Silverberg & McCormack IV on U.S.-UN Issues

Interview With State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack on U.S.-UN Issues, Kristen Silverberg, Assistant Secretary for International Organization
Affairs

Washington, DC
May 14, 2007

QUESTION: Kristen Silverberg, Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs, thanks for joining us today.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Glad to be here.

QUESTION: You have responsibility for overseeing policymaking in a number of different international organizations which we participate. Probably the biggest one is the UN. Let me ask you a little bit about some specific issues to start off with in the Security Council. It's probably one of the busiest times in the Security Council we have ever seen. Where do we stand -- let me go down the list. Let's start with Kosovo. Where do we stand on Kosovo?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Well, first, let me respond to your point that this is a busy time in the Security Council -- it is. The U.S., I think has rarely been as engaged or as active on a foreign policy across the board in the Council. We've seen in the last year we've had resolutions on North Korea. We've had several resolutions on Iran, on Darfur, on Lebanon, so this has been an incredibly active time for us and I think we've had a lot of success actually on our agenda in the Council.

Our next big effort in the Council is the Kosovo resolution. They had the beginning -- several years ago, the Secretary General appointed a special envoy to try to reach some final status agreement with respect to Kosovo's status.

QUESTION: This is Martii Ahtisaari?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: This is Martii Ahtisaari.

QUESTION: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: And Mr. Ahtisaari had a very engaged process going back and forth between the various parties to try to resolve Kosovo's status, was unable to get an agreement between the parties and so has come to the Council to recommend that the Council take some action to try to move towards -- to try to essentially in a orderly and safe and secure way to try to resolve Kosovo's status in favor of Kosovar independence. So we are now working with many members of the Council, and particularly the Europeans, but many others to try to adopt a resolution that would endorse Mr. Ahtisaari's recommendations and so we expect that to come up in the Council some time in the next couple weeks.

QUESTION: When you hear a lot about the Russians, what are the -- are the Russians going to throw a wrench in the (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Well, we'll see. You know, it's -- I think they've raised some concerns publicly, obviously, but we're working to resolve them. We hope the Russians will realize that this is a much better way to resolve this issue. If the Council can take action, it means that the weight of the international national community can help oversee this transition in Kosovo so we can do it in a way where there's less risk of violence, less risk of incivility. So we hope the Russians will come around to that point of view.

QUESTION: Let's move to another important topic, Sudan. The President said he was going to give Secretary General Ban Ki-moon some time to make some progress so where in the Security Council now do we stand? What's the -- what are the next steps if the Secretary General is not able to make some progress?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Well, you know, this has been a grave concern for the President, really, for -- since the beginning of the Administration. He was the first world leader to call this problem "genocide." He really rallied public attention around the need to focus on the situation in Darfur. We've led the effort in the council to take a number of steps. But one important one was to authorize the UN peacekeeping mission for Darfur. There's currently an African Union mission, but we really think the full resources of the full international community are necessary to help end the violence and so we've led an effort in the Council to authorize a UN peacekeeping mission.

The Government of Sudan has objected and burned up a lot of obstacles to deployment of that mission. And so the Secretary General, both his predecessor Kofi Annan and the current Secretary General have been working to try to negotiate an agreement with the Government of Sudan to allow deployment of this mission. We think that deployment needs to happen urgently. It's way overdue. The resolution authorizing it was passed last summer. And still here we are today still waiting for agreement. And so we think they're really, as the President said in his Holocaust Museum speech last month, really that the time is very short. If President Bashir does not agree to the peacekeeping mission, we think it's essential that the international community take some additional action to persuade him to cooperate.

QUESTION: Are we satisfied to this point with the actions of the international community? I know that we have been a leading voice, but what have others done in this regard?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I think, you know, well, the short answer is no, we haven't been satisfied. A lot of countries have been engaged very positively in helping to try to address this situation. We're the leading humanitarian donor, but there are a number of others. There are a number of countries that have contributed troops to the peacekeeping mission in the south and of course a number of African countries who contribute to the peacekeeping mission in Darfur. And so -- and we have a lot of European allies who are working to help address the situation.

But I think this actually gives rise to one of the real difficulties with working within the UN, so that the best and the worst part of the UN is that it's a universal organization. And so that's a good thing because when it takes action, it's deemed to be a legitimate. Countries feel a lot of concern when they're on the wrong end of a UN decision, but it's also the worst thing because it means that the body can be slow and it means that you have to generate consensus across a number of different regional groups and interest groups. And so we've been frustrated by the slow pace of UN decision-making on this issue.

QUESTION: So there's a different clock in New York than there is in Washington.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I think that's fair to say, yes. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Let me move on to another topic, Lebanon. It's one that doesn't necessarily generate all the headlines that Sudan does, but where do we stand now with the Hariri tribunal? This has been out there for about a year or so.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Yeah. Well, this is a key priority for the Administration, as you know. We had worked to make sure that Lebanon would be relieved of Syrian and Iranian meddling and interference. And so we've worked over time first to pass this resolution 1559 that called on Syria successfully to withdraw from Lebanon, we passed a resolution authorizing a commission to investigate the Hariri assassination and try to get to the truth of who committed these terrible acts. And we with Secretary Rice's very active engagement were able to pass a resolution that brought an end to the conflict in Lebanon last summer. So this has been really a key priority for us.

One thing we think is essentially to help secure Lebanon's stability and to help ensure justice is adoption of this -- of a tribunal that can try suspects in the Hariri assassination case. It would be a tribunal that had -- that incorporated Lebanese law and included Lebanese judges, but it would have the full support of the international community and it make sure the trials could be fair, secure, safe. So we have been working first within Lebanon to try to get agreement within the Lebanese parliament to endorse this tribunal. That hasn't happened.

The Lebanese cabinet supports it. A majority of the members of Parliament support it, but some elements, some Syrian related elements within parliament have prevented the parliament from meeting. So we now think it's necessary to consider other options. Secretary Rice addressed this issue last week and said that the international community would use all of its available means to make sure that this tribunal is available to help pursue justice. And so we will be working within the Security Council that explores Security Council options.

QUESTION: Is that something you're going to be working on in the coming weeks or is that on the docket maybe for next month or --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I think this is something we think needs to be happen sooner rather than later. We have, as I said, the prime minister, the democratically elected government of Lebanon thinks it's essential and so we really think this is something we need -- the Security Council needs to do.

QUESTION: Right. Is Chapter 7 an option?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: It is an option. And, you know, Chapter 7, there's a lot of confusion about what that term means.

QUESTION: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: It's -- really Chapter 7 is the tool the Security Council uses when it wants to take action that's binding and mandatory for all member-states. When we join the UN, the United States or any other country, we make a commitment -- I will abide by the Security Council's Chapter 7 instructions to (inaudible). And so Chapter 7 is the device the Security Council uses to say this is a mandate and you have to comply. There are lots of different provisions in Chapter 7. There are provisions we use when we want to take economic measures and sanctions. There's a provision the Council uses when it wants to endorse military action, that's Article 42.

QUESTION: Right.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: What we're talking about in the case of Lebanon is it has nothing to do with military action, it's a Chapter 7 resolution to say: This tribunal is in effect and states should cooperate with it.

QUESTION: Right. Let me move to another area of your portfolio, the Human Rights Council -- a relatively new creation, but one in which we're not participating. And I know that there was a lot of discussion around the globe as well as in this building -- about whether or not we should participate. So can you explain a little bit to people why, you know, the leading advocate of human rights around the globe is not on the Human Rights Council?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Sure. Well, you know that the pre-existing body, the Commission on Human Rights, was really a travesty in our view. It was led at times by some of the countries with the worst records on human rights issues. It had become feckless, it couldn't take effective action. And so we, just -- along with Kofi Annan and really, heads of state -- there was a unanimous endorsement by heads of state that we needed to replace the Commission with something better. And so we worked very hard to try to adopt a good resolution that would replace the Commission with a credible and effective body.

We, at the end of those negotiations, thought the final resolution was a disappointment. It didn't include some of the protections we thought we needed against the election of irresponsible countries. And we didn't think it included the kinds of measures that would help the council be tough and honest and a body that really could speak forthrightly about human rights concerns. We're very disappointed that we turned out to be right in those concerns. The Human Rights Council has been a grave disappointment. It has failed to take action against -- tough action, really against any country except Israel, where it's had an obsession. It really has -- it turned out to be just very much a replicate of its predecessor.

So, we decided in the first year not to run for those reasons. We had a real debate about whether that would make sense the second year, whether it was time to put our names in a hat, but ultimately we think it's better to give this Council some time to see if it can improve. And if it can improve, then we need to focus our efforts on other ways to work multilaterally on human rights issues.

QUESTION: So are we just going to wait to see and play a more passive role? Are we actively trying to shape out of concern to change the nature of the focus of this Council?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We're very active in all of the Council's debates, so Ambassador Tichenor, our ambassador in Geneva, spends as much time on the Human Rights Council as any ambassador who sits on it. He plays a big role in helping to lobby for good resolutions to lobby against bad resolutions. We right now are engaged in helping to make sure that the next countries that serve on the Council are all ones that have a good faith commitment to human rights issues. You know, it should be no surprise, but Belarus is a candidate for the Human Rights Council and we think that would just be a travesty to elect a country like that to this pre-eminent body. And so we are very engaged and expect it will stay that way.

QUESTION: Let me ask you a question that I get all the time, a bigger question. There's a perception that somehow in the first term, the Bush presidency was unilateral, and that somehow in the second term we have discovered multilateral (inaudible). Being the person responsible for our "multilateral foreign policy," how do you answer that question?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I think -- you know, when we look at any foreign policy problem, we have this range of options for dealing with it. We have the big multilateral institutions like the UN, or we have smaller regional groups or interest groups -- NATO or the African Union. We have some sort of ad hoc arrangements like the six-party talks or other things, though -- a multilateral arrangement that's put together for a particular problem -- and then we have unilateral or bilateral options.

I think what President Bush said very early on is that he wanted to be results-oriented in how he approached foreign policy, and so he wanted to look at what is the kind of approach that would be most likely to solve this problem. And in any particular problem, there's a different answer to that question. So I'll just give you one example.

When the President was developing his PEPFAR, his Emergency Plan for Aids Relief, we had a question whether we put out that money bilaterally with host governments, or whether we put it through the global fund, and I was very involved in my prior job in that decision. And what we figured out is that we could save a lot more lives doing it through the bilateral programs. And so we came up with a sort of formula where we contribute a great deal to the global fund, but most of our emergency plan money goes out bilaterally and I think that was the right decision in that case because it's the one that would save more lives.

For lots and lots of foreign policy problems, the best answer is to work multilaterally. That's why we're 50 percent of the funding for the World Food Program, which feeds 100 million people a year, and that's possible because we work with lots of other countries to do that. So that's a problem where the multilateral approach makes a lot of sense. And of course on all of these peace and security issues, we worked very actively on the Security Council. That really has been a consistent partner of the United States in addressing issues like Lebanon or Kosovo or Sudan. So I guess I'd say the President is appropriately results-oriented, but that we've had an active multilateral agenda since the day he took office, and we'll have it until he leaves office.

QUESTION: What do you think about -- one quick thing that you mentioned before --PEPFAR. I know that you were deeply involved in the creation of that program. It's soon going to come up for reauthorization in the Congress. Where do we stand on that? Are we going to be able to maintain the same levels of funding and activity? Or is this going to be something that is diminished over time?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Well, this is -- I think the President's commitment to this program is very firm. This something that really goes to his heart. He made a decision very -- you know, one of the things, I think, that's been pervasive in his approach to humanitarian and development issues is the idea that -- of human dignity; that you don't write off people, you don't resign them to -- resign yourself to leaving millions of people in desperate circumstances. It's part of his freedom agenda and it's certainly part of PEPFAR. And so the reason he cared so much about treatment -- this treatment program is because so many donors had decided people who already had AIDS couldn't be saved, and they were focusing only on prevention.

So I think the President is absolutely committed to this program. There's still a lot of decision-making to be done about exactly what the next steps. How do we evolve the program to make sure that it's addressing the next stage of the problem? What's the appropriate funding level? But I think, to his credit, the President has built a real bipartisan support around this package. So I think there is no question that this is something that will be -- the strong commitment throughout his administration and for the next president, too, and I think that's a great success.

QUESTION: Well, terrific. Kristen Silverberg, thanks very much for joining us.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Thank you, it was fun.

Released on May 16, 2007

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