*EPF502 05/07/2004
Transcript: State Department Noon Briefing, May 7
(Powell's travel to Jordan/World Economic Forum, Armitage meeting/Greek minister of public order, Middle East, Iraq, Israel/Palestinians, Syria, North Korea, status of detainees in Guantanamo/Geneva Convention, Cyprus, Greece) (5150)

State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher briefed the press May 7.

Following is the transcript of the State Department briefing:

(begin transcript)

U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing Index
Friday, May 7, 2004
12:56 p.m. EDT

BRIEFER: Richard Boucher, Spokesman

DEPARTMENT
-- Secretary Powell's Travel to Jordan/World Economic Forum Meetings
-- Readout of Deputy Secretary Armitage's Meeting with Greek Minister of Public Order George Voulgarakis

MIDDLE EAST
-- Arab World View of United States and Alleged Prison Abuses
-- Meetings/Continued Dialogue in Region
-- Quartet Envoys Meeting with Jordanians

IRAQ
-- Public Release of International Committee of the Red Cross Report
-- Nations in Europe/Asia Discuss Abu Ghraib Prison with United States

ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS
-- Dr. Rice's Meeting with Palestinian Prime Minister
-- Letters/Meetings with Palestinians/Arab Leaders
-- Status of Roadmap

SYRIA
-- United States Support of Middle East Peace Process

NORTH KOREA
-- Talks By Working Group

MISCELLANEOUS
-- Status of Detainees in Guantanamo/Geneva Convention

CYPRUS
-- Ambassador Weston's Comments Use of Airports

GREECE
-- Security at the Olympics

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

FRIDAY, MAY 7, 2004
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

12:56 p.m. EDT

MR. BOUCHER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to be here and to see all of you here today.

If I can, I'd like to make one brief announcement at the beginning, to tell you the Secretary will be traveling to Jordan for the World Economic Forum meetings on May 15 and 16. As you know, the Secretary went last year to the World Economic Forum meeting and the President mentioned yesterday that there will be important discussions on issues of economic development and progress in the region. And so the Secretary is going out to join those discussions as he did last year.

It will also give him the opportunity to talk with the Palestinians, with Arab leaders, with other leaders at the meeting about developments in the region: Iraq, Middle East peace, reform efforts and things like that.

He also looks forward at this time to hearing from the Arab foreign ministers about their meetings to prepare for the Arab League Summit that they will just have held, and also to brief them on the meetings with the G-8 that he will just have held in Washington.

So it's a good opportunity for many things and a chance to work with our many friends in the region on the many issues that we have before us.

So without further ado, that's my announcement. I'll take your questions on this or anything else.

QUESTION: Yes, since we missed the beginning of this, could you just --

MR. BOUCHER: I was here. They were here.

QUESTION: (Inaudible), Richard --

MR. BOUCHER: Okay. Go.

QUESTION: Anyway, I assume you've just announced that --

MR. BOUCHER: I've just announced --

QUESTION: -- contrary to everything that we have been told for the last week or so, that the Secretary's going to the World Economic Forum?

MR. BOUCHER: Excuse me, yesterday I was asked if the Secretary was going. I said it hadn't been decided yet. So I've just announced the Secretary's going to the World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan, yeah.

QUESTION: And the dates are?

MR. BOUCHER: 15 and 16 May.

QUESTION: And obviously when he's there, he's going to speak to Arab leaders. Over the last couple of days, the Secretary and his Deputy have been frank. The Deputy said that we were in a hole and the Secretary today said the images about the scandal have been very destructive for foreign policy goals.

What's your assessment of how the Arab countries and the Arab governments are viewing the United States at the moment, after the scandal? And what can we do to get out of that hole?

MR. BOUCHER: I think, if you look - perhaps it's more in the Arab world but it's around the world -- people are very disturbed about what they've seen, what they've heard about the abuses that have occurred at the prison. We have made very clear that we share those sentiments. Obviously, as the President said, this is abhorrent behavior. We do intend to, and have been investigating it, and we will ensure that justice will be done.

So the first thing the Secretary will make clear, as other American leaders have made clear, as the President made clear yesterday with King Abdullah, is that we hold ourselves to a standard and we will make sure that we meet that standard, both in terms of investigating and punishing, and also fixing any problems that might exist.

So that's the first thing I think the Secretary will convey to people who have seen this. And that's the first thing that our embassies are conveying to people around the world. Our embassies have, basically, been taking all the President's statements, the Secretary's statements, Secretary of Defense's statements, the General's statements, making these available often in local languages to people, and making sure that people understand what the problem is and what we intend to do about it.

The second thing is -- let's remember the United States also has a very vast positive agenda for this region, and we will be working on that positive agenda in terms of effectuating the transfer of sovereignty in Iraq by June 30th, and that's a process that's going well, well underway. Ambassador Brahimi is in Iraq now, and we're working already with other members of the UN Security Council to put together a resolution.

Second of all, we're working to advance the Middle East peace process through all of the meetings the President's been having, the Quartet activity, that the Secretary had a meeting at the ministerial level of the Quartet just this week in New York. Ambassador Burns and his Quartet colleagues will be following up with meetings with the Palestinians to try to move forward with them on some of the things the Quartet decided on Tuesday. We'll have further meetings with Palestinians and Israelis. The Secretary will have a chance to talk with some of the Palestinians in Jordan. Dr. Rice will meet with Prime Minister Qureia in Berlin on the 17th. So the United States -- we're all continuing to work those issues and move forward.

And then third of all, we're continuing to move forward on efforts to support reform and change in the Arab world, reform and change as it's decided by the people of the region. And so that's what makes this chance, this meeting in Jordan, particularly timely since the Arab ministers will just have come from one of their meetings to prepare for the Arab League summit and deal there with the question of reform. And the G-8 ministers -- Secretary Powell will just have come from hosting a G-8 meeting where all the G-8 ministers will just have talked about how they can support Arab reform. So it's a chance to bring those two pieces together and talk about that.

So, on the one hand, it's explaining very firmly that we are going to deal with the problem of prison abuses, that we take it seriously and we're doing to deal with it; and, on the other hand, it's continuing to move forward on all the positive things that we're doing in the region.

QUESTION: What is your assessment of how much the positive side of things is being drowned out by the negative noise from the scandal?

MR. BOUCHER: Drowned out is probably the right term because there's a lot of commentary, there's a lot of outrage, as people see what happened at the prison. We're trying to add to that the understanding that we are determined to do something to fix, to punish people that committed crimes and to fix the problem, but that we know that there has been a public reaction. There's a reaction in the media. We're hearing from governments, in some cases, that they are very concerned about this and they want to hear what we have to say and what we're doing about it.

I think both the President and King Abdullah addressed it yesterday. You see that kind of conversation going on at embassies around the world. At the same time, I think we are moving forward on many of these items. We are moving forward on the agenda itself that we have in the region. And so we are moving forward with the Quartet, with the Palestinians, with the transition in Iraq, with the process -- other relationships and processes that we have underway in the Middle East.

QUESTION: And just one more on this one. When --

QUESTION: Saul, there is a whole room of people here.

QUESTION: Yeah, just one more on this one. When you say it's -- when the Secretary says it's very destructive, these images are very destructive for foreign policy goals, which goals is he referring to?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, I think, in a general sense, it's all our goals. It's all these things that we have been talking about. We know that these policies need public acceptance, public support. It's harder to get that when the public is preoccupied by the terrible things that they saw happen at the prison, and therefore, it's important for us to make clear that we will deal with that and we'll continue on the rest of the agenda as well.

Foreign policy, in this day and age, requires a level of popular understanding in support or benefits from it, and therefore it's harder to get that when you have people looking -- you know, people outraged by this kind of horrible occurrence.

Teri.

QUESTION: Now the ICRC has broken with its tradition and gone public with a pretty awful report of the abuses that it said it reported to the government, to you guys. And have you read --

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think that's true.

QUESTION: The front page, Wall Street Journal?

MR. BOUCHER: Wall Street Journal published an ICRC report. The ICRC put out a statement this morning saying they were dismayed, disappointed or otherwise upset that the report got out.

QUESTION: That it got out. Okay. So they didn't purpose --

MR. BOUCHER: Profoundly disturbed.

QUESTION: Okay. It didn't purposely get out of the ICRC, but it did, and now -- and it does tell about some, I think, even more graphic problems than we've seen with prisoners being randomly shot at and killed. How do you react -- how do you react to this? There are no pictures, but the report is really awful.

MR. BOUCHER: Since the report is available, you should read the report. It, I think, describes many of the things I'm about to say to you.

The ICRC visited prisons during a long period of time, from -- during the course of 2003. During those visits, as I said yesterday, when they see things that need to be corrected, modified or they have other recommendations, they provide those recommendations on the spot to the people or to the commanders, to the responsible authorities.

And I think they generally describe in their February report how they provided such recommendations to coalition forces who were running the system that they were looking at. And so that's where the immediate recommendations got made over the course of time.

Now the report they did in February -- and I have to try to respect the ICRC on this one because they have said to us repeatedly, it's important for their work around the world that the confidentiality of their recommendations and reports is maintained.

QUESTION: It would also be better for you.

MR. BOUCHER: No. We've --

QUESTION: And people don't know that prisoners were shot at?

MR. BOUCHER: Our view has been and is that these things need to be identified and investigated and prosecuted. That process necessarily involves the revelation of what happened, as awful and sad as it is.

But so the ICRC presented those recommendations and, in fact, I think the February report itself was presented to the coalition forces. We got -- I think we got a copy of that report in March. But it was presented to the coalition forces in February.

The ICRC, I think, did indicate that they thought we were -- our coalition forces were taking the report seriously. As you know, we have said that we have received, over time, ICRC recommendations -- the coalition forces did -- and that they did take steps to implement some of those recommendations.

But let's also remember the timing of this report. Many of the recommendations themselves have been made over time, earlier during the course of the visits to the coalition forces, and then the report came in February. By February, we already had our own investigation underway of Abu Ghraib and that resulted in a very thorough and honest report done inside the U.S. Government in -- by March. So this sort of came during that process as well.

QUESTION: So your reaction to the fact that the report is now public, you just think this is just heaping more on top of the already overwhelming amount of negativity?

MR. BOUCHER: I think, first of all, Secretary Rumsfeld is probably addressing some of these issues as well. But he made clear the other day that there were a number of investigations underway in addition to the investigation and the process that's underway with regard to Abu Ghraib. So I think there are other things that we've acknowledged that need to be looked into.

QUESTION: On Rice's meeting with the Palestinian Prime Minister, isn't that customarily something the Secretary of State would do?

MR. BOUCHER: The Secretary and Dr. Rice have both worked Israeli-Palestinian issues, as you know. Dr. Rice has had meetings with the Israelis and she has had meetings with the Palestinians from time to time when it's useful and important to us.

The Secretary talks frequently with the Palestinians. He's been on the phone with Abu Alaa about a week ago, if I remember correctly, seen him before, will see him again. He meets with Palestinians, Arabs and others, handles the Quartet meetings.

And so they're working this together. It's a tag team operation and we're -- both of our senior people are working this on behalf of the President. And Dr. Rice reflects in this process the special interest that the President has, and that's why he designated her as his representative to help work this.

QUESTION: Richard, can I just ask something about the -- about the -- when did the Secretary decide to go to the -- to Jordan?

MR. BOUCHER: When? When what?

QUESTION: When did he decide to make this trip?

MR. BOUCHER: About 43 minutes ago.

QUESTION: 43 minutes ago?

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah. Maybe a little more.

QUESTION: Is it correct that the --

MR. BOUCHER: He was -- he has very much been considering it all along. One of the factors was that he wanted to settle the issue of when and where the G-8 would be, and then once we settled that, then we still -- he still wanted to look at whether it was not impossible, technically and logistically, to make the trip to Jordan and back. And he's found out that he could and so he wants to do it.

QUESTION: Is it --

QUESTION: (Inaudible) and back?

QUESTION: I'm sorry --

QUESTION: Jordan and back?

MR. BOUCHER: Jordan and back.

QUESTION: Yeah, but is it -- did the King, did King Abdullah or the President evince any particular interest in the Secretary going to this event?

MR. BOUCHER: You mean, was he asked, instructed or invited?

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. BOUCHER: Certainly, the Jordanians made clear all along that they'd very much welcome him attending this event. And the Secretary's made clear all along that he wanted to, if he could. The President, we know, believes this to be an important event and said so himself yesterday. So I think there's certainly support and encouragement. But in the end, it came down to his wanting to go and figuring out that, in fact, he could do it --

QUESTION: So he --

MR. BOUCHER: -- he could meet his other commitments on Friday and then his other commitments on the Monday after.

QUESTION: So he literally made the decision at 12:30?

MR. BOUCHER: It was probably 12:13 or something, but yeah.

QUESTION: Okay. You understand why I'm asking these questions, I presume.

MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't, actually.

QUESTION: Oh, okay, then, you'll find out later.

QUESTION: Could I -- without going through a whole preface, there was a letter yesterday, the Jordanians released, the President to the King. And the Secretary's going to Jordan. There was talk this morning at a think tank, Satterfield was there, Europeans were there -- I'm going through a long preface and I didn't mean to -- but there's talk of doing more for the Palestinians. It's not that explicit, but doing a trust fund, doing more for them. Is there more to follow that letter? Because as you know, there was an expectation, at least among some of the media, that this visit would produce some promise of compensation for Palestinians who lost their homes and their jobs or whatever. Is this something --

MR. BOUCHER: I don't --

QUESTION: -- is there a second stage that we can expect, maybe in Oman?

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not -- the President's made clear he wants to -- he's going to write a leader to the Palestinian leader, to Prime Minister Qureia.

QUESTION: Right.

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not going to try to describe that letter at this point.

QUESTION: No, no.

MR. BOUCHER: It's not for me to do so anyway, even if --

QUESTION: Yeah.

MR. BOUCHER: -- I knew what was in it, or what will be in it. I don't think it's written yet. There is no specific plan to announce at this moment. On the other hand, the President made clear in his statements yesterday that we will be working with the Palestinians and supporting the Palestinians for them to take more responsibility, for them to be up to the task of taking control, and in Gaza when, as we all hope, the Israelis pull out.

Yeah, Tammy.

QUESTION: Can I go to the Red Cross report briefly? And I believe officials, and I think this includes the Secretary, have referred to the behavior that we've seen in the photos as an aberration. The February report actually suggests that abusive treatment was, perhaps, not the exception. Do you still want to stick to the term "aberration?"

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know that we have tried to cut too fine a distinction. It's clearly, as the President said, not reflective of what the great bulk of American soldiers are doing in Iraq. It's not reflective of American policy or American values, and therefore that kind of abuse and treatment is an aberration.

We have, I think, said that we know it occurred at this place but that there were other investigations going on as well. The Pentagon has, I think, described that. And again, I don't know to what extent Secretary Rumsfeld might have added to what's known already on that.

So I don't -- it is not consistent with American policy, values, practices and what our soldiers are doing day after day after day in Iraq. But that's not to say it didn't happen at more than one place.

Yeah. Okay. Let's go --

QUESTION: Another subject?

MR. BOUCHER: Can we go to the other people who have been waiting?

QUESTION: Sure.

MR. BOUCHER: Okay. Mr. Ota.

QUESTION: Oh, it's the same subject.

MR. BOUCHER: Okay. And then same subject.

QUESTION: And is there any country who, you know, directly conveyed any concern to your government on this case, abuse of prisoners?

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah. I mean, we've heard from a number of governments. I think we've -- you know, we've talked to governments in Europe and, perhaps, to a lesser extent in Africa. We've heard from maybe five or six governments directly in Asia. And I asked the various regions to sort of give me an idea what was going on.

And so we've had conversations with many governments about these matters: China, Japan, people like that in Asia, if that's what you're interested in, South Korea. They want to know. They want to know what's going on. They want to know what we're doing about it, and they want to know that they can still have confidence in the United States, in the purposes and our ability to handle situations like this and to correct any problems that might arise within our systems.

QUESTION: Do you have a phone list on that, phone calls the Secretary has made specifically on this subject? Is there -- (inaudible)?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. No, I couldn't -- there is no particular set of phone calls the Secretary has made particularly on this subject --

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. BOUCHER: -- except for his talk yesterday with the Red Cross --

QUESTION: Right.

MR. BOUCHER: -- President, Mr. Kellenberger.

QUESTION: Thanks.

QUESTION: Mr. Boucher, can you say the -- do you have any number of the, you know, how many country, total number of the countries?

MR. BOUCHER: No, I can't. I got sort of scattershot and somewhat representative reporting, but I couldn't give you a total number of countries, because many of these conversations -- and we give the materials to our embassy. We instruct our embassies to go out and talk to people and make clear how we're dealing with this situation, that we share their concern and we're determined to deal with it.

So many of those conversations take place every day around the world, and I don't think one could keep any kind of list of all of them.

QUESTION: Well, so, if it's possible, I'm going to ask you one more question (inaudible). Any countries raise issue about the case of Guantanamo in terms of the, observing the Geneva Convention?

MR. BOUCHER: That has, on and off, been a subject of discussion since we put prisoners in Guantanamo. We've made clear that they're entitled to humane treatment. They're entitled -- we have decided to treat them in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, whatever their precise legal status.

We have had Red Cross visits there. We have had, I think, something like 40 visits from various embassies, consulates, foreign representatives who have gone down there. We've released something like 146 people already from Guantanamo. So there has been a lot of, I think, movement there, and we continue to discuss with other governments the prospects of further transfers or releases, as we can.

Sir.

QUESTION: Secretary Powell is going to meet with the foreign -- the Arab foreign ministers collectively, or in what forum? Is he meeting with certain individual foreign ministers?

MR. BOUCHER: You mean in Jordan?

QUESTION: In Jordan, yes.

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think we quite know yet. We'll have to go out and find out who's going to be there and what opportunities there are. We just see it as a chance to see various Arab foreign ministers.

QUESTION: His trip is probably going to be looked at as a soothing attempt from the United States to soothe the feelings of the Arab streets in the aftermath of the Sharon, you know, plan and what happened in Iraq prison. Has the United States, I wonder, given any new thinking to the possibility of negotiating a new -- or having a new conversation with the Syrian Government in order to avoid any hitting sore spot in the Arab feelings now or sentiment at this very sensitive time?

MR. BOUCHER: All I can tell you is we continue to pursue an active agenda around the region, one which we think is beneficial to the people of the region. We continue our assistance and support programs for the process of change in the region. We continue our assistance and support to the Middle East peace process. Many, many things. We also continue our dialogue with the Syrian Government on various problems we have in our relationship and we don't hesitate to raise them, as we, in fact, have raised the trouble in the Shebaa Farms area with all the parties.

So we have an active discussion with Syria and other countries of the region about the issues that matter. The fact of the abuses in this prison doesn't change the fact the United States has a very broad agenda in the region, as well as a specific agenda with individual countries.

QUESTION: The implementation of the Syria Accountability Act at this time, wouldn't it hit a sore spot at this time, you know, in the Arab streets if that should take place?

MR. BOUCHER: At this point, there's no new decisions on that. Don't have any news on it.

Sir.

QUESTION: Just following up on the roadmap. I think earlier you said a phrase you use often about moving forward with the roadmap and that you feel you're moving forward. And, of course, the meetings, I assume, would be reflective of this effort. But in trying to get sort of where Barry was talking about, can you tell us just a little bit about why -- or what's happening with the talks with the Palestinians? Sometimes we don't hear much about meeting with them, where they're kept. You know, you don't talk about them. They're described as unreliable partners and they're told they have to stop the violence and so on. But why is it that -- is there something going on here that you could tell us about that would give hope to this roadmap getting back on track that you think might come out of this or that you would hope would come from it?

MR. BOUCHER: I mean, the first thing is I don't know how much you all report on meetings with the Palestinians. We have meetings every day with the Palestinians.

QUESTION: Higher level, maybe I should have said.

MR. BOUCHER: We have phone calls, we have meetings, we have various opportunities. As you know, we had some meetings that were scheduled in Washington that got postponed, but the Secretary always looks forward to seeing his Palestinian counterparts and other leaders in the Palestinian community. Finance Minister Fayyad was here not too long ago, and, certainly, we have obvious meetings with people in the Arab world who are working with the Palestinians, like the King of Jordan yesterday.

Second of all, we have, you know, daily interaction with the Palestinians through our Consulate General in Jerusalem and very active political and economic dialogue about all the issues that face them out there.

As far as the status of the roadmap, clearly we have been trying to move forward on the roadmap. We have continued to try to move forward. We remain committed to it. The President has made that clear. The Quartet made that clear, having the Quartet meeting and looking at some of the specific things that we might do to help the Palestinians build a state capable of taking responsibility, being in -- putting themselves in position to take advantage of the opportunity that could be created by an Israeli pullout from Gaza.

All of those are things that we have identified as ways to move forward, and so the Quartet envoys will be meeting with the Palestinians in coming, probably coming weeks, to go over with them in some more detail how we can try to move on those things. But once again, it comes down to having a Palestinian Authority that can take authority, that can exercise authority over security problems and that can end the violence that has bedeviled this process, especially over the last few years.

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. BOUCHER: No, we have a man with all the questions.

QUESTION: Yes. Mr. Boucher, do you have any result of the yesterday's talks between the Greek Minister of Public Order George Voulgarakis and the Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes. Greek Minister of Public Order, George Voulgarakis met with Deputy Secretary Armitage Thursday. They discussed Greek Olympic Security efforts and our contributions to it. The Minister has also met with Homeland Security Secretary Ridge, FBI Director Mueller, Dr. Rice and CIA Director George Tenet. I can't comment on specific details of security measures or plans or what we particularly might be able to do to help support the Greeks. But we have been working with them all along as they have prepared to provide security for the Olympics. We have confidence in Prime Minister Karamanlis' commitment to host a safe and successful Olympics. We believe that Greece has the will and the means to do that, and along with several other nations will continue to assist the Greek security authorities' efforts to protect the Olympics against a range of possible threats.

QUESTION: And do you -- who participated in this meeting along with Mr. Armitage?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't have a specific list. I would expect people from the European Bureau and the desk at --

QUESTION: And one on Cyprus. It was reported by the Turkish press that your Coordinator, Ambassador Tom Weston, stated the other day that very soon American planes are going to use, illegally, the airports in the occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus. I was wondering if you heard anything on it.

MR. BOUCHER: I haven't had a chance to follow it back all the way, but I'm not sure he actually said that. Again --

QUESTION: That the Turkish Cypriots wanted --

MR. BOUCHER: That may be, too. I'm not exactly sure what he said, but I'm told that he did not say what the quote was.

Yeah, okay.

QUESTION: Can I ask on -- are you Olympics?

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

MR. BOUCHER: We've got --

QUESTION: Can we do the (inaudible) Olympics?

MR. BOUCHER: Okay, Olympics.

QUESTION: Rumors crop up every now and then, so I wanted to ask you, is there any question that the United States believes security is good enough to be able to participate in the Olympics?

MR. BOUCHER: I haven't heard anything different, but I guess the Olympic Committee would probably be able to tell you that -- U.S.

QUESTION: Yes, quick, on the North Korea. Indonesia Foreign Minister Mr. Hassan proposed a new idea to hold the six-party ministerial meeting at the ASEAN Regional Forum meeting, which is held in the next month. Have you got anything on that?

MR. BOUCHER: I haven't heard anything about that. I think the first thing to do is to have the working group talks next week and we'll see where we go from there.

QUESTION: It is worthwhile thinking about being a serious consideration?

MR. BOUCHER: I said, let's have the working-level talks and then we'll think about what's next.

QUESTION: Okay, thank you.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:25 p.m.)

(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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