*EPF508 05/16/2003
Transcript: Senior Officials Brief on Powell Trip to Russia, Bulgaria
(May 15: Iran, Syria, Middle East peace, Iraq) (2580)

Following is a transcript of a background briefing by two senior unnamed State Department officials looking back on Secretary of State Colin Powell's trip to Russia and forward to his trip May 15 to Bulgaria; the transcript was released after the party's onward arrival in Berlin:

(begin transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(Berlin, Germany)

May 15, 2003

BACKGROUND BRIEFING BY TWO SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS

Berlin, Germany
May 15, 2003

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: Okay. I'll start with Russia and then we'll do Bulgaria if that's all right.

On Russia, you got some of the background information last night. The main thing, I think, that we have focused on is how much more positive this visit was than, frankly, I expected.

In all of the meetings that the Secretary had either with Ivanov, Igor Ivanov, and the one with Putin, at every point they made clear that their goal is to work in partnership with the United States, to work hard, to make sure that we understand what their concerns are, what their interests are so that we can work with them to take that into account as we negotiate the Security Council resolution. There is a lot more work that's going to be done, I believe, on the Security Council resolution. I don't have primary responsibility for that. But that was certainly the thrust of all of the discussions that the Secretary had with both the Foreign Minister and with the President.

In the bigger meeting -- the expanded meeting -- with Igor Ivanov yesterday afternoon, it was expanded, but it was shorter because he was an hour late having wanted to stay at the Duma until the vote was finished. That's where we dealt with all the regional issues -- had a discussion about North Korea, where both the Foreign Minister and Putin later, President Putin, later said we completely understand and accept that the United States wants this to be a multilateral set of discussions. We are happy to support, facilitate anything that makes sense. Let's keep thinking about how we can continue to do this because we do not want nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.

On Iran, in both meetings, but particularly with President Putin, the Russians made clear that they are now also concerned about Iranian activities, particularly because of reports coming from the IAEA. They also made clear that they do not want to have a nuclearized Iran in the neighborhood and want to continue to consult with us very closely about the kinds of things that we might do together to address this particular question.

On the Middle East, the Secretary briefed both Foreign Minister Ivanov and President Putin on his conversations in Damascus. He said in particular we were waiting to see what the Syrians do as opposed to what they say, made very clear that they must not harbor terrorist groups and on the Middle East he said that he worked very hard -- that was actually a very general discussion -- worked very hard to try to implement the roadmap and we'll just have to see what will actually happen; mentioned that Sharon will be in the White House next week and that conversation would be particularly important.

I'm trying to think if there was any other regional issue that was discussed. That was pretty much it.

QUESTION: What about Chechnya?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: On Chechnya, there was a discussion on Chechnya there. In particular, President Putin mentioned the referendum. He said that he was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who participated in the referendum. He said 80 percent of eligible voters participated, which was higher than they expected. He said he thought that this was an indication of the fact that the people in Chechnya were tired of lawlessness, tired of the criminality, wanted to get to a political solution and that they were working hard to that effect.

The Secretary started his response to Putin in the meeting with condolences for the two recent terrorist acts in Chechnya. And, of course, in both cases, President Putin had expressed condolences for what had happened in Saudi Arabia.

Let me do a quick thing on Bulgaria. It will just take a minute.

On Bulgaria, there are three main reasons that the Secretary's stopping in Bulgaria this time. The first is that this year is the hundredth anniversary of Bulgarian-U.S. relations -- the first ambassador to present his credentials in Bulgaria in September of 1903 -- so that's the big celebration. That's the reason for the celebration. This launches those celebrations.

The second reason is to congratulate the Bulgarians on getting much closer to joining NATO with the approval in the Senate of the NATO ratification.

And the third reason is to thank the Bulgarians for standing up with us in such a stalwart fashion on Iraq, both in terms of basing, allowing use of Vorgas (sp) for various American forces operating in Iraq and for the Bulgarians' stalwart standing up with us in the Security Council.

He starts out by seeing the Prime Minister, then sees the President very briefly and then goes to Battenburg Square for the big speech, weather permitting, and that's really about it. The Foreign Minister will be with him the whole time.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: Don't forget the press conference which I'm sure will be the highlight of the visit.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: The press conference, of course.

QUESTION: Going back to Russia and Iran. You say the Russians now say they are worried about a nuclearized Iran. Did they say that they would stop Bushir (sp)? I mean, they promised in the past that they would take care of all the spent fuel that was shared. They promised not to build any more reactors?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: In neither case did they get into specifics. They said let's think together about how we can cooperate on this thing.

One thing I should have mentioned is that in every meeting, the discussion was this is a good time to set up a good summit meeting for the two Presidents in St. Petersburg. So there will be more work that we'll do between now and then.

The Russian Defense Minister will be in Washington next week, the 21st and 22nd and that's a further step in the preparations for the two Presidents to meet in St. Petersburg at the end of May.

QUESTION: Can you give us your sense of Russia's sort of strategic thinking here? Why was this visit a lot more successful and why they apparently decided to side with the United States as opposed to keep siding with France and Germany and make a sort of alliance there.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: The way they put it is that particularly President Putin values his relationship with President Bush. He values the strategic relationship with the United States. He thinks that Russia and the United States can do a tremendous amount of work together to counter terrorism. That was the overarching theme and that there are so many regional issues that can benefit from our cooperation. But that's where the concentration should be.

On Iraq specifically, President Putin specifically said, we should take account of the facts as they exist now and work from there.

QUESTION: A senior State Department official yesterday said that you had managed to narrow the issues on the Security Council Resolution. Could you throw any light on what exactly that means, and on what aspects you narrowed your differences? I assume it means that. And secondly, what are the modifications to the resolution which are being prepared now and how does that relate to these Russian objections to the present resolution?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: First, there was no discussion of the text in any of the meetings yesterday. That was agreed that that would be left to the Perm Reps in New York as well as for further discussions in Washington. There was no text negotiation.

It wasn't so much a question of narrowing the differences. It was the Russians highlighting the areas in the Security Council resolution draft that's before us in New York, where they have the most questions. And there the focus is on further definition of the role of the UN. A particular focus on how to handle the weapons of mass destruction issue and the third area is in the area of contracts, oil for food, what to do with the money, that there is greater specificity, possibly greater specificity that would help the resolution there.

QUESTION: Diplomats in New York say that it is very likely that Russia and France will abstain on the resolution. Is that your impression as well or do you think they might actually wind up supporting it?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: I mean I don't know who said that, but the impression I'm getting from the Russians, I haven't talked to the French recently about this, is that first of all there is still a lot of discussion and debate about the elements of the resolution. For me, we are at the beginning stages of the discussion, to highlight where the concerns are, set out the definitions and all that sort of thing so that we can then go back to work, and say, okay, how do we make sure that it is clear to everybody what is intended here, so that we can address the specific issues. So at no point do I believe that either the French or the Russians have said we will abstain. They've said, we want to work with you in order for there not to be a problem about this.

QUESTION: Would you be surprised if they abstained?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: I'm not going to predict, to be perfectly honest. I've no idea. I know better than to try to figure out what the Security Council does.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: I think it is also safe to say that we will listen to them on the issues. We'll see if we can take care of some of these things. We may be able to. We may not, but we are not going for an abstention. We want to see if people can support it. If they end up not supporting, end up abstaining, well, that still lets the resolution pass. But at this point, we are still looking at the question of whether we couldn't get everybody to support it the way they did 1441.

QUESTION: From your conversations yesterday and then separate with the French. Do you believe that their positions on sanctions and suspension of sanctions versus ending is pretty close, pretty similar to Russia and France?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: I honestly don't know the answer to that. I haven't internalized what the French said in New York about that. I just don't know.

QUESTION: Can you say what you are expecting from your visit in Germany later today and tomorrow and especially your talks with Chancellor Schroeder?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: What we are hoping for is a good discussion again about the Security Council resolution. The Secretary's goal is to understand as much as possible about where the concerns are of the Germans just as he did with the Russians so that we can address those concerns as much as possible in New York. There will be a very clear effort also to talk about issues that relate to Iraq; the situation in Iraq right now, stabilization force, NATO, all the kinds of issues that obtain in Iraq right now as well as a few other bilateral issues.

QUESTION: How do you rate the chances of Chancellor Schroeder coming to Washington in the near future? Is that completely unlikely or is it, I mean, is this something that would come up in a meeting of this kind?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: Except for chances that are 100 percent, we don't rate chances.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: Yeah, I have no idea.

QUESTION: Has it been discussed recently in any contact?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: I'm not sure it has been, to be honest. I mean, we've been talking now about Security Council resolution, meetings with [German Foreign Minister] Fischer, all that kind of thing. Obviously all of the G8 leaders will be together in Evian in a couple of weeks.

QUESTION: Do you happen to remember when he talked to the President last, Schroeder and the President?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #1: I don't know. I don't remember. We can look it up.

QUESTION: Was it a long time ago?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It's been a while.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: Okay. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

QUESTION: This is actually for you. My organization and perhaps others this morning had reports of possible Iranian involvement in the terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, or at least that the Al Qaida cell responsible may have been based in Iran or sheltered, have you heard anything about that here?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: Iranian involvement in the attacks in Saudi Arabia, Al Qaida cell based in Iran -- I have to say I just haven't seen anything like that. I haven't seen anything definitive on the cell or who was behind it, but, you know, once again, I point out Saudis found the arms cache, they found that there were Al Qaida people. I saw some reports that indicated they were Saudis. So I haven't seen anything that would head in that direction.

QUESTION: Ambassador Negroponte last night said that next week the United States plans to put the resolution to a vote, the modified resolution. Do you expect that to happen after we come back from Paris?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: No, I don't have any exact timing yet on when we might modify and/or look for a vote. You have to remember one of the things that is driving us is this basic question of oil and the Iraqi supply lines, the Iraqi storage tanks, the Iraqi refineries are expected to sort of fill up sometime in the next week or so.

Once that happens you have to cut back on production, which nobody wants to do because the Iraqis need the products. They need the oil. They need the money. And you have to have the refineries running in order to produce the gasoline and the propane the Iraqi people need. And you have to have the oil exports running. So you have to get settled a lot of these questions in the resolution about selling oil and where the money goes and that sort of thing. So the expectation is that we would like to do it before the pipelines fill up.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: As I said, in the next week or so.

QUESTION: Can I clarify the Saudi thing? My notes say (inaudible) position to recommend, additional protection....

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL #2: The Ambassador said we had requested for additional security at these compounds. It is not clear from reading his remarks whether he meant all these particular compounds or more generally the compounds where contractors operate and so we will try to check on some of those details for you.

(end transcript)

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

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