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02 March 2001
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher briefed.
Following is the State Department transcript:
U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing Index
Friday, March 2, 2001
Briefer: Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Mr. Boucher: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to
be here, and I'd be glad to take your questions.
(No response.)
Mr. Boucher: If that's it, then I'm glad to leave, too.
(Laughter.)
Question: Anything on the visit by the Ukrainian opposition leader
Aleksander Moroz?
Mr. Boucher: I don't have anything particular for you. I think he's
having meetings with people in the Bureau of Newly Independent States,
so he'll be meeting with people in the Bureau today. Today? Right,
yes.
Q: I have a question concerning Austria. There has been an agreement
between the U.S. and the Austrian Government in January on Holocaust
restitution issues, and now recently lawsuits have been filed. So the
authority of the United States Government is now challenged to do what
it has promised, to issue statements of interest before the courts in
order to grant legal peace. So I would like to know if the U.S.
Government will do that, or how this will work.
And second question, some people say that in search for a quick
solution the old Administration rushed through this agreement, so
there are lawyers or victims who would like to renegotiate some parts
of this agreement. So we would like to know if the United States will
stand by this agreement in the new Administration.
Mr. Boucher: We remain committed to the agreement and to carrying out
our part of the agreement. The agreement, as most people know, sets up
this general settlement fund. It also obligates us to file statements
of interest, and we will do that once the agreement goes into effect.
And I actually don't know exactly when that is, but once the agreement
goes into effect, we are obligated to file statements of interest
recommending dismissal of existing and future lawsuits. That's
described in the agreement. We'll do that once it's in effect.
We haven't actually had a chance yet to study the lawsuit that was
filed on February 23rd, so I can't get into that one in particular. We
did expect new claims to be filed after the agreement, and the
commitment was designed to deal with that eventuality.
On the question of how it was handled, I think this is an agreement
that stands -- it is one that was done by following all the
appropriate procedures and obtaining our authority to negotiate and to
execute the agreement. As you know, we have similar agreements with
Germany, with France. There is an earlier agreement on labor with
Austria. All these agreements address Nazi-era injustices. And the
parties believe that the January 2001 agreement with Austria, like
those previously concluded, was fair, and that it will bring measures
of justice to the Nazi victims and their heirs, and therefore we will
support them.
Q: You're not going to renegotiate anything?
Mr. Boucher: The agreement is done. We plan to put it in effect and
carry out our part.
Q: Thank you.
Q: Do you have any comments on Syria and Iraq's newly-signed free
trade zone, and calls by Syria for increased economic cooperation? I
can't tell from the piece I read whether there is any questionable
elements in the deal that would require UN approval or not.
Mr. Boucher: We have seen some reports about this, and the agreement
that was approved by the parliament would look to establish some kind
of free trade zone between Syria and Iraq by the year 2007. So we
really don't have any details of it, but we, in the Sanctions
Committee, would look at it, make sure it is consistent with the
sanctions regime, as we have said I think several times during the
meeting with President Bashar al-Assad. He assured the Secretary that
Syria wished to be in compliance with UN practices and that they did
not intend to violate UN sanctions.
Q: What I'm reading says there is planned an all-Arab free trade zone
by 2007, but it indicates that this deal is just one step on that
path, but certainly not that they would wait till 2007 to enforce it.
Mr. Boucher: My understanding from our people who follow this is that
it would establish free trade by 2007. That is the target date. It may
coincide with something else. I'll have people double-check, but that
is our read of it.
Q: On North Korea, can you update me on where things stand with the
Framework Agreement? There are some lawmakers, I guess with the
occasion of a new Administration, who are kind of renewing their
expressions of concerns about the Framework Agreement. And I wonder
whether the Bush Administration policy is to simply continue with it
and carry it out in due course, or whether it is being reviewed, one
of the things that's being reviewed or examined?
Mr. Boucher: I'm trying to remember when the Secretary said it. We
have certainly made quite clear that we stand by the Framework
Agreement. Secretary Powell has made clear that he wants to work on
the basis of the understandings, agreements and work that had been
done in the past. I don't have any new announcements on where we go
from here. But in terms of the agreements that are being concluded and
are operating, we remain committed to carrying them out, and we are
continuing to do that. That kind of discussion with the North Koreans
does indeed continue.
Q: Is the issue of future elements of the agreement, such as the
providing of the reactors, which I guess is the big part of the
agreement, is that essentially automatic, or does there continue to be
a whole series of, you know, conditions and hurdles that have to be
cleared for the agreement to be carried out?
Mr. Boucher: I haven't actually read the details of the agreement so I
don't know what the hurdles are or the steps along the way or how the
process might be mutually enforcing, but our intention is to carry
through these agreements completely and fully.
Q: South Korea, same peninsula. Mr. Putin and Mr. Kim seem to be
making kissy-face a little bit, and I wondered if the State Department
has any observations about South Korea's apparently increased interest
in Moscow. And also, whether they're not on the money that if you
could get away from the -- if you could do something about the North
Korean missile threat, maybe you don't have to go into this futuristic
defense system.
Could you try mostly what you think of the Kim-Putin relationship --
Mr. Boucher: Which is fine by us.
Q: -- which is geared partly to undoing your missile defense plan?
Mr. Boucher: We have a very strong alliance with the South Koreans. We
work very closely with them in all manner of things. We discuss things
very closely with them. We have relations with Russia. They have
relations in Russia. So do all our friends around the world. There
shouldn't be anything unusual in that. Those involve the occasional
visit. I think we're quite confident in our alliance with the South
Koreans and are confident in the things that we do together. So the
fact that Mr. Putin comes to visit doesn't really bother us one way or
the other.
Q: How about their affirmation of the sanctity of the ABM Treaty and
the notion that if you could somehow -- not only you-- but if North
Korea could be persuaded to stop worrying the world about its missile
programs, then maybe you wouldn't have to go ahead with this dream you
all have.
Mr. Boucher: Well, these are two different notions, and I can assure
you, Barry, it's not a dream.
Q: So far it is. It has never worked yet. The technology doesn't work,
so it's dream.
Mr. Boucher: Okay, you can be the Pentagon correspondent and I'll be
the State Department Spokesman.
The question that you raised about the South Koreans and the ABM
Treaty, I think they have said various things about it since the
communiqu?was issued, and I would refer you back to their statements.
Obviously we'll have a chance to discuss the new environment, the new
situation with regard to missile defense, with President Kim Dae Jung
when he comes to visit next week to the White House.
Q: Is there a separate session with the Secretary?
Mr. Boucher: I don't know if the Secretary is having a separate
session. I'm sure he'll participate in the White House meetings. So
they have discussed their position in advance and obviously will talk
to them about missile defense when they get here.
I think they have recognized that we face a new era. We face a new
threat of proliferation in the world and that we need to do something
about it. And that is something that we will obviously want to discuss
with them, because they are such a close ally. Next week.
Second of all, I don't know that I can deal completely and thoroughly
in the time allotted with the premise that somehow diplomacy vis-?vis
the North, elimination of the missile threat in the North, would
obviate the need for missile defenses. We all know that the threat of
proliferation in the world these days is not just from one location;
and, therefore, as the Secretary has said, we need to work on
offensive weapons, we need to work on nonproliferation, we need to
work on diplomacy and we need to work on defense. And that an
up-to-date and modern strategic concept needs to include all those
elements, and it surely will.
Q: Just to let it go, but the first phase was to worry about North
Korea; the second phase was Iran. They were five years apart. Korea
was perceived, at least by the past Administration, as being the most
worrisome rogue state out there. And I just thought if some way was
reached to eliminate that worry, maybe you could defer or relax this
--
Mr. Boucher: If you think that, I'd just say that's fine. You can
think what you want, but that's not what the Administration thinks.
Q: So it's not geared to North Korea particularly?
Mr. Boucher: The North Korean threat is obviously of concern, but
there are other threats out there. And the whole prospect of the way
the world has changed in terms of proliferation has made it quite
clear to people in this Administration that we need a missile defense,
and we will move forward when the technology is there to protect
ourselves.
Q: There is a Tass wire story that seems to indicate that the Russians
are continuing to say that they did not know that Mr. Tobin had gone
to the Monterey Language School, that they said that it wasn't on his
rundown of his past experience.
Is this sort of Russian propaganda or --
Mr. Boucher: I'm sure it is. I haven't seen the statement. I think
there have been four or five contradictory statements in recent days.
I don't think it's a material fact, I guess is what I would say.
Obviously there are many ways of learning Russian in the United
States; one of them is through government military schools. People do
that often. That doesn't have that much to do with what they pursue in
their later lives. So this is an exchange scholar who is caught up in
a legal matter, and we are visiting with him and working with him.
Q: Did you see him this week? Did the State Department visit him?
Mr. Boucher: Let me see if I have the timing of when we might have
visited him. No, I don't have it with me, but it was in the last few
days. Last week, I think. And there is a tentative visit scheduled for
next week. A visit is scheduled tentatively for next week.
Q: The Financial Times had a story today about Turkey and varying
opinions in the Administration about how to deal with Turkey's
problems. Do you have anything enlightening to say about that?
Mr. Boucher: I can tell you that the stories are just not true.
Q: The discord, you mean?
Mr. Boucher: Yes, the policy -- I think there was one, I'm not sure if
it's that article. Some other article referred to a phone call that
the Secretary supposedly made to the President last Friday, which he
didn't make. As you all know, he was out of town last Friday.
The Department of State, Department of Treasury, and other US
Government agencies have been in regular, frequent contact since this
crisis began to unfold last week. There has been extensive
coordination within the Administration of Treasury Secretary O'Neill's
statement in support of the Turkish Government's decision to float its
currency, President Bush's call to Prime Minister Ecevit last week,
and his letter to President Sezer this week. We have also welcomed the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund's support of the
Turkish Government decision to float its currency.
Q: There is another story in the same newspaper, The Financial Times
today, saying -- quoting a UN secret document claiming that Iraq still
has chemical and biological weapons, and also SCUD rockets or SCUD
missiles to launch them.
Can you confirm?
Mr. Boucher: The report in question, whatever it may say, is a
restricted distribution report of the UN Monitoring Inspection and
Verification Commission, so I am not in a position to talk about its
contents.
The general judgment that is reported that Iraq has not disarmed is
fully consistent with our views. Iraq, in our terms, is not meeting
its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions to disarm and to
demonstrate to UN inspectors that its weapons declarations are in fact
true. In fact, Iraq has done very little to try to demonstrate that
any of its declarations are true on this subject.
Secretary Powell has said that if Iraq does not comply with its
obligations, Saddam will remain trapped in the situation and the jail
that he has built for himself. And that remains the case. But I think
the general tenor of the article that Iraq has not lived up to its
obligations, that Iraq is still hiding programs, and that Iraq is not
fully disarmed, is quite consistent with what we know.
Q: I'd like to ask you one on Brazil. Could you just tell us a little
about how Secretary Powell's meeting this morning went and whether we
should take this as the beginning of a grand new strategic partnership
between the two countries?
Mr. Boucher: Indeed, the Secretary and the Brazilian Foreign Minister
talked about the relationship, about the possibilities of expanding
and enhancing the relationship to make it a broader cooperation on
many issues. So to that extent, yes, it is, we hope, the beginning of
an expansion and enhancement of our cooperation and our relationship.
They talked about ways to deepen what they both characterized as
already excellent bilateral ties. They discussed hemispheric issues,
such as the preparations for the Summit of the Americas, such as
questions involving Colombia and how to support the anti-narcotics
efforts in the region. They both expressed their commitment to dealing
with the regional dimension of counter-narcotics, and we look forward
to cooperating with Brazil in these and many other areas.
Q: Can I go back to Iraq?
Mr. Boucher: All right, let's just finish. We've got a question over
there, too.
Q: You said Iraq has not disarmed. Could you flesh that out? What do
you think they have?
Mr. Boucher: I think -- I don't want to stand up here and try to make
it up on the top of my head, but if you look at the Defense Department
Proliferation Report that was put out in January, I think the CIA just
recently did an unclassified report on proliferation, you'll see
plenty of indications there that Iraq is still interested in weapons
of mass destruction.
What is absolutely clear is that Iraq has not demonstrated to the
world that their declarations are true. Iraq has not demonstrated to
the world that its assertions that they have disarmed are true. And
the burden rests with Iraq to demonstrate that. If they want to show
us that they are somehow clean, let them try. But they are not even
trying.
Q: Is there any further plan, such as aid plan to the Japanese
families who lost their lives last month?
Mr. Boucher: Any further plans such as what?
Q: Such as aid plan to those Japanese families.
Mr. Boucher: I'm sorry, I don't quite understand. Such as what kind of
plan?
Q: Aid. You know, provide some aid to those --
Q: Money.
Q: Yes, thank you.
Mr. Boucher: Oh, you mean like money -- like compensation money?
Q: Something like that.
Mr. Boucher: I don't have anything like that at this point. I would
just say that we are continuing to work with the Japanese. We are
continuing to make clear that we want the facts to come to light as
much as we can. Admiral Fallon has met with the families on Thursday.
He has met with local government officials. We hope that both nations
can move forward from the tragedy.
As far as how we continue to work and relate to the families, I think
that is something that we will see in coming days.
Q: Can I just ask you if you're going to have one of your famous
off-the-record briefings as a result of the trip to the Middle East,
either by Walker or Miller or someone else?
Mr. Boucher: We have talked extensively during the trip and after the
trip about the trip, so I don't think there is that much more to say
now. I'm sure the Secretary will talk about it again when he goes up
to the Hill next week for congressional hearings.
Q: Thank you.
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