US State Dept Daily Press Briefing
US State Dept Daily Press Briefing
Friday, February 9, 2001
BRIEFER: Richard Boucher, Spokesman
MIDDLE
EAST/EUROPE
(pp. 1-2,4-5) Secretary Powell's Travel to
the Middle East
(pp. 6) Secretary Powell's Travel to
Brussels
MIDDLE EAST PEACE NEGOTATIONS
(pp. 1-3,5-6 )
Status of Middle East Peace Negotiations
NORWAY
(pp.
2,3-4,7) Secretary Powell's Meeting with Norwegian Foreign
Minister Jagland
IRAQ
(pp. 5)Reported Iraqi
National Congress Proposal and Oil For Food
Program
ISRAEL
(pp. 5) Contacts with Prime
Minister-Elect Sharon's Team
RUSSIA
(pp. 6) Reported
Russian Criticism of Radio Free Europe Plan to
Broadcast
in Chechen Language
AFGHANISTAN
(pp. 7-8,12)
Possibility of Usama bin Laden Being Expelled to Third
Country
(pp. 8-11) US Contacts with Taliban/UN
Security Council Resolutions
UK/LIBYA
(pp. 11)
Prospects for Meeting by US and UK on
Libya
TERRORISM
(pp.11) Foreign Terrorist Organization
Designation and IRA
CUBA
(pp. 11) Reported Release of
Dissident in Cuba
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY
PRESS BRIEFING
DPB # 21
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2001 12:30
P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
MR.
BOUCHER: Okay. So I'll take a breath. The trip, as the
Secretary
described it, with the stops that we have so
far involves departure in
sort of the latter part of the
day on the 23rd, and we are currently
scheduled to get
back very late in the day on the 27th. But as I said,
that is the way it is with the pieces that the Secretary
has announced
in tranche one. Those of us who are going
hope that tranche two isn't
too long.
Q: Well,
Richard, we had hard choices considering we just had a
limited amount of time, and he wasn't asked about the
Middle East.
MR. BOUCHER: You can go ahead and ask me.
Q: Would you like to drive one more nail into the
coffin of the last
administration's rejected proposition
for a settlement between Israel
and the Palestinians?
The peace -- no, I can't call it the peace
process. Is
there a new reality? When the Secretary is out there, you
have a new Prime Minister, you have a rejected proposal
by an
administration that is gone. In a sense at least,
is there a new
beginning here?
MR. BOUCHER: I think
there are a couple fairly obvious observations to
make
about this. First, that former President Clinton offered his
ideas to assist the parties in their efforts, and the
former President
himself made clear that the ideas would
leave with him when they left
office.
The second
observation is that the negotiations are up to the parties,
that they agree on a basis for the negotiation, or
framework or
anything else. That's up to them. And that
is, in a sense, what the
rest of us are trying to do is
help them to reach those agreements.
And third of all,
just to say that at this juncture, where we are with
the
evolution of events and the new election in Israel, we will
be
consulting with the parties, we will be consulting
with regional
leaders, we will be consulting obviously
with the Palestinians, about
how they see the period
ahead, and that will help us determine how best
to
proceed based on those consultations.
I think that is the
only way you can really describe the current
situation.
Q: Could you give us a broader sense of how
you see the Middle East
policy evolving? I think the
Secretary himself and the President have
talked about
embedding the peace process, or to say the effort to find
peace, in a broader regional policy. But it is not quite
clear to me
what that broader regional policy would
be.
MR. BOUCHER: Let me point you to a couple things.
First of all, the
Secretary himself has talked many
times about the interplay between
various issues in the
region, the interplay between our bilateral
relationships, our search for peace, Iraq policy and
other things, and
the need to address those with all the
parties with whom we have good
bilateral relationships,
but also all the parties who can help advance
those
goals, and particularly who can help build the peace
process.
And so you have seen in the President's phone
calls, in the Secretary's
phone calls the last few days,
that we are reaching out to a broad
group of people, a
broad group of leaders in the region. You have seen
in
the Secretary's several dozen meetings and several dozen
phone calls
so far reaching out to a broad group of
people who can be helpful, who
can help in the peace
process, and with whom we have important
bilateral
relationships.
So this message of restraint and moderation
that we are conveying, not
only directly to the parties
but to other people who have an interest
and take an
interest in the situation. This morning he spoke with
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jagland, who has also been
very involved in
the process. He talked on the phone
with the Swedish Foreign Minister,
the head of the
European Union at this moment. So there is a lot of
outreach going on, a lot of discussion of that.
And
second of all, I would point you to look at his trip and the
sites
that he is going to, the places that he is
visiting in the Middle East,
places where we have
important bilateral relationships, places where we
need
to work with our friends and allies as we work through the
issues,
as we work through the issues of Middle East
peace, as we work through
the issues involving
Iraq.
And so the way he has designed this trip is to go to
a number of places
where he can do this. So that is the
kind of approach that he
described in his testimony, and
I think if you look at what he is
doing, that is the
kind of approach he is carrying out.
Q: But there are
broader questions also in the region -- the lack of
development, certainly democratic development, even
economic
development, links between them, and the
attitude of the publics toward
the United States. I
mean, there are some things that might want to be
reviewed. I suppose this is --
MR. BOUCHER: I mean,
those are obviously subjects of discussion in our
bilateral relationships and the kind of regional
discussions we have
with parties. Certainly the economic
situations in individual
countries, the economic
situation right now for the Palestinians in the
territories, we all recognize that Israel does have
certain security
concerns and needs to address its
security concerns. The Palestinians
need to do
everything they can to end the violence.
But at the same
time, we've been very concerned about the economic
situation of the Palestinians. It's dire. Life is very
difficult for
people. And this kind of economic pressure
that causes hardship
disrupts the economic life of the
territory. So we've been urging, for
example, the
Israeli Government to transfer the tax revenues to the
Palestinian Authority to end some of the economic
pressures because we
recognize the interplay between the
economic and political
environments.
Q: Have any new
ideas or proposals come out of the meeting with the
Norwegian Foreign Minister this morning, either on --
can you flesh out
anything on the Middle East or on
NMD?
MR. BOUCHER: It's one of those questions where, if I
say yes, you're
going to ask me for what, and if I say
no I'm embarrassing myself. Let
me try to remember. I
just gave away the notebook that had my notes in
it.
Q: Does the Norwegian Foreign Minister believe that Oslo is dead?
(Laughter.)
MR. BOUCHER: He seemed
to think Oslo was still a wonderful place, and
we tend
to agree with him.
If I can talk about this meeting a
little bit, they met this morning
for 35 or 40 minutes,
the Secretary and the Norwegian Foreign Minister
Jagland. They talked about a great number of regional
and global
issues. I have to say at one point -- I
forget who it was that said it
first -- do we have any
bilateral problems or issues we need to
discuss? And the
answer was no. So then they went back to their
discussion of sort of regional and global issues at this
point.
There are obviously some things that we take up
with the Norwegians in
different fora at different
levels, so we do have issues with them, but
in terms of
their level and this meeting, that was not the case. So
what they took up was a discussion of various regional
issues.
Norway is playing a very active international role
at this moment.
They are head of the UN Sanctions
Committee; they're on the Security
Council; Foreign
Minister Jagland is part of the Mitchell Commission
for
the Middle East; I think they have a leading role in KFOR.
So
there is quite a number of things they are
doing.
So they began -- first of all, the Secretary said
he appreciated very
much the role that Norway is playing
at this moment, and then second of
all they began by
discussing some of these issues. I think they
discussed
the Iraq situation and how policy might evolve, how to make
effective in practical terms what the Secretary was
talking about in
terms of the sanctions and making sure
that Iraq was not in a position
to threaten its
neighbors, threaten the people of its region.
They
discussed the situation in the Middle East and the various
contacts that they had had. They discussed the Mitchell
Commission.
They discussed some of the other regional
issues for Europe. I think
European Security and Defense
came up, a little bit on National Missile
Defense, a bit
on the situation in Russia, obviously of interest to
Norway in the far north. So it was really a series of
various regional
and global issues that they discussed.
Q: The whales didn't come up at all?
MR. BOUCHER: That didn't come up at this level today, no.
Q: But the United States is still concerned about Norwegian --
MR. BOUCHER:
We are still concerned about Norwegian whaling, and we do
discuss it with the Norwegians, yes.
Q: Wouldn't you
say that Mr. Clinton has offered his ideas and that it
is going to end with his administration?
MR. BOUCHER: It has ended.
Q: Yeah, and it ended. But does that mean
that we have to reinvent
the wheel? Don't we know that
there are some demands from the
Palestinians and the
Arab streets for a just peace in the area? What
are the
Administration aspirations for achieving that peace? I mean,
are you as aspirant to achieve peace, lasting peace in
the Middle East,
as the Clinton Administration?
MR.
BOUCHER: I think, first and foremost, we all remember the
goal is
peace. The goal is peace for people that -- I
think the Secretary
described it as two peoples in one
land. So the goal is for that
situation to be peaceful.
Nobody ever forgets that.
In terms of a particular process
or procedure at the moment, this is
the moment we are in
where we have to talk to the parties. We know
that there
will be aspirations and expectations and proposals on both
sides, and we'll want to talk to the parties and consult
with them, and
then be able to determine with them what
is the best way to proceed.
Q: Can I get back to Iraq for a second?
Q: Actually, can I ask one brief thing on the
Middle East? This
proposal that the former Special
Middle East Envoy, who has not been
replaced, made this
morning in The New York Times for a limited
political
settlement and a code of conduct, is that something that you
all might consider, that the Secretary might consider
taking on that
suggestion and pushing -- when he's
there, pushing both sides to look
at that kind of a
deal?
MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I want to describe the
Secretary's trip in
any other terms. There are obviously
a variety of ideas and
suggestions from very worthy
people out in the public domain at this
point, but what
is going to matter in the end is when we see a
government formed in Israel and we are able to talk to
the parties and
discuss with them and understand their
expectations and concerns, that
we will at that point be
much better able to determine with the parties
how we
think we should proceed.
Q: But could this be something
that you would be willing to look at as
part -- I mean,
you're not closing off any options, are you?
MR. BOUCHER:
No. I mean, again, there are many worthy ideas and
proposals out there. I think if I get into commenting on
this one and
that one, at some point we might find some
unworthy ones. But I think
what really matters, the way
the Secretary has explained it to you
before and the way
I'm explaining it today, is what we hear from the
parties when there is a government in Israel and people
are ready to
get down to business.
Q: On Iraq, does
this building have any position on the proposal from
the
Iraq National Congress to gain access to this Paris account
for the
Oil-for-Food program? They have been asking for
this. It's unclear
whether or not the US would support
them in the UN for this.
MR. BOUCHER: I frankly don't
know. I haven't looked into that
particular proposal.
Our relationship with the Iraqi National Congress
and
the things that we want to do with them is defined by and
large by
the statement that we issued in September that
was based on our
agreement with them. At this point,
that is where we are in terms of
implementing the
various things in that understanding.
Q: Can I just
follow up on just one other Iraq question? Is it fair
to
say the division of labor with regard to Iraq in the
government is
the State Department deals with sanctions
and that the Pentagon will
for the most part be dealing
with any insurgency efforts? Is that a
fair distinction
to make?
MR. BOUCHER: No.
Q: Could you tell me if Powell
is going to meet with any of the
Israeli transition team
that will be here next week?
MR. BOUCHER: At this point,
we don't have a schedule set so I don't
know. We've been
in touch with the Sharon team. That's what we're
calling
them.
We are in contact with Prime Minister-Elect
Sharon's team to arrange
for discussions with Washington
officials next week, but at this point
we don't have a
schedule or details for you.
Q: Richard, does Secretary
Powell plan on discussing with the Israeli
Government
the current sort of blockade that's in place against the
Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and discuss
perhaps the
problems that the Palestinians are having,
severe economic problems?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, as I said,
this is an issue of concern to us. We
recognize the
importance to Israel of taking steps to address its
security, but we also know that the economic situation
for the
Palestinians is very dire and the economic
pressure only adds to their
hardship. So we have
discussed with the Israeli Government in the
past, and I
am sure we will in the future, discuss these circumstances.
We have urged and continue to urge them to release the
tax revenues,
for example, and to relieve some of the
economic pressure for the
reasons that we were
discussing before, that in fact the interplay of
economic and political forces is very strong, and we
think that the
pressure should be relieved.
Q: On the
Brussels part of the trip, could you at all discuss what
agenda items are likely to come up there? Is it going to
be a forum
for a missile defense discussion, troop
withdrawals from Bosnia? Any
other -- those or any
other?
MR. BOUCHER: I am sure there will be an agenda, but
since it is not
one of the regular six-month North
Atlantic Council meetings that we
have at ministerial
level, it won't be probably quite so formal a
discussion, maybe not at decision point. It is going to
be a chance to
discuss many of these very important
issues for the other NATO foreign
ministers, and Lord
Robertson is getting people together to have a
discussion with the Secretary of State and the other
ministers of the
issues that are before NATO now, and
obviously that includes questions
of NATO's cooperation.
First of all, the Secretary has described NATO as the
bedrock of our
security policy in Europe, and in fact in
a much broader area, and
therefore there will be many
things to discuss about NATO and how we
cooperate in
NATO. There will be things to discuss about European
Security and Defense Identity. I am sure the issue of
the Balkans will
come up. Missile defense may come up.
So I am sure there will be a
variety of issues, but all
related to the issue of how we consult, how
we
coordinate, how we work with our allies on our common
security
agenda which is based very firmly in NATO.
Q:
On Russia, Russia's media minister has denounced plans,
congressional mandated plans by Radio Free Europe, to
broadcast --
start broadcasting the Chechen language. He
called it a great
political mistake. And I'm just
wondering, what does this tell you
about Russian
intentions on dealing with the free flow of information
and their commitment to democracy?
MR. BOUCHER: I
don't know about this particular event, and I would
have
to check about the statement that you cite, but I would
point you
back to what the Secretary said during his
testimony, what the
Secretary has said before about
democracy, freedom, human rights being
very important
foundations for our policies.
And we have expressed, I
think repeatedly, our concerns about the
activities of
the Russian Government vis-à-vis the free press. We
think the free press is an essential basis for a free
society, for
modern society, and we have expressed our
concerns about many of the
actions that have been taken
recently by the Russian Government to put
pressure on
the independent media.
Q: Richard, the Justice Department
has evidently been told it has to
cut a billion dollars
from its budget, and the Pentagon is being told
that it
has to keep its budget where it is now. Powell, in his
testimony in the Senate, made it clear that he was going
to be going up
there and that the State Department was
in dire need of more money.
Do you have anything that you
can tell us about the state of play on
that front, and
whether the State Department is likely to get what it
wants?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't. I don't have anything
new to say on that.
I think Secretary Powell made quite
clear our intentions, but I don't
have an update on
where we stand vis-à-vis the budget issues.
Q: Have you
heard from OMB on that matter in terms of what is expected
--
MR. BOUCHER: These questions of the internal work
within the
Administration on budgetary matters I think
is something we like to
leave internally. So it's the
kind of question I'm not going to
answer.
Q: Going
back again to the Norwegian Foreign Minister, one of the key
concerns of the Europeans in the context of NMD has been
maximum
consultation with Russia.
Did the Secretary
tell him whether and when he would be seeing Foreign
Minister Ivanov, maybe meet him during his trip? And did
he give him
any ideas of a framework for how that
negotiation or consultation with
Russia might take
place?
MR. BOUCHER: In the context of the discussion on
missile defense, the
issue did come up. I think he
asked, when are you going to have a
chance to talk with
the Russians about this. The Secretary told him
what I
have told you before; we hope to see him soon. Actually, it
may
be possible to make some arrangements for that to
happen during the
course of this trip that is coming up,
but the arrangements are still
being made.
So the
Secretary said yes, he does look forward to discussing it
with
the Russian Foreign Minister soon, along with a lot
of other subjects.
Q: Have you followed up at all on these
ideas floated by the
Pakistanis that continue being
reiterated about possibly handing bin
Laden over for a
trial in a third country, an Islamic trial? I know we
didn't take it too seriously at first, but the
Pakistanis keep talking
about it, so I wondered if we
are giving it more credence.
MR. BOUCHER: Well, I think as
long as it is within the scope of the UN
Resolutions
1267 and 1333, that any idea that leads to the expulsion of
Usama bin Laden to a country where he can be brought to
justice
probably deserves attention.
But I would say
that we haven't heard this directly from the
Pakistanis,
and so the issue remains and will remain for us full
compliance with those UN resolutions. And that is the
standard by
which we would judge any idea.
Q: Have we
asked the Taliban about it in our limited communication
with them?
MR. BOUCHER: We had a meeting with them
yesterday. The representative
of the Taliban Movement
met February 8th with Acting Assistant
Secretary of
State for South Asian Affairs, Alan Eastham. This is Mr.
Abdul Hakeem Mujahid. He has no official status in the
United States.
But that was a chance for Mr. Eastham to
remind him of the requirements
of the Security Council
Resolutions 1267 and 1233 (sic) and the steps
being
taken by the United States to implement them.
Among these
steps is the requirement to close any Taliban office in the
United States, and that means that the Taliban will no
longer be able
to maintain their office in New York. So
we are going to carry that
through.
Q: Richard, that meeting was here?
MR. BOUCHER: Yes. He came down.
Q: But
that meeting couldn't take place if they closed the office,
could it?
MR. BOUCHER: Well, once they close the office, it will be closed.
Q: So he has no official status?
MR. BOUCHER: He has no official status.
Q: So,
what, he is not even going to be allowed to live in the
States?
I mean, doesn't he live in Brooklyn with his
family?
MR. BOUCHER: I do not know what his actual
personal status is, but he
has no official status. But
the point is that the Taliban, under the
UN resolutions,
under the new UN resolutions, we have asked them to
close their office, to close the Taliban office here. We
also went
through other steps they have to take to
comply fully, like
surrendering bin Laden for
prosecution, shutting down the training
camps.
Q: I
wasn't aware that they actually had an office, other than
this
guy's house.
MR. BOUCHER: I don't know the exact
status, but if he has got one, he
has got to close
it.
Q: What was the response on this?
MR. BOUCHER: The
response on this idea -- everything I have on this
meeting doesn't show that this idea was discussed in
particular.
Q: Does that office -- did that office have
official UN status before
the resolution was
passed?
MR. BOUCHER: No. As far as I know, that office did
not have any
official status.
Q: Was he received, or was he summoned, you know, as in an expulsion?
MR.
BOUCHER: I think he came to see us. He asked to come down
and see
us, and in the course of this discussion, we
reiterated, as we always
do, what was necessary to
comply with UN resolutions, which now
includes the
requirement that the office be closed.
Q: So it wasn't prompted by this new suggestion?
MR. BOUCHER: No.
Q: Does that mean (inaudible) himself?
MR. BOUCHER: That is something you would have to ask him.
Q: Does that mean
that -- I'm sorry -- but does that mean that he can
no
longer serve as a representative of the Taliban here, and
you won't
have any interlocutor in New York at all? I
mean, I don't understand,
what does closing the office
mean?
MR. BOUCHER: Let me get back to you on --
Q: What does "closing the office" mean?
MR. BOUCHER: Closing the
office means that if there is an office that
says
"Taliban," you close it.
Q: Yeah, but I mean --
(Laughter.)
MR. BOUCHER: Kind of simple, isn't it?
Q: Richard, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Is
this guy
going to have --
MR. BOUCHER: I mean, okay.
Will we continue to talk to this gentleman
on issues
involving the Taliban?
Q: Exactly. Will he be --
MR.
BOUCHER: I don't know. I will check on that. Will we be in a
position to continue to talk to this gentleman on issues
involving the
Taliban? I don't know.
Q: I mean, considering (inaudible).
MR. BOUCHER: I will have to check.
Q: What can you tell us about a letter that the
Foreign Minister of
the Taliban wrote to Secretary
Powell recently?
MR. BOUCHER: Again, I can't tell you
anything about the letter. It is
up to him to describe
any letters that he might have come to deliver
yesterday.
Q: So you are not confirming that he got a letter?
MR. BOUCHER: What?
Q: You're not confirming that
the Foreign Minister of the Taliban sent
Secretary
Powell a letter?
MR. BOUCHER: I understand he came to
deliver a letter. I have not
seen it myself.
Q:
Richard, why was that additional item added to the US list
of
demands -- what was the thinking --
MR. BOUCHER:
There is a new UN resolution. There are now two UN
resolutions governing the Taliban, 1267 and 1333.
Q: So you were simply conveying --
MR. BOUCHER: -- the
requirements under the old and the new
resolutions,
which include closing the office.
Q: Did the item get
added to the UN resolution at US request, and if
so,
why?
MR. BOUCHER: I think so, yes. I would have to go back
into the
history of that particular resolution, but the
reason there was a
second resolution is because it was
quite clear to all the people of
the United Nations that
the Taliban had not complied with the first
one, which
asked them to surrender bin Laden and close all the
terrorist training camps, among other things.
And so
therefore, we felt -- I think it was a year after the first
resolution -- that we needed another resolution that
started to impose
some penalties for this against the
Taliban authorities, against the
Taliban regime, and
that includes closing their overseas offices.
Q: Does that
-- I mean, did this office closure, about which -- is
that supposed to be immediate?
MR. BOUCHER: I think
the resolution has passed already. I don't know
if there
is any grace period, but yes, more or less immediately.
Right
away, at least.
Q: Did anything positive come
out of the meeting? I mean, did he
bring anything
here?
MR. BOUCHER: Did anything positive come out of the
meeting? Well, it
gave us the opportunity to convey
quite clearly the need to comply with
all the UN
resolutions. We consider that positive.
Q: New subject? Do
you have anything on the meeting yesterday between
the
US and British officials on setting up the meeting with the
Libyans
for next week on Lockerbie?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I
don't at this point. I don't think we are going to
want
to say much at this stage. I will check. We may want to
describe
the meeting with the Libyans once it is set up
and once we have it.
Q: The British and Irish Governments
have been asking that the real
IRA, and perhaps other
groups, be designated by the Administration as
terrorist
organizations. Didn't happen before the end of the last
administration.
What is the current thinking, and
what is likely to come of their
requests?
MR. BOUCHER:
I haven't checked on the current thinking recently. That
issue has certainly been under consideration for some
time. I will
check if there is any update on this. There
is no particular moment or
deadline for most of these
reviews, so at some point, if we decide it
needs to be
done, we will do it.
Q: What, if anything, do you know
about the release of this dissident
or
counter-revolutionary in Cuba?
MR. BOUCHER: What do I
know? Nothing. I will hope to find out
something and see
who in this building knows.
Q: So you don't --
MR.
BOUCHER: I don't know anything about it. I will have to
check on
it for you.
Q: But you know what I'm talking about, don't you?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't actually. But
we will check on it for you
and see what we can get
you.
Q: Can I go back just briefly to the new IRA
designation? Am I
correct in understanding that the main
reason for not designating these
groups before was
because the British Government didn't want that to
happen?
MR. BOUCHER: I don't know.
Q: You said that
you didn't hear directly from Pakistan itself on this
Usama bin Laden issue. But you didn't say -- or maybe I
missed it --
whether the Taliban offered anything on his
possible extradition
yesterday.
MR. BOUCHER: I will
check once again. I am not aware that the Taliban
has
ever spoken to the issue of actually complying with the UN
resolutions in this fashion. So I will check and see if
there was
anything new yesterday.
(The briefing was concluded at 1:15 P.M.)
ENDS