R. Nicholas Burns Remarks With Haitian President

R. Nicholas Burns, Under Secretary for Political Affairs
Waldorf-Astoria
New York City
September 26, 2007

Remarks With Haitian President Rene Garcia Preval After Their Meeting

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Good morning. It's a great pleasure for me to welcome President Preval of Haiti here. We've just concluded a major international meeting with countries of Latin America, with the European countries, with the Organization of American States and the United Nations. The point of this meeting, the third we've had in the last three years, is to show support for President Preval, to show support for the Government of Haiti, to show support for the extraordinary progress that Haiti is making under his leadership, in terms of renewed stability. And if you've been to Cité Soleil and Port-au-Prince, you've seen that.

The fight against corruption, the fight against narcotics and the drug problem and the importance of MINUSTAH, the United Nations' military force remaining in Haiti for another year; the United States supports that for a one-year renewal. We believe, in our government, that President Preval and his government have made this progress. We believe that they deserve the continued support of the American people as well as the international community.

And what I heard inside, Mr. President, was great support for your program and for the Haitian people, so I welcome you to New York on that basis.

PRESIDENT PREVAL: (Via interpreter.) Thank you. This morning's meeting is proof of the support by the international community for the stabilization of the situation in Haiti and for the development of that country. In the first year, with the help of MINUSTAH, security was reestablished in Haiti. There was the fight against corruption, against contraband and against drugs. And the objective in the second year is to create conditions for investment, investment for development.

The situation in Haiti is still quite fragile and we're very happy that the international community is continuing to accompany the country, and we're very happy about the renewal of MINUSTAH mandate and we hope that this renewal will take place.

QUESTION: Nick, can you answer a question about Iran?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I will be happy to do that, but the President --

QUESTION: I'm sorry.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: -- has just a few minutes. Are there any questions on Haiti, and then we'll go to Iran, while the President's here?

QUESTION: (Via interpreter.) When do you think there will be a vote on MINUSTAH?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: (Via interpreter.) We are supposed to have a vote on October 15th. We want a one-year mandate. I will have to convince all the members of the Security Council to do it -- to do so. That's my job. The U.S. will continue its assistance to Haiti, $600 million during the last three years. We are going to continue this year with $200 million of assistance -- economic assistance to Haiti.

QUESTION: Nick, the Iranian President said in a speech last night that he considered the case of the nuclear issue closed, basically, because of Iran's work with the IAEA. How -- what's your take on that?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, I'm sorry to tell the President, President Ahmadi-Nejad, that the case is not closed. There are three Security Council resolutions on the books against his country: Resolution 1696 of July 31st, 2006; Resolution 1737 of December 23rd, 2006; and Resolution 1747 of March 24th, 2007. And so the Iranian President is badly mistaken if he thinks that the international community is going to forget about the fact that his country is continuing against the will of the United Nations Security Council its nuclear research programs at Natanz for enrichment and reprocessing. And in fact, we'll be meeting today - the countries of the P-5 -- to look at the detailed elements of a third Security Council resolution. As you know, Secretary Rice will be meeting her P-5 ministerial colleagues on Friday, two days from now, on that subject.

So the United Nations has spoken, and these sanctions -- Chapter 7 sanctions -- have the force of obligatory actions. When the sanctions are Chapter 7, it means that every country -- 192 members of the UN General Assembly -- must implement the sanctions. So he is completely mistaken and the international community is not going to allow him to forget about the fact that his country is operating against the wishes of the Security Council.

QUESTION: What are you trying to achieve this afternoon? A text of a new resolution of --

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, we're trying to -- we're really operating on three planes here. The first is to continue the good cooperation of the Security Council that we've had for the better part of the last year, year and a half. And we'll look -- we're looking, as we did in Washington last Friday, at a third Security Council resolution. I think that will take some time to work out, but it's going to be worth it in the end because we're going to have the progress that we need.

Secondly, we are very much supportive in the United States of the efforts of other countries. And you've seen announcements by some of the European countries to consider independent sanctions by those countries outside the Security Council, which of course is the right of any country or any group or countries.

And the third, the United States is very pleased to have seen over the last several months a number of important international banks and financial institutions who have decided on their own to stop lending to Iran.

The combined message, the combined message of these three tracks, is that Iran, I do think, is increasingly isolated. And the Iranian Government has to understand that, as Secretary Rice said the other day, there's an alternative. The alternative is to suspend their nuclear research programs at Natanz and to accept the offer of the P-5 to negotiate. Secretary Rice, when she gave press interviews to Reuters and others the other day, said that she wanted to - that she was willing to be at those negotiations, that the United States was for those negotiations. But with the failure of the Iranian Government over the last year and four months to accept that offer, we have no other alternative but to continue the sanctions. And I have not seen a lessening of commitment on the part of the majority of our partners, particularly the European countries. You've heard the comments of the French and German and British leaderships this week at the UN.

So we're going to keep going. And if Mr. Ahmadi-Nejad thinks that somehow he's been given a pass, that he is mistaken about that. What the IAEA is doing is important because it looks at the past, it looks at Iran's past nuclear practices. But what the -- what we need to do now is look at what they're going presently and to prevent them from continuing their nuclear activities in the future, and that's the job of the Security Council. So you need both efforts. You need the IAEA efforts but you also need the Security Council efforts.

QUESTION: One of the things you mentioned in the statement that --

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I've got to leave in one minute.

QUESTION: A real quick one. After the P-5+1 meeting, I've heard you talked about the dual track. Was there any discussion of more talks between Solana and Larijani either on Friday or do you expect that to come up today?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Well, you know, we tried that back in the end of May, early June, before the G-8 summit in Heiligendamm, the P-5 countries -- in fact, Secretary Rice -- it -- was her initiative -- said to Javier Solana, "Why don't you go back to Larijani and re-offer, make the offer, renew the offer to negotiate?" And Solana did, and the answer was no.

So we keep hearing no, no, no from the Iranian Government when, in fact, what they should be doing is listening to what I see as a rather united voice here at the United Nations by the Security Council and many countries beyond that they need, if they can't suspend their nuclear operations, they're going to be --

QUESTION: Just one more? Is there a chance the ministers can work on a new resolution on Friday?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Oh, I think that it's going to take some time, this third resolution. It's a complicated affair. But I know that Secretary Rice wants to have a good discussion about the overall policy. We believe we're united on that, about these three different activities: sanctions inside the Council, sanctions outside the Council and private bank efforts. All of them are important.

And I think what the ministers want to do is chart a way ahead, a diplomatic path forward for the rest of the autumn as we seek to continue this good cooperation internationally. But I wouldn't anticipate concluding negotiations on a sanctions resolution. What's happening now is that the political directors of the six countries are looking at the elements, and then when we conclude those discussions, then of course the discussion would have to shift to the UN, to the ambassadors in the Security Council. There are 15 of them so we're not going to have a resolution this week. It's going to take some time. But I do believe we'll get there and I do sense from all the countries to whom I've talked that there is a will to continue this united Security Council effort that we've been undertaking.

QUESTION: Do you think you have the time to do this?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Yes. I think --

QUESTION: The Iranian President was bragging yesterday about how much progress they've made.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We have time for diplomacy to work and we're focused on diplomacy.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: The -- your group's meeting today?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: We're meeting over dinner tonight. The US -- I'm hosting a P-5 meeting of the political directors tonight, essentially to prepare for Secretary Rice's meeting with the foreign ministers on Friday, which I think is midmorning Friday.

QUESTION: And then on Thursday you meet again or --

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Pardon?

QUESTION: On Thursday you meet again?

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: I'm sure we'll meet tomorrow. We like to meet daily on this issue. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: Thank you very much.

ENDS

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