neighbors in the western hemisphere, he said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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