Rice With Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Remarks With Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Joint Press Availability
Ramallah
March 25, 2007

PRESIDENT ABBAS: (Via interpreter.) In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate, once again we welcome Dr. Rice and her visit here. This visit, like other visits, comes within the framework of the efforts, continuous efforts, made by the American Administration and President Bush and Dr. Rice as well to seek a political solution to explore the horizons for a political settlement in order to implement President Bush's vision which we all know and which speaks of two states, the state called Palestine living side by side with the state of Israel.

And today we discussed all these issues. We talked about all of the developments that took place since Dr. Rice's last visit to date. We can tell the relationship with the Israelis as well as the meeting I had with the Prime Minister -- Israeli Prime Minister and the agenda for other meetings which will take place with the Israeli Prime Minister. All of these meetings come within the framework of bilateral relations between us and the Israelis, of course, in addition to the vision of the future which we all aspire for and endeavor to achieve.

We talked today as well of issues related to settlement expansion which are continually taking place and impeding the peace process. We talked of Israeli Corporal Shalit and Israel's need to release him. Of course we talked about Palestinian (inaudible) and the -- a cooling down in general in the areas in the areas of the West Bank and Gaza and a mutual calm between us and the Israelis.

Finally, we addressed the expected prospects of the Arab summit and the issues that has been entered on its agenda, particularly issues related to the roadmap which includes the Arab initiative, from our point of view, of course, and we do not have (inaudible) on this. The Arab initiative needs to be reactivated and we must seek different ways to activate not only the Arab initiative but also the peace process as a whole. We will proceed with our meetings with Madame Secretary from time to time for this effort and we do appreciate her efforts and we thank her for giving a lot of her valuable time to the Palestinian cause. Welcome, Dr. Rice.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. And thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much for welcoming me here again and for your continued leadership and integrity in this process of trying to come to a two-state solution where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in peace.

The President and I discussed the efforts that I will be making here in the region. I will meet with Prime Minister Olmert tonight. I will then, of course, meet with the President again tomorrow and then before I leave again with the Israelis because I think it's extremely important to begin to establish in parallel a common agenda to move forward toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, and in order to do that we have to begin a discussion of the political horizon so that we can show to the Palestinian people as well as to the Israeli people that there is indeed hope for the kind of peace that will come when the Palestinians have their own state, their own democratic and peaceful state, and when the Israeli people have the peace and security that can only come from having a democratic and stable neighbor. And so we have had a good discussion of that.

And we've also discussed, as the President said, the Arab initiative. I was very interested in his ideas concerning the Arab initiative because perhaps it does offer an opportunity and a way to also have a prospect for Arab-Israeli reconciliation, all of which together with the establishment of a Palestinian state would make for a much more peaceful and hopeful and prosperous Middle East.

Thank you very much, Mr. President, for our good discussions and I look forward to continuing them.

PRESIDENT ABBAS: (Via interpreter.) Thank you.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter.) Madame Secretary, is there any (inaudible) that you have (inaudible) regarding the implementation of the Arab initiative and resumption of the peace process?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, on the peace process, we are talking a great deal about how we can resume the peace process. But on the Arab initiative, I've made very clear that it is not the position of the United States that the Arabs need to make changes to their initiative. I hope that it will be reactivated in some way. I hope that it will become a platform, a way for active diplomacy. But it is an Arab initiative; others will have other views and other proposals. But the important thing is to get a conversation started about how we have the prospect of a political horizon for the Palestinian people and a political horizon of peace for Arabs and Israelis in general.

QUESTION: Secretary Rice, we all know what the Clinton parameters looked like. We have all read the roadmap. The questions are pretty well known and the contours of a Palestinian state are relatively evident. Can you explain what is different about this "in parallel" approach you are trying to develop?

And then for President Abbas, Prime Minister Olmert said you have repeatedly promised that Corporal Shalit would be released before the unity government was formed, and you even made that promise in front of Secretary Rice last month. How can you build trust with the Israelis on a broader peace deal when you're unable to free a single soldier after nine months? Thank you.

SECRETARY RICE: Glenn, every effort is different and we are in a different situation than in 2000. I've said very often in some ways it's more complicated than 2000; in some ways it's better than 2000. We have established a basis among a broad array of states -- Arab, all of the Arab states, as well Palestinians and Israelis -- that a two-state solution is the way to peace. That had not been established in 2000. And so I think we now are dealing from a framework that is different. The roadmap is really a kind of framework. It has a very important status because it is accepted by all the parties as a reliable guide to a two-state solution.

But obviously we need to be able to, in a sense, fill in some of the details about how we're going to use the roadmap to get to the end state. I've always believed that it is extremely important that the conditions of the roadmap be fulfilled. There's a natural sequence in the roadmap that needs to be fulfilled. But it doesn't prevent us from discussing the destination to which we're going, and that really is what I hope the parallel process will begin to move us toward as I discuss this with both parties. We did this in a trilateral the last time that I was here. It was a time of some considerable uncertainty given that the Mecca agreement had just been signed.

Now we are in a situation in which I think a bilateral approach in which I talk in parallel to the parties from a common approach is the best way. We'll use many different geometries, I'm sure, as we go through this process, but the key is to continue down this road toward a two-state solution. The President has been very clear. He was very clear just a couple of days ago that he considers the establishment of a Palestinian state and peace in the Middle East to be among one of his highest priorities, and as his Secretary of State I intend to pursue that.

PRESIDENT ABBAS: (Via interpreter.) Regarding the Israeli corporal, we sense that he was kidnapped or held back. We tried to release him alive and it is our responsibility to preserve his life and to have him released alive. And this took us such a long time which has lasted so far and he's still not acquitted. However, we are (inaudible) and he is in a good condition and he's alive and we want him to return to his family alive. And continuously when we speak of the Israeli corporal, we must speak of Palestinian prisoners and we discussed this lengthily with Prime Minister Olmert and in my last meeting with him we discussed in detail this issue and we laid down some joint ideas which could contribute to releasing him. We keep this idea until we make sure that things are moving ahead.

QUESTION: (Via interpreter.) Mr. President, there are demands by certain entities to amend the Arab initiative, especially the articles related to refugees.

Secretary Rice, actually, I have two questions for you. Do you have any action plan to energize the peace process? Especially we have some Palestinian officials who say that until now your trips have achieved thus far nothing.

On the other hand, the other question, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is saying that his future dealing with President Abbas will be on the grounds of issues related to security and humanitarian issues. How you're going to kick-start peacemaking and you have Mr. Olmert saying that he will not be basically dealing with peacemaking when it comes to President Abbas?

PRESIDENT ABBAS: (Via interpreter.) Regarding your first question, you know that the Arab initiative when it was launched, it was highly welcomed in different Arab and international circles and also in the Israeli circles. This initiative has become an important part of the roadmap plan adopted by the Quartet. The roadmap has become a resolution of the Security Council with the number 1515. I didn't hear anybody saying that you need to amend or change or alter any of the articles of the Arab initiative.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let's see. I've been here four times in four months, but of course this conflict is decades old; so I assume that if somebody could have resolved it before me, they would have done it by now. What I am doing is I'm devoted to trying to bring about the President's two-state solution. I think we sometimes underestimate how much progress really has been made over these decades. We are a long way from where we were when this conflict started. There have been a number of efforts for peace that have been resolved, for instance, the Egyptian-Israeli conflict, the Jordanian-Israeli conflict, indeed the efforts after Madrid that led to Oslo, giving us the basis on which really I'm standing here talking to the President today.

The President's speech in which he said that a Palestinian state should exist -- I think he even called it Palestine -- as policy for the United States moved this clearly forward, as did the speech of Prime Minister Sharon which talked about the need for painful compromises on the part of Israel to divide the land and to share the land.

I think sometimes we don't recognize that we have been through a steady series of steps forward. Sometimes there have also been steps backward. That is always the case with big historical changes. But it is really the obligation of each and every one of us who finds themselves in a position like I now find myself to try and push forward, to try and move the ball forward, to try to move the Palestinian state forward. And one day, I certainly hope soon, we're going to fully succeed.

But this is a hard problem. There are a lot of difficult issues, a lot of emotional issues, a lot of practical issues as well. And what I hope to do is to take some of the lessons of the past, and one of those lessons is that you need to prepare the ground well, you need to spend time with the parties, you need to understand what is tolerable for each side, and then you have to have a commitment by the President of the United States, the international community, the Arab states which have to be committed to this process and have to be willing to do what it will take to get a Palestinian state.

And I think if we all search very deep now and ask ourselves to look back and to say what has not worked, and now to look forward and to say what can we do to succeed this time, then we have a real chance. But I am optimistic that with a real effort by all parties we can succeed.

QUESTION: (Off-mike.)

SECRETARY RICE: The other part was? Yes, can you remind me?

QUESTION: The other part was -- has to do with Mr. Olmert's remarks.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, yes. Well, I think that it is extremely important that there be a political horizon for the Palestinian people. I understand fully that this comes in the context of the roadmap, that there are obligations in the roadmap that anyone can see will have to be met before there can be the establishment of a Palestinian state. You would have to have a renunciation of violence as a foundational principle for peace. Obviously you would have to recognize the right of the other party to exist. It would be important to build on past agreements. That goes without saying, and the roadmap has a series of obligations that will have to be met.

But I think it can help all of us to have a destination in mind to which we're going, and that is really what is meant by political horizon. I think this time it is best to talk about that political horizon in parallel, but I sincerely hope that in the future the parties themselves can talk about that political horizon among themselves.

David, yes.

QUESTION: President Abbas, Secretary Rice has again tonight outlined her new approach of parallel discussions with Israelis and Palestinians to define a common approach to your problems and differences. Would you like to see a more forceful U.S. role in bringing Israel back into full and direct negotiations to resolve those problems, and would you welcome Secretary Rice's own ideas for how to advance the peace process?

And for Secretary Rice, you said you want to come up with a set of issues to raise with both Palestinians and Israelis. Has President Abbas given you such a set of ideas to take to the Israeli side?

PRESIDENT ABBAS: (Via interpreter.) I think that we agree with Dr. Rice on the approach to deal with both parties and therefore we say that we are fully satisfied with this way of action which we hope will be fruitful and with tangible results in the future.

SECRETARY RICE: President Abbas and I are going to have a number of discussions over, I think, an extended period of time. And what I don't intend to do is to always go to the press and say exactly what he said to me. I think that would not help to build confidence between us, it will not help to build confidence between me and Prime Minister Olmert were I to do that.

I do think that it is now important that we have discussions in which the President and the Prime Minister can be as open and as candid as they would like to be about what in this longstanding conflict it will take, what issues have to be resolved, in order to resolve this longstanding conflict. And so I can tell you that the commitment of the United States to using this approach now, but to using various approaches as we go along so that we can realize the President's vision of two states living side by side -- and it's not just the President's vision. It has long been the vision of the international community as recorded in multiple UN Security Council resolutions. It has long been the vision of the Palestinian people and I think the Israeli people that they can live in peace. And so we're going to pursue that goal as vigorously as possible. Thank you.

2007/T4-2

Released on March 25, 2007

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