For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 28, 2002
Press Briefing by Secretary of State Colin Powell
Practica Di Mare Air Force Base
Rome, Italy
Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice on the President's Trip to Europe and Russia
Press Briefing by Condoleezza Rice from May 20
1:00 P.M. (L)
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
President Bush is this afternoon finishing up what we believe has been
a most successful and historic trip to Europe. In Berlin and Moscow
and Paris, and now here in Rome, we have made common cause against the
grave threats to our liberty, to the safety of our people, and to
civilization itself.
In his meetings, the President consulted with Chancellor Schroeder,
Presidents Putin and Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi on our mutual
security agenda. President Bush always values this time with America's
close friends and allies.
We agreed that we must all work together to defeat terrorism, to
build peace in the Middle East and calm tensions in South Asia. Above
all, we agreed we must continue to expand and deepen security
relationships among the members of the community of free nations.
Last Thursday in Berlin, the President paid tribute to German
solidarity with the United States. He acknowledged Chancellor
Schroeder's leadership and the Bundestag's courage in making German
participation in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and also
the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, making that
participation possible, a breakthrough for Germany.
In Moscow, Presidents Bush and Putin signed the most dramatic
nuclear arms reduction agreement in decades. The President also had
the opportunity to see the sweep of Russian culture in St. Petersburg,
and watched the brilliance of Russia's future reflected in the faces of
St. Petersburg University students.
In Paris, the President's meeting with President Chirac ran the
gamut of global and transatlantic topics and yesterday, in a very
moving ceremony in Normandy, President Bush, with President Chirac in
attendance, honored soldiers, Americans, Europeans and others, who fell
defending freedom so many years ago. And as the President noted,
today's soldiers and today's citizens continue to draw inspiration from
that sacrifice.
And then today in the Eternal City, the heads of state and
government of the NATO Russia Council met in session for the first
time. I'm sure you all were watching the last couple of hours of that
first meeting, where leader after leader took note of the historic
character of today's action. All of them pledged to work with Russia
and this grouping, now At-20, to build greater stability within Europe
and to make Europe an inspiration for the rest of the world as to how
Europe can work together not only with themselves but with their North
Atlantic partners, the United States, Canada and Iceland, in this new
grouping At-20, that I think will be a grouping that has important
issues already placed before it, important agenda items to work on as
determined at a ministerial meeting in Reykjavik two weeks ago.
And I can assure you that President Bush intends for the United
States to participate fully in the NATO Russia Council, to make sure it
is not just a grouping where people can talk, but it is a grouping
where people can analyze the issues of importance to the 20 and act on
those issues. It will be a very action-oriented council, and I look
forward to playing my own role in it, as well.
With that, I'll stop and take whatever questions you may have.
MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, we have another group of
journalists downtown, so we're going to go back and forth from one
question here to one question down there, via audio feed.
Q On the Middle East, are you now talking about offering a time
table for Middle East peace, as a way to chart the way forward?
SECRETARY POWELL: Did everybody hear the question? I don't think
we're getting it piped in.
The question was, is the United States prepared to offer a time
table for peace in the Middle East?
What we're doing is executing the strategy the President laid out
in his April 4th speech, where he talked about two states living side
by side in peace -- a Jewish state, Israel, and a Palestinian state,
Palestine -- living in peace and harmony with one another.
He talked about the end of terror, the end of violence, and he
talked about the end of occupation and the end of settlement
activities. And he also welcomed in that speech the active
participation of the other Arab nations of the world who can play a
role in helping the Palestinians to move forward.
We have been acting on that vision that the President put down on
April 4th ever since. My trip to the region and consultations we have
subsequently had with the Saudi Arabians, with the Israelis and a
number of other leaders who have come to Washington and we have
consulted with by telephone or by other means, and we are continuing
with that work with Assistant Secretary of State Ambassador Bill Burns
heading to the region from Washington tonight, where he will consult
with more leaders on a political way forward.
He will talk to them about transformation activities taking place
within the Palestinian Authority. Activities are already being
generated from within the Palestinian Authority, as you may have
noticed from today's newspapers. And later this week, I think perhaps
Friday, Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, will be heading
over to undertake security discussions with parties in the region.
When we get reports back from Mr. Tenet and from Ambassador Burns,
and we consult with a lot of other people, we will start to integrate
all this information and see what next steps should be taken, keeping
in mind that we are committed to a meeting sometime in the summer. We
will bring these threads together -- humanitarian economic development,
humanitarian relief, economic development, restructuring of the
Palestinian Authority, working with the Palestinians, the role of the
moderate Arabs.
We will also look at political options to see what the two parties
believe is possible at this time, and we'll see where that takes us.
But we are not at this point prepared to table an American plan with
specific deadlines of the kind that was just mentioned by the
questioner.
Q Secretary Powell, it's David Sanger from the Times.
SECRETARY POWELL: Hi, David.
Q Hi. Early in the trip, Secretary Powell, the President said
that one of the reasons we still keep some nuclear weapons -- 2,000 of
them or so under the agreement -- is that you never know how things are
going to change with Russia or with other countries.
Similarly with NATO, what have been the discussions internally and
what is your vision of how NATO should respond if Russia turns in a
different direction at some point in the future and becomes less of a
partner and again a power that needs to be contained. And how does
that fit into your new arrangement?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I really don't expect that to happen. I
don't think we're going to see a rerun of this movie. The movie didn't
play well the first time, and I see no reason why any future Russian
leader with a state that is only, oh, roughly 55 percent of the size of
the old Soviet Union would find it in its interest in any way to try to
act in an aggressive manner. And, in fact, the experience of the last
10 years is that slowly but surely Russia is coming to the realization
that its future lies to the West, and the West coming to the
realization that its future lies also with Russia.
And so I am looking toward a bright future, and I think what we saw
here today gives every indication that that bright future is
achievable, it's not a dream.
At the same time, NATO was originally created for a political
purpose, but also for a security purpose -- to defend the interests of
the members of NATO, the charter members and those who have been added
over the years. And NATO will be expanded, more members will be coming
into it.
So the self-defense aspects of NATO will always be there,
increasingly the capabilities that we have within the Alliance for its
collective self-defense can be used for out of area activities, and
that surely will be part of our discussion in the future.
We'll always have a hedge against uncertainty in the future, in our
military forces and in the nuclear weapons that the United States will
continue to retain. It is a hedge against the future, because there
are other nations that possess nuclear weapons or might come to possess
nuclear weapons.
I have been studying and training and dealing with nuclear weapons
for a large part of my adult life, and I've seen the United States
arsenal go from 29,000, when I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff 13 years ago, when I first took over, now heading down to a
strategic arsenal that will only have 1,700 to 2,200 deployed
warheads. That is an enormous achievement and it reflects a far more
secure, a far better world than the world that existed when all of
these weapons were on a hair-trigger ready to go back and forth against
one another.
And so it is prudent for us to do this downloading, this
restructuring of our military forces in a sensible way, patiently, over
time, making sure that we keep a hedge against uncertainty.
I've also seen the size of our conventional forces go down
significantly in the last 10 years because of the change in the
strategic situation, the end of the Cold War. And we should,
nevertheless, remember that there is always uncertainty in the future
and it is appropriate for NATO as an alliance, the United States as a
nation -- Russia as a nation -- to keep a hedge for that kind of
uncertainty -- but not looking for conflict. Rather, the contrary,
moving in an entirely new direction.
And I think you heard some of the former members of the Soviet
Union speak to that, who are now members of NATO and welcome Russia
into the NATO-Russia Council today. Mr. Havel, was I think
particularly moving in his comments -- the Polish leader, the Hungarian
leader, all took note of this remarkable change, a change that I think
will continue to go in a positive direction.
Q (Inaudible) -- presence in Central Asia and Caspian area and
Greece in the future?
SECRETARY POWELL: In Central Asia?
Q -- Asia.
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, as you know, our presence in Afghanistan
will continue as long as our mission is not yet completed to search out
al Qaeda and the Taliban. And we are examining what present
requirements we might have in Central Asia. But the United States is
not looking for bases. We think it serves our interest to work with
the nations of Central Asia, to have access agreements, to be able to
go into their nations at their invitation, to train with them and,
perhaps if necessary, to help them in their own self-defense efforts,
or for a mission that might come up.
And so those are the kinds of arrangements we're looking for. But
the United States is not interested in creating bases in order to have
a significant military presence in the region. But to have access into
the region, and to be able to work with those nations of Central Asia
that wish to work with us, that seems to be us -- to us to be a very
stabilizing thing.
And the enemy is quite different than the enemy we were facing so
many years ago. It's now terrorism, it's now smuggling, it's now
illegal immigration, it's now drug trafficking. Those are common
enemies that we all now have. And to the extent that our ability to
have access into that region helps all of us defeat those kinds of
enemies, then those kinds of access agreements are useful.
Q But do you prefer -- (inaudible) --
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we are certainly in discussion with the
Russians over the utility of having multiple pipelines coming out of
this region -- the Caspian Basin, particularly -- and I'm sure we'll
continue those discussions, but I'm not here this afternoon to talk
about any specific pipeline or contract arrangement.
Q Mr. Secretary, can you tell us, sir, what type of issues the
United States does not want NATO to discuss with Russia? And also,
sir, to what extent do you see this new arrangement as a prelude to
possible Russian membership?
SECRETARY POWELL: The issues we do want to discuss with Russia
will include such items as counter-terrorism activities,
nonproliferation activities, civil emergencies, air space management,
crisis management, arms control and confidence building measures,
search and air rescue activities, civil emergencies -- those kinds of
things that are common to all 20 nations.
I hope that list will grow, grow significantly in the months ahead,
as confidence is built up, as we understand how this council works, and
as we have had some success with these initial items that we have
decided upon.
With respect to NATO's responsibilities to its own members, members
of NATO, Article 5 collective security arrangements, those kinds of
issues, then obviously Russia would not be included, nor would Russia
wish to be included. And Russia finds this arrangement, the
NATO-Russia Council, to serve its security interest, and its interest
in becoming a more active member of the Euro-Atlantic community. The
NRC serves that purpose, and I don't think Russia is considering at the
moment applying for membership in NATO. But I will let that question
remain with my Russian colleagues.
Q Two questions, if I may. Firstly, yesterday, the Russian
Foreign Ministry reiterated its opposition to NATO enlargement. How is
the Alliance going to react to this continuing opposition?
And, secondly, if I may ask you, how do you now characterize the
war in Chechnya? Is that the final act of the Cold War, or a new front
in the war against terrorism?
SECRETARY POWELL: With respect to the first one, I did see a
statement that the Russian Foreign Ministry put out, saying that it
continues to oppose enlargement of NATO. That does not surprise or
shock me. It's been the Russian position for some time. But there is
also no doubt that NATO will be inviting other nations to become
members at the Prague summit, later this year.
As we have said all along, and as we've discussed with the Russians
quite candidly, Russia cannot have a veto over who becomes a member of
NATO or not. I also believe that because we have had this series of
successes in dealing with Russia -- the NRC today, the treaty that the
President signed a few days ago, the Treaty of Moscow, the political
statement that the two Presidents signed in Moscow the other day, to go
along with the treaty -- I think we have succeeded in making the
enlargement of NATO once again less of a problem for the Russians, and
less of an irritant in our relations. Russia knows that these
invitations will be extended at Prague and, nonetheless, Russia is here
today to participate in the signing of the NATO-Russia Council. And so
I don't think it will be a major problem when the time comes to extend
the invitations at Prague.
With respect to Chechnya, Chechnya is an area of enormous interest
to the international community. Russia is fighting terrorists in
Chechnya, there's no question about that, and we understand that. But
at the same time, we believe that a political solution is really what
Russia also needs to find a way to achieve. And we have always said to
the Russians that in their prosecution of this campaign against
terrorism, they have to make sure that the troops participating in it
and other elements of the Russian armed forces and security forces have
to meet the highest standards of human rights that one would expect
from a civilized country.
And so that is what we discussed with the Russians. And in return,
they let us know how serious they view this terrorist threat in their
country.
Q Mr. Secretary, this is the President's first trip to Europe
since you said that you'd have a word with some of your European allies
about their concerns over U.S. policy in Europe. What's the
administration learned during this trip of the state of those
concerns?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think we've learned a lot on this trip. We've
learned that the President has very solid relations with all the
countries we visited, and I think for that matter, with all the
countries we didn't visit, but who are represented here today.
That does not mean that there are not disagreements. There are
disagreements over such issues as the Kyoto Protocol, the International
Criminal Court; and there have been other disagreements, as well. But
I think we have been very, very forthcoming in our efforts to discuss
with our friends in Europe, either in the NATO setting or in the
European Union setting, what our positions are, why we feel the way we
do about some of these very controversial issues.
With respect to the ICC, for example, everybody has known for years
that the United States had problems with the International Criminal
Court, and even if it was signed, it would probably not be sent for
ratification. And President Clinton made that clear when he signed
it.
And so I don't think one should view an issue like that as an
example of the United States essentially turning its back on its
friends in Europe. Quite the contrary. We listened, we heard, we
explained back to our European friends why we could not move in that
direction to go along with them on the ICC. And so where we believe
that we have a principle we must hold dear to, and as long as we are in
discussions with our European friends, that should not be viewed as
unilateralism or just going our way; we have a disagreement. And just
because we are part of a great alliance and we are part of the
Euro-Atlantic community does not mean that every issue we can join the
consensus on.
If one looks at what we did with the Treaty of Moscow, the
strategic reductions that we entered into the other day with Moscow,
and go back a year or so when everybody said the United States was
going off on its own and if we abandoned the ABM treaty, we were going
to start an arms race, we took 10 months to discuss that issue with the
Russians, discuss that issue with our European friends. We made the
case, some people agreed with the case, some people did not. But it
wasn't a case of the United States not sharing, not talking, not
listening. And we listened, and tried to convince everybody that the
ABM treaty was an anachronism and it would not destroy strategic
stability.
And as a result, we left the ABM treaty. It will become formal
next month, the leaving of it, but we announced it in December. And at
that same day that we announced it, Mr. Putin said he would cut his
strategic forces. So rather than causing an arms race, it's going the
other way. I see no indication that the Chinese are going to break out
in an arms race because we've left the ABM treaty.
And so where we have a principle position, what we will do is
explain that principle position to our friends, try to see if we can
find compromises, so we can join consensus. But where we can't join
consensus, because of our own beliefs, or because we believe a
particular issue and the direction it's going with others does not
serve the purpose intended by that action, the United States will stick
to its principle position.
And I think we go home from Europe with everybody having a better
understanding of this way that we will do business: consult, talk,
meet. I spent a lot of time with my European colleagues -- Don
Rumsfeld does the same thing, Dr. Rice does the same thing. We'll
continue to do that.
But we'll also continue to stick with those positions that we
believe are the right positions and the principles positions. And the
President is that kind of a leader. And he speaks clearly, he speaks
directly, and he makes sure people knows what he believes in. And then
he tries to persuade others why that is the correct position. When it
does not work, then we will take the position we believe is correct.
Where it does work, and we can join consensus with the rest of our
friends and allies, that's what we'd like to do. And I think we come
home with a better understanding of that, and I hope the Europeans are
left with a better understanding of the way in which we want to do
business.
Thank you.
END 1:20 P.M. (L)
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