*EPF416 05/15/2003
Excerpt: Rice on Syria, Iran, North Korea, Turkey, Balkans, Russia
(May 14: National Security Advisor briefing at Foreign Press Center) (3040)

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made her first appearance at the State Department's Foreign Press Center in Washington May 14 to discuss a wide range of topics, including the global war on terrorism; U.S. policy on Syria and Iran; relations with Turkey; the situation in North Korea; progress in the Balkans; and the upcoming summit between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Following are excerpts of her remarks:

(begin excerpt)

FOREIGN PRESS CENTER BRIEFING WITH NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE

Washington, D.C.
MAY 14, 2003

DR. RICE: [T]he war on terrorism is not done. This is a worldwide and global effort, and everybody must participate and participate to the fullest. ... The President is very firm in his commitment that terrorism, wherever it is carried out, against whom it is carried out, is not a legitimate means for advancing a political agenda. All terrorism is wrong.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: How genuine is the statement by the American administration for Syria to withdraw its troop from Lebanon? And where do you put the relation between USA and Syria?

DR. RICE: Well, the relationship between the United States and Syria has been problematic because the policies and behavior of Syria have been problematic: the Syrian support for terrorism, particularly for Hezbollah, but also other rejectionist organizations where it comes to peace in the Middle East; the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, which has long been U.S. policy that it should end.

And the Syrian relationship has been very difficult. Now, it doesn't have to remain difficult. There is a path that could create conditions in which this could be a much better relationship, but we are not there.

We were very concerned about Syrian activities closing in on the end of the Iraq conflict. It was obvious that people were escaping into Syria. It was obvious that they were not being stopped. There was some improvement in that after we raised the issue, but there is a lot of work to be done. Syrian weapons of mass destruction programs have to be accounted for, and Syria should stand up and renounce those and make it possible to verify that they have given up any aspirations to weapons of mass destruction.

But it is, frankly, a very difficult relationship and it is not one that is likely to improve without some major changes in Syrian behavior.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: President Assad of Syria said in an interview in The Washington Post last Sunday that he is not willing to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon until the achieving of a comprehensive peace in the Middle East. Is this acceptable to the U.S.?

DR. RICE: I think this is something that we should not think of as a sequence, you know. It is important that Syria be willing and ready to end its occupation of Lebanon. The Middle East peace, if I can use the question as an opportunity to talk a little bit about that, we do have a tremendous opportunity now. We have an opportunity, thanks to the victory of the coalition forces in Iraq, which removed one of the really terrible tyrants and in one of the destabilizing forces in the Middle East, we have an opportunity because there is a new Palestinian leadership emerging that will, we hope, be dedicated to rolling back terrorist organizations and recognizing that a Palestinian state can never be founded on a foundation of terror, but only on a foundation of democracy and peace.

And the President is intending to seize this opportunity to push the process forward. We have published the roadmap. We are getting comment from the parties. It's a good thing to get comment from the parties, because, ultimately, the parties have to own the roadmap and have to implement it. But we don't want to spend time negotiating it. We really want to get people moving forward.

But, in that context, we would hope that Syria would recognize that it is Syria's responsibility to become a contributing power to peace, rather than one that detracts from peace by its position in Lebanon and by what it does in the support of terror.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: [W]hat is the purpose of the discussions in Geneva between the U.S. and Iran?

DR. RICE: Iran continues to engage in behavior that is deeply troubling and antithetical to American interests: Iran's weapons of mass destruction program, its nuclear program. The United States has raised alarms about this nuclear program over a long period of time. And now with the IAEA visit to Iran, which seemed to raise a lot of questions about what the Iranians were doing under so-called civil nuclear uses measures, really those concerns have got to be addressed.

The IAEA needs to be very tough in making sure that those questions are answered, because we believe that this is a disguise for a nuclear weapons program. We have lots of evidence of that. And now the suspicions that are there as a result of the IAEA visit, I think, really give to the world new impetus to want to know fully what is going on in Iran, and Iran should be responsive to that.

It is also the case that Iran is one of the chief sponsors of terrorism -- Hezbollah operating out of Iran. And Iran cannot continue to support rejectionist organizations as we try to pursue peace in the Middle East.

Clearly, the Iranian Government also, which was elected by the Iranian people in overwhelming numbers to fulfill their aspirations for liberalism and democracy and for rights, has done nothing but frustrate those aspirations of their people, and we stand firmly with the Iranian people in their aspirations for freedom.

Finally, we are concerned about al-Qaida operating in Iran, and we have made that clear from time to time to the Iranians. And we expect Iran to behave toward the new Iraqi government as a good neighbor in a transparent way. We understand Iran is a neighbor of Iraq, just like Iran is a neighbor of Afghanistan. And of course it's going to have relations with those countries, but they need to be transparent, state-to-state relations, not relations that are aimed surreptitiously at importing the Iranian form of government into Iraq.

So we have a wide range of issues that are very difficult with Iran. We are not, in the discussions in Geneva, in discussions about broad relations between the United States and Iraq -- Iran. These are only discussions about very specific matters having to do with Afghanistan and we expanded those at a point in time to do very specific discussions having to do with matters in Iraq.

We are in the same neighborhood, so to speak, at this point in time, and so it's important not to have any misunderstandings. But nobody should construe the discussions that are going on in Geneva as discussions that are meant to lead somehow to broad improvement or normalization of relations with Iran. That is not their purpose. These are very, very narrow in scope.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: [W]hat specific measures would you advise the Turkish government to take to re-improve relations with the United States? Thank you.

DR. RICE: Well, I am not in the habit of advising the Turkish government, but I can tell you that we are certainly aware of our joint strategic interests with Turkey. This is a longtime ally. It is an alliance that is based on friendship and interest, and I expect that it will be well into the future.

We have a lot of work to do. Turkey has a very strong interest in the establishment of a stable and unified Iraq. The United States has a strong interest in the establishment of a stable and unified Iraq.

This is an area in which we can work together. We actually have worked together pretty effectively at the end of the conflict, and I expect that we will in the future. Turkey, I would hope, would be involved in the reconstruction effort in Iraq, lending support to that, because a stable Iraq will be a good neighbor for Turkey, and I am sure that that is what Turkey wants.

We obviously are NATO partners. And the evolution that is going on in NATO, which is really quite dramatic, as we bring in more new states, as NATO has to redefine its mission in terms of the threats of the 21st century, which are terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, potentially the nexus between them, Turkey is an important member of NATO and ought to be very involved in carrying out that agenda.

We obviously have interest in dealing with the Cyprus problem. We had made some progress on Cyprus. The UN General Secretary has made heroic efforts to try and resolve that, and we would hope that Turkey would put its weight behind a settlement of the Cyprus issue.

So we have many, many goals ahead of us together. Turkey is important as a message to the world that democracy and Islam can exist side by side, that they can exist in a way that is organic and is to the good of its people. And so we will be working with Turkey.

Yes, we went through some difficult periods of time, but this is a strong relationship. It's going to remain a strong relationship and we look forward to continuing to work with it. As a matter of fact, the President talked with President Sezer the other day to express his condolences on the earthquake. And I believe that Prime Minister Erdogan and the President are speaking today about the matter of the bombing in Riyadh. So contacts continue.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: Did the United States Government already decide to continue the three-way talks with the North Korea? And if not, what kind of economic sanction are you preparing on the table right now?

DR. RICE: Our policy toward North Korea can really be summed up as follows. No one should be willing to give in to the kind of blackmail that the North Koreans have been practicing on the world for a number of years now, especially not the United States.

And in order not to give in to blackmail, in order to do something that is, this time, effective, the President believes that we have to have a multilateral approach to this. This cannot just be the United States. The North Koreans would like nothing better than for this be a problem between the United States and North Korea. This is not a problem between the United States and North Korea. This is a problem between North Korea and the world, because North Korea has completely shunted aside its international obligations not to do certain things. Announcing from time to time that it's getting out of this agreement, or that agreement is null and void, this kind of behavior simply cannot be tolerated.

So this is an issue between North Korea and the world, and that's why we have insisted on multilateral talks, multilateral talks that include the neighbors and the most affected states.

[ ... ]

Now, we believe that those talks will only be really effective and fruitful when South Korea, Japan and possibly Russia are involved in them -- and others who are interested.

If there are to be further talks, though, the attitude ought to be more constructive. The North Koreans used the trilateral talks to posture and to threaten and to try and blackmail. That is not the spirit in which we would expect to conduct any further talks. But we are not fearful of talks, and if we believe that they are useful at some point in time, we would be more than willing to reenter them.

[ ... ]

[T]he United States and South Korea agree that a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula is in the best interest of stability in Asia. And they're not the only ones that agree. Japan agrees. Russia agrees. China agrees. There is broad-scale agreement on this matter.

We believe and have communicated to all of our partners that there is a peaceful resolution of this that is possible if we are all strong in insisting that North Korea live up to its obligations. So we, too, believe that a peaceful resolution is possible and, of course, preferable.

The President never takes his options off the table in any circumstance. And we have always said, on just going to the broader matter of preemption, that preemption says only that you will not allow a threat necessarily to hit you before you hit it. It has never been the first option for the United States. This is after other things have been tried. We do believe that this can be resolved peacefully, but that is going to require everybody to be firm and to be strong, and not to allow the North Koreans to blackmail us.

It is going to require that the North Koreans understand that their only way into the international system is by peaceful means. It's really rather sad because last summer North Korea was doing rather well. It had the Japanese Prime Minister there, who was talking about a path to normalization. You had intensification of the North-South dialogue, the opening of rail lines, and the like. You had the President of Russia there. You had the Foreign Minister of North Korea meet Secretary Powell in Brunei.

North Korea was really doing very well in trying to enter the international system. And then, all of a sudden, because they were confronted with the fact that they were violating the Agreed Framework, the North Koreans decided they were going to go back to blackmailing people into letting them engage in peaceful relations. It's not the way to behave, and the North Koreans have got to be told that in no uncertain circumstances.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: [H]ow do you see overall engagement, U.S. engagement in Balkans?

DR. RICE: Well, first of all, the Balkans is in many ways the beginning of a success story, let me put it that way. If you look at where we were several years ago in the Balkans, we have seen the coming of democratic states. The violence has stopped. There is no longer civil war. And the civil presence is beginning to make some difference in the lives of the people. But there is an awful lot of work to be done, particularly on the economic reconstruction.

And I was reading some material the other day about the need to really intensify the economic reconstruction in these places because people are still without work, and you want people to have hope, and on the basis of that hope then to commit to a peaceful future. And so there is still a lot of work to be done. I would not despair that the Balkans are not yet a part of the structures that Europe has. I am sure that they will be in time.

I think that there have been contact groups that have been very effective in making certain that there are channels of communication about security and other issues. I expect that through NATO, the fact that there are new NATO members who make their homes in the Balkans will make a difference to the Balkans' contact and proximity to NATO. And, eventually, all of these countries should recognize that President Bush's Warsaw dream that all democratic states should expect that NATO would welcome them, that that is something to aspire to. But it is an aspiration that has to be satisfied through actually making changes on the ground. And so what I would say to countries like Macedonia is that not yet; however, that does not mean not ever. And if the hard work of reform is done in the way that countries like Slovenia and Slovakia, or the Baltic states that have just come into NATO, took on that mantel and did the hard work. They are now members of NATO. NATO is an open organization. And when those countries are ready, I am sure NATO will be ready for them.

[ ... ]

QUESTION: The upcoming summit in St. Petersburg, will this be strictly a fence mending after Iraq, or do you expect to move forward on a positive agenda?

DR. RICE: St. Petersburg will be yet another opportunity to move the relationship forward. Now it's true that we don't have that much time in St. Petersburg. We are principally there to celebrate the glorious 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg, and we all look very much forward to that -- especially, I, as a Russian specialist -- to be at the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg is going to be like a dream. So that's the primary reason that we will be there. But we will also advance the agenda, I am quite certain of it.

I might note that the Moscow Treaty, I believe, was ratified by the Duma today. It was ratified a little over a month ago by the American Senate. So we are moving the relationship forward. We continue to work hard in the war on terrorism and to have very fruitful cooperation there.

We have common security problems. And, yes, we had difficulties over Iraq. It's unfortunate. But I am hopeful that the Russian Government, as I said about the Security Council, is now ready to move forward in a way that helps to do what we need to do for the Iraqi people. That's really the key. We all owe it now to the Iraqi people to get a UN Security Council resolution that is in their interest.

And I have to say that the atmosphere in New York thus far, and the atmosphere in capitals, as we have discussed the resolution, has been quite good. It doesn't mean that there won't be continued discussions, but the atmosphere has been good.

And so we look forward to St. Petersburg. We expect it to indeed advance the agenda, and U.S.-Russian strategic partnership we believe is on track.

(end excerpt)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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