Condoleezza Rice Press Roundtable Interview

Press Roundtable Interview

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
March 23, 2007

SECRETARY RICE: All right, I think we'll go right to your questions rather than -- who's going with me? Do you want to start since you're across from me? (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Actually I wanted to ask you about the report that was in the Times today about Secretary Gates and you working together to try to do something on Guantanamo. I mean, do you --

SECRETARY RICE: The position of the President is the one that we all hold. We do want to close Guantanamo and everybody would like to do it as soon as possible so that's not surprising. The problem is that you have a number of dangerous people who cannot be -- in some cases cannot be held -- cannot be tried in other places and they're too dangerous to release. And so you need to be able to deal with them in some way.

What I've been concentrating on is working with other countries to return as many people as possible to their countries to -- long ago we went through the process of dealing with people who we thought were no longer dangerous or had no intelligence value. But we spend an awful lot of time trying to return people to their countries and that's what we really spent the time on.

QUESTION: Do you expect Guantanamo to close during the President's term?

SECRETARY RICE: I don't know. It depends in part on how effective we can be in getting people back. We need the help of the international community. One of the things I really agreed with is what Gordon England said, "This isn't an American problem. This is an international problem." And I have said to my colleagues around the world, if you tell us that you don't like Guantanamo then help us find solutions to this issue. And I -- we need the help of the international community to be able to even contemplate closing it. But the President's been very clear and he's clear to us all the time. He'd like to see it closed. We all would.

QUESTION: Well, I'm just -- to close the loop here.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.

QUESTION: I mean, the story said that, you know, the President made a decision not to accept the recommendation to close Guantanamo. So are you saying that's not accurate or is this --

SECRETARY RICE: Glenn, I'm not going to get into what our internal deliberations are or are not. But the --

QUESTION: I just want to know if it's accurate -- the description of your internal deliberations.

SECRETARY RICE: But the President has said he wants to close it. We're all trying to work to make that a reality. But everybody recognizes and most especially, I think I recognize because I spend a lot of time with our negotiators trying to get people returned that this is not a simple black and white: you close Guantanamo or you don't close Guantanamo. You have to have some place to put these people.

QUESTION: Can I ask about something else in the news, the Iranian seizure of these British sailors? Do you think this is a response to all the pressure the United States is putting on Iran at the United Nations?

SECRETARY RICE: Barbara, I'm not going to comment on that situation. It won't help the resolution of it. We have talked to our British colleagues. We've offered to help in any way that we can, but I really don't think that it helps to comment on it. Let's let it take its course. They need to be released.

QUESTION: What help have the British requested if any?

SECRETARY RICE: We've just said that if there's anything we can do to be helpful we will. But they need to be released and that's what I think everybody is focused on.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary --

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, but I'm talking about the --

SECRETARY RICE: We'll, go this way. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: It seems as if the focus of the trip -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- seems to have shifted now beyond just the narrow (inaudible) of Israelis and Palestinians into Arabs and Israelis. And I'd like to hear a little bit about what you're hoping that you can get in advance of the Arab League summit in Vienna on March 28th and what you would like to see come out of that, particularly on the Saudi peace proposal?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it is absolutely the case that I see the Israeli-Palestinian issue as having to be augmented by -- assisted by and, in fact, you could even say, it's embedded in a broader Arab-Israeli reconciliation. And the attractive element of the Saudi initiative, which then formed the basis for the Arab initiative, although there are obviously important differences between them. But the attractive part of that is that it does recognize that the Israeli-Palestinian -- into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, needs to be accompanied by an Arab-Israeli reconciliation. But what I believe is very important is that all parties in the international community, and that includes the Arab states, should recognize in order to get to an Israeli-Palestinian state, an end to the -- a Palestinian state and an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you need the energy and the help of moving forward on the Arab-Israeli side not at the end of the process but earlier in the process.

Now, I -- one of the reasons for doing this trip now is, yes, I do hope to have discussions with the Arabs, in fact, will with the Arab Quartet when I'm in Egypt and that's important. I have not asked them, as some have reported, to change the initiative. I think that's not appropriate. It's their initiative. But I would hope that that initiative would be offered again and offered in a way that suggests that there might be active follow up to the initiative, not just to say here's an initiative. But to at least begin to discuss and think about how it might be actively followed up so that it becomes a part of supporting an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict now, not at the end of the process and that's the discussion I want to have with them.

I'm not looking really out of Riyadh to see -- certainly no changes to it and I'm not even looking to see an answer to my question about how can it be more active, but I think that's a discussion we ought to be having.

Yes.

QUESTION: So also on this trip, if the goal ultimately is to have the Arabs and (inaudible) to have the Israelis and the Palestinians agree on this political (inaudible), is the U.S. prepared to advance its own positions on the four core issues that, you know, will be the sticking points of whether the initiative actually, you know, sort of helps in advancing --

SECRETARY RICE: By the way, I think there are more than four. (Laughter.)

I don't rule out that at some point that might be a useful thing to do. But right now, what I want to do on the Israel-Palestinian part of this trip, as opposed to the Arab part of this trip, is to establish an approach that is a common approach in parallel between the two parties. So to have a mechanism or certain elements that I am using to structure the discussion, to structure the interaction with the parties this time in parallel and probably maybe even several times in parallel, which might eventually allow for a way for them to structure a conversation between them. But I hope that I can get them to see that there's some advantage to having a common language, a common approach, a common mechanism for working through what issues have to be resolved, for working through what principles, for working through what international help. In other words, to really get both sides to say, "All right, that's the approach that we'll use to talk" -- initially to me, because it would be very helpful to me if the questions are the same on both sides.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary --

SECRETARY RICE: We'll skip over to (inaudible) and then we'll get to him. (Laughter)

QUESTION: I want to double dip here. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: (Inaudible) your policy obviously is in the Middle East is to boost moderates and boost Abbas particularly. How worried are you about his position? General Dayton was apparently on the Hill earlier this week, or maybe it was last week, in closed session and said, I'm very concerned that, you know, his position could erode even more in the next three months.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm concerned about the situation of security forces and of the security forces that are loyal to the presidency. And again, you have to remember that the roadmap foresaw the establishment of Palestinian forces that would be unified, that would be reformed, that would be well-equipped and so forth. And General Dayton's plan to do that on an international basis is extremely important. It's extremely important to get it done now. And I will be delivering to the Congress a reformulated security assistance plan that takes account of the new realities after the formation of a Palestinian unity government, but allows General Dayton to go ahead with his very important work of restructuring Palestinian security forces that are -- so to speak, roadmap compliant. So, yeah, I think there's reason for concern and there's some urgency to moving this forward.

That doesn't say -- not the position -- I want to be clear -- not Abu Mazen. I'm not worried about him, but I think the condition of his security forces is a concern.

QUESTION: Not him personally?

SECRETARY RICE: No, not him personally, the conditions of the security forces.

QUESTION: I'm trying to understand exactly how far along you are in your conversations with the Israelis and the Palestinians. I mean, do you expect that on this trip there will -- words like refugees, East Jerusalem, borders. I mean, will they even be exchanged between the two sides or is that in some distant point?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't expect the two sides to talk on this trip. Oh, you mean, between me --

QUESTION: To you, yes, yes.

SECRETARY RICE: -- and each of the parties?

QUESTION: Are these things under discussion or are we still looking --

SECRETARY RICE: We're going to discuss the political horizon. And one of the things that I've been very clear is that I'm not going to -- I'm going to try as much as I can to be -- to enter into discussions that are confidential with them about these complicated issues. But let's see how the discussions go and then we can talk after. Right now, my primary goal is to establish a mechanism, a common approach, that I can use with them in parallel so that we are addressing the same issues. That's really the key right now.

QUESTION: You have to have a question regarding the Saudis kind of negotiations with Iran that have kind of happened in the background. I mean, when you look at that how much of an impact do you think that's had? Because I was in Lebanon a few weeks ago and it does seem like things have de-escalated. Things aren't perfect but whatever talks have been going on between the Saudis and the Iranians, at least vis a vis Lebanon seem to have some impact. But I was curious how you saw that.

SECRETARY RICE: Well we are very pleased that the Saudis are trying to do what I think all of the states that we've been talking to at this point of -- group of responsible states are trying to do to make sure that the Siniora government is not -- that the efforts to undermine it and even overthrow it don't succeed; that the tribunal remains intact so that the international community can help the Lebanese to deliver justice for those who perpetrated the murder of Rafik Hariri. That's very important work.

And I can't tell you -- not because I wouldn't -- I don't know how much the situation in Lebanon has been de-escalated or not by those efforts. I will say that -- the Hezbollah is in a kind of difficult position because the Siniora government has been able to withstand a lot of efforts by Hezbollah to weaken it, to get it to resign. And I think a lot of people have been surprised or maybe they've been surprised at the resiliency of the March 14th coalition and the Siniora government itself.

Now, this is not a long-term situation because everybody recognizes that economically the country is in -- has difficulty. It's hard to move forward on the economic reforms of the current circumstances. That's why the Saudi efforts and other efforts like Amre Moussa's efforts to try to break the deadlock are important. But I would give some credit to the Siniora government and their resiliency and their ability to go to the Lebanese people and make their case that they are the duly elected Government of Lebanon and they shouldn't be forced from office and I think he's been really quite tireless in doing that.

QUESTION: I have one, but completely irrelevant to what you've just been talking about. A question about India, but I do want to ask. (Laughter.) I've heard that the status of the bilateral talks on the civil nuclear deal is in trouble. The Indians are pushing back. Is there any truth to this?

SECRETARY RICE: It's a negotiation. And I think it's the -- United States and India have a landmark deal. It's a deal that will permit civil nuclear cooperation to close -- to remove India from this ambiguous circumstance where because of its nuclear weapons activities, it's unable to access civil nuclear power. And it's the only way they're going to be able to do it. It's the only way they're going to be able to do it with the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It's the only way they're going to be able to do it with anyone that can help them on the civil nuclear side. And so I think in the final analysis that will -- that overriding interest which is the interest that led to the agreement in the first place will prevail.

Nick Burns has been in constant contact with his counterparts. I think he's going to send his team back out pretty soon to begin those negotiations again. But this is a really good deal for India, given what it -- the -- what it lifts, the burden that it lifts for India in its efforts to build its civil nuclear capability and it's a good deal for the United States because this is a country that has a very good record on proliferation and that is a rising power in international politics, that has economic needs for growth, that really do need civil nuclear power. It's going to be done with environmental stewardship and without so much reliance on carbon -- carbon resources. So it's a good deal for both sides and I think in the final analysis, we'll get there. It's just tough negotiation because it's -- these are issues that have a long history.

QUESTION: What will make this trip -- simply stated, what would make this trip a success for you? What minimally would you like to come back with?

SECRETARY RICE: What would make this trip a success for me is if I can establish that we have now a common approach to moving forward on developing, articulating a political horizon. And by common approach, I mean that we are -- that I can in parallel talk about the same issues, establishing this mechanism. And by mechanism, I really mean a set of elements, a set of questions that we're going to ask and explore.

QUESTION: You mean specific things, like -- I mean, I still don't understand, I personally, what you're talking about.

SECRETARY RICE: Let me just -- let me give you one example. Everybody knows that there's going to have to be a security concept that works for both sides, if there is going to be a Palestinian state. What does that consist of? But right now, I guess I can go ask the question over here, you can go ask the question over there; but I'd like both sides to know that that's where we're going. That's the kind of question that we're asking.

What really will allow the Palestinian state to be governed? We need to be able to talk about that. And after the trip, I'll give you -- or after I've had the meetings. Hopefully, I'll be able to give you a little bit better idea of whether we've established that mechanism, but that's really what I'd like to do. The other thing is, it's almost at this point more important given the upcoming Riyadh summit to have the discussions with the Arabs about re-launching the Arab initiative and, as I said, re-launching it in a way that leaves open the possibility for active diplomacy based on it, not just putting it in the middle of the table and leaving it.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, what you want is for the Arabs to commit to those that don't have diplomatic relations with Israel to commit to have meetings with the Israelis. Isn't that what you're aiming for?

SECRETARY RICE: That may be one form, but I'm certainly not expecting that out of this set of meetings.

QUESTION: That's not Tom Friedman's suggestion sending a delegate on a plane, go to the Knesset.

SECRETARY RICE: Right. (Inaudible). (Laughter.) But this is a -- this is going to be a process of coming to a place where the Arab initiative is really an active initiative that is structuring discussions between parties, whether it's a meeting or whether it's discussions that are going on again in parallel. I don't think we're there yet and I'm not ready to talk about 4+2+4 or -- what was it, Gwen -- 4+2+4, 4+4+2?

QUESTION: 4+2+4, yeah.

SECRETARY RICE: Okay, but --

QUESTION: I want my own, you know --

SECRETARY RICE: Okay. (Laughter.) But just to establish that this is not just going to be something that (inaudible) say again, but rather that we're -- they're prepared to pursue this in an active way and it'll take lots of discussion to determine what active means. But it's one thing to say, all right, when there's a Palestinian state, we'll be ready for -- Arab-Israeli reconciliation, that's one thing. But when there's (inaudible) Palestinian state, I think it's possible to argue that then it wouldn't be so difficult to have Arab-Israeli reconciliation. So what can early stages of Arab-Israeli reconciliation do to help a Palestinian state?

QUESTION: I thought you said that you didn't -- you're not looking to -- looking to get them to change the initiative at all, but the way the initiative is set up is all -- you know, Israel has to do this, this, this, this, this, and this and then they'll do that. I mean, it sounds like you're saying you're trying to -- you are trying to --

SECRETARY RICE: Everybody can have their ideas about how this gets moved forward. The question is --

QUESTION: Trying to frontload the goodies (inaudible) Israelis.

QUESTION: Well, but isn't it as simple as -- you did send a trio of envoys to Jerusalem to explain what the Arab initiative is.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, I never do hypotheticals.

QUESTION: No, it's not a hypothetical. But I mean, if you're talking about follow-on diplomacy, it could be as simple as that, where the Arabs, including the Saudi representative --

SECRETARY RICE: It would be a very good thing if the -- at some point the Arab initiative provided a basis for discussion, rather than just state it. I think that would be a very good thing, but you asked me -- or someone asked me what was I expecting at the end of this. I'm not expecting that at the end of this trip. But it would be a very good thing if it were at some point a basis for discussion.

QUESTION: When you talk about a mechanism and a set of questions, is that something that you envision drafting, I mean, sort of getting lists of things on both sides -- these are what we're going to talk about, even if we're not all in the same room? Is that -- where does that stand now?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, that's part of -- that's to go out there and do that. I mean, we want to talk about the issues that both sides see that have to be resolved. We want to talk about what principles they agree that there would be a basis for a resolution. For instance, everybody has said the words contiguous and viable Palestinian state. At some point that principle has to become a reality. There are tools that have to be used. There are international -- there's international help that's going to have to be available. And at some point, you have to talk about how you would narrow differences between the two sides. But the first of those is sort of establishing a common agenda, establishing a common approach. It's not at all unusual in diplomacy that you start by just trying to make sure that everybody's asking the same questions and interested in the same issues and prepared to discuss the same issues and that's what I'd like to see.

QUESTION: When you talk about mechanism, are you thinking also about who might engage to discuss those agreed topics and does it have to be at your level or is it conceivable it could be at a lower sort of envoy level?

SECRETARY RICE: I think it will not always be at my level. One of the issues will be, you know, I'm sure that there are other parties that are going to be out there more than I. And I would hope this would be an ongoing discussion, not just when I show up every whatever number of weeks it will be.

QUESTION: Well --

SECRETARY RICE: It's been three. (Inaudible).

Yeah, Janine.

QUESTION: Hi. Two things. One, did you ask Olmert and Abbas to meet with you again in a trilateral as they did three weeks ago? Doesn't it not seem already that you're doing less now than you were three weeks ago, in that respect?

SECRETARY RICE: I said, when we set up the trilateral, that sometimes we would do this bilaterally in parallel, and sometimes we would do trilaterals, and sometimes they would do bilaterals together, that we'd use many different forms. And I think I said that before we went out for the trilateral last --

QUESTION: That's not (inaudible).

SECRETARY RICE: I didn't think it was appropriate this time. I thought this would be more -- more effective to do it in parallel this time.

QUESTION: Okay, on a separate topic, I wanted -- because things are going to be happening at the UN this weekend. What's your take on what happened with the Russians and Bushehr?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the Russians can speak for themselves on Bushehr. The fact that the Russians have a commercial dispute with the Iranians or a political dispute with the Russians, whatever it is, I'm not going to speak to that. As you know, we've never challenged Bushehr. We haven't challenged Bushehr. In fact, we've said that a circumstance in which the Iranians were prepared to have civil nuclear power and use a fuel take-back of the kind that's provided in Bushehr is a way out of this for the Iranians because if they would accept assured fuel supply from an outside supplier, where you don't have a fuel cycle problem, we would have no problem with that. So we haven't challenged Bushehr. I think the Russians have to make their own judgments about whether under the current circumstances with Iran unwilling to allow full IAEA access and unwilling to suspend its enrichment and reprocessing, whether or not that implicates Bushehr, but we have not ourselves challenged Bushehr. In fact, the President's spoken positively about Bushehr in a (inaudible) occasions.

QUESTION: What's your understanding of the situation in the holdup concerning release of Gilad Shalit, and has - and has that been used in some way as leverage vis-Ã -vis how the Quartet and the U.S. are going to deal with the government?

SECRETARY RICE: I just don't know. I don't know. The only thing that we've been doing is just emphasizing the importance of the release of Gilad Shalit because if that release takes place, I do think that you will have an improvement in the atmosphere of Israeli-Palestinian engagement, and needs to be released, Abu Mazen wants him to be released, the Arab states want him to be released. I can't tell you why he hasn't been.

QUESTION: Are you concerned at all about what it might say about Abu Mazen's strength that he wasn't able to get that as part of the unity government deal?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, he's always said that he does not control access to Gilad Shalit. I think it's disappointing that Hamas didn't take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the formation of a national unity government to affect the release of Gilad Shalit. It certainly would have gotten this new national unity government off to a better start internationally than it's off to right now.

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, what do you say to those who say that Abu Mazen has basically capitulated to Hamas and that he's basically adopted Hamas's program?

SECRETARY RICE: To say look at his whole -- the whole bottom of his political work. This is somebody who at times when it wasn't really all that popular to be against violence was against violence, who has throughout his political life tried to bring about a Palestinian state based on non-violence, who helped -- was one of the leaders in the Oslo process and one of the leaders in the roadmap process, who whenever he has had the -- whenever there has been a need to do so has condemned violence, when other leaders after terrorist attacks was slight of hand -- slight of hand, he was never that way. No, I don't think that this reflects his own personal or political views, the platform of this government. I think the platform of the PLO does reflect his political views. But it is everybody's hope that with Hamas inside the political process and now in a government in which it shares power with a number of people who accept the Quartet principles that they'll be moving in that direction. But it's not there yet. And until it is, I don't think this government can expect to have the kind of international recognition that it seems to hope for.

QUESTION: Since we're headed for Egypt, I just wanted to ask you, Freedom House today put out a report where they said that this referendum that's taking place on Monday is a sham and actually sets back the cause of democracy in Egypt. What do you make of this referendum?

SECRETARY RICE: I'm really concerned about it. You know, the Egyptians set certain expectations themselves about what this referendum would achieve. And we -- the hope that it would be a process that gave voice to all Egyptians, you know, I think there's some danger that that hopes not going to be met. And the abbreviated timetable is a problem, and we will see what ultimately comes out of it. But, you know, I've said many times that we continued -- and by the way, I will talk about it when I'm there, meet with the leadership and with my colleagues because Egypt is an extremely important country in the Middle East; one of the key countries in the Middle East. And as the Middle East moves toward greater openness and greater pluralism and greater democratization, Egypt ought to be in the lead of that. And it's disappointing that this has not happened. Now some good things have happened. The contested presidential elections suggests to me that you will never have a presidential election in Egypt like the old elections. That is something that will never go back, and so we have to remember that there are ups and downs in these things; ebb and flow. But yeah, this is a really a disappointing outcome and we will talk about it and hopefully it will turn out better than is expected. But right now I'm concerned that it won't.

MR. MCCORMACK: We can take one or two more questions.

QUESTION: On another -- completely other topic, there's the case of this American citizen who's detained in Ethiopia - a very strange case where he was in (inaudible). He was visited by your people and I think by FBI as well. He got sent to Somalia and then to Ethiopia. Have you gotten personally involved in this case? Do you have an understanding of what happened because it's very bizarre?

SECRETARY RICE: I'm aware of the case but not personally involved.

MR. MCCORMACK: This is something that we have been dealing with.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, this is something they've been dealing with --

MR. MCCORMACK: Dealing with the bureaus and Tom has been personally involved.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah. I think this is something to talk to others about.

QUESTION: Is there any more update on the North Korea situation? I mean, the Russians are saying the Treasury is sabotaging it. I mean, how do you -- I mean, it does look a little --

SECRETARY RICE: There are -- the policy and -- the policy decision about the disposition of these assets has been made. I've never had closer cooperation with a colleague on this than I have with Hank Paulson. We sat together working on this issue for hours, personally working on this issue. And now there are implementation issues that, frankly, arose somewhat unexpectedly about how to complete the transfer of the funds to North Korea in a way that, in agreement with the North Koreans, would not put -- that would deal with our concerns about certain -- of the accounts. So this is an implementation issue and the Treasury has been trying to solve it, and we've been trying to work with the Macau authorities and the Chinese authorities to solve it, and everybody's working really, really hard to get it done. In fact, I think there will be a team going out from Treasury very quickly to try to assist the authorities who hold the funds to get the transfer made. But the policy decision has been made, was made with both Treasury and the State very supportive of doing it in this way. But banking matters are complex and so this is really kind of trying to get the technical piece of it done.

QUESTION: I mean, in the end do you think the BDA issue is helpful or unhelpful in the diplomacy?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, whether it was helpful or unhelpful, it was a law enforcement matter that had to be done. And I think it's -- we all recognize that being able to get the law enforcement matter resolved which was, by the way, close to resolution anyway because at some point they had to publish the rule and work with the Macau authorities to deal with the situation. So it had to be done in any case. But I think we all recognize that the resolution of it does now completely clear the way for the 60-day timeframe to be met. And I don't see at this point, as Priscilla said, any reason that that -- that the denuclearization, the initial steps can't be taken. But this really is a technical matter now of trying to figure out how to get the accounts --

QUESTION: But isn't it irritating just that the North Koreans are saying we won't talk until the check clears -- that they can't just take it on faith that this money is coming?

SECRETARY RICE: We're making progress and it's -- this is not the easiest relationship. I think it will -- it's gotten better over time. It's a lot better than it was, but we'll get it resolved. It is resolved. We'll get it implemented and then I think we'll be able to move forward. The atmosphere is really fine. The atmosphere is not a problem.

MR. MCCORMACK: Thanks, guys.

SECRETARY RICE: All right, thank you.

2007/226

Released on March 23, 2007

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