Condoleezza Rice Briefing En Route Shannon Ireland

Briefing En Route Shannon, Ireland

SecretaryCondoleezza Rice En Route Shannon, Ireland February24, 2006

SECRETARY RICE: Last night's GCC meetingwas, of course, the last in a series of consultations withour allies and friends in the region about multiple challenges that the region currently faces. We talked lastnight, as I talked with others, about the situation in thePalestinian territories as well as about the challenge facedby Iran. We also talked about the situation in Iraq. Ithink you'll notice that in the GCC statement all of thoseelements are discussed. People expressed, in particular,their desire that it be known that Arab states are fullycommitted to a unified Iraq in which all Iraqis can participate and fully condemn the violence against holyplaces of Shia and Sunni that Iraq has experienced over thelast 48 hours.

The discussions on the Palestinianterritories affirmed for me the sense of an emerging Arabconsensus about the necessity of having an outcome in the Palestinian territories that allows a continuation of theroadmap, a continuation of the agreement to whichPalestinians have been committed for more than a decade nowand the need for all entities of the Palestinian governmentto be committed to that. And I think that over the nextseveral weeks as this plays out, you will see that thatconsensus is very strong. In that sense, the requirementsof the Quartet statement are consistent with the, I think,emerging Arab consensus about what needs to be done by Hamasin order to continue along a path of peace and cooperation.At every turn, these states emphasized that it is the Arabconsensus that there's no way but a peaceful resolution tothe Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the roadmapremains the only way to achieve that peaceful consensus. AndI think you'll see in the GCC statement the mention of theroadmap.

On Iran, more discussion of the need for Iran toallow a peaceful resolution and a negotiated settlement tothe questions concerning their nuclear program, concernthat the Iranians understand that it is important for themto come back inside the international consensus to suspendthe activities that they've been engaged in and tonegotiate in good faith, and so we had that discussion. We also discussed the activities that Iran has been engaged inin Lebanon, in Iraq and a general sense that it's extremelyimportant that those countries be able to developpeacefully without outside interference. So we had broadranging discussions.

We all agree that the next severalweeks are going to be crucial in the Palestinianterritories. The fundamental agreement that humanitarianassistance ought to be continued for the Palestinian peopleand quite a bit of concern about how to support Abu Mazenin this interim period, in particular. But given that he isthe elected president of the Palestinian Authority, howsupport to him can be solidified so that he can carry outthis important transition and discussions about theformation of a government. So that was the basics of the discussion last night and I'll take questions.

QUESTION:Madame Secretary, in your discussions with the Gulf states,either in Riyadh or in the UAE, did any of them expressconcern that the ethnic violence in Iraq might spreadacross their borders? And did you ask them to do anything to make sure that Sunni or Shia from their own populationsdon't go and joy the fray, as it were?

SECRETARY RICE:Well, I do think that there's a concern that the sectariantensions that outsiders are stoking in Iraq, that those sameoutsiders might try and stoke sectarian tensions in otherparts of the region. And a very strong commitment not tolet that happen both by working across lines in their owncountries and also encouraging Iraqis to work across thelines, particularly the UAE and Jordan and Saudi Arabiahave been very active in encouraging Sunni participation inthe Iraqi Government. I think they will redouble thoseefforts. The region has really been very active in doingthat and I think that everybody believes that the Iraqisare coming close to the formation of a national unitygovernment. And that, in fact, those who don't want to seea national unity government are likely behind the kind ofviolence that you saw a couple of days ago that was clearlymeant to stoke sectarian tensions.

So it was a very we did have an extensive discussion of this issue and therewas a very strong commitment to supporting the Iraqis intheir unity and to calling on all groups, all sects, to bea part of that unity and not to give in to this sectarian to these efforts to stoke sectarian tensions.

QUESTION:Madame Secretary, the other day two senior administrationofficials told us that the policy of the United States inregard to funding Abu Mazen was to help him with specificprojects but not to give large aid that might somehow filterout to Hamas. Now, we're told that the EU is deciding thatthey may just turn over their entire aid package to AbuMazen hundreds of millions of dollars. Is that a problem?Did they talk to you about that?

SECRETARY RICE: Well,first of all, I think the EU has made no decision. What everyone said in the Quartet statement is they will reviewtheir assistance in light of what happens with governmentformation and that continues to be the position ofeveryone, including the United States. And we don't knowwhat the outcome of government formation is going to be.But our position is very clear: Hamas is a terroristorganization, so we aren't going to fund anything that could end up in Hamas's hands. We've been very clear that webelieve that in this interim period, it is important tofund the Palestinian Authority, to fund Abu Mazen and hisactivities. We have been actively supporting Jim Wolfensohn in his efforts to raise funding for the interim governmentin this period of time. And we've been very clear that weintend to continue our humanitarian assistance in any case.But it is my understanding that the EU will need to take alook in light of what happens in the formation of theinterim government on what they fund and through whatmechanisms they fund because Hamas is also listed as aterrorist organization for the EU.

I think what you'reseeing, Joel, is that people are doing precisely what that Quartet statement says. They are waiting to see what AbuMazen is going to be able to get Hamas to do when hepresents when Hamas presents a government and Abu Mazenpresents his program to Hamas, what will be the attitude of Hamas. And I think everybody hopes that they make the rightchoice.

QUESTION: Ambassador Khalilzad has been veryinvolved in helping the formation of the Iraqi Government.But in the last day or so, some Shiite leaders have accusedhim of creating some of this violence by encouraging theSunnis to revolt. And I'm just wondering if you have anyresponse to that.

SECRETARY RICE: Ambassador Khalilzadhas done nothing but try to help Iraqis come together. Theobvious problem after the elections in January was that you essentially had an absence of a Sunni voice. And to thedegree that one of the elements of the insurgency was areluctance of certain parts of the Sunni population tobecome part of the political process, Ambassador Khalilzadand a lot of others, including the British Ambassador andincluding states in the region, have been working very hardto get Sunni participation. I think that has been achieved.That has never come at the expense of, or never come in the absence of full engagement with the Shia population as well.

You'll never get a chance to see Ambassador Khalilzad'sdiary, his schedule. But I would be very surprised if youdidn't see on every day meetings across every element ofIraq, every potential sect, every sectarian group becausethe goal of the United States is to have a unified Iraqwhere everybody is involved and included. The people who aretrying to stoke civil war in Iraq and that is, by the way,their stated aim. That's Zarqawi's stated aim, is that hewants to provoke civil war. Iraqis don't want it.Responsible leaders in Iraq don't want it.

The UnitedStates wants the Iraqis to come together and that's the goalthat everybody is working towards. But I want to repeat,and this was an assessment that was, I think, shared by alot of countries in the region, too, as the movement towarda national unity government has picked up steam over thelast few weeks and as they've been trying to form agovernment that's going to be broadly representative, it isclear that there are people who missed their chance todestroy the basis for a political compromise because theycouldn't stop the elections. They couldn't stop theconstitution, so they're going to try again. And I thinkit's not surprising that people who don't want the political process to go forward are going to try to findsome way in the 11th hour to set Iraqis against themselves.And it's everything that Zal Khalilzad has been doing,everything that the United States has been doing, everything that others in the country have been doing theUN, the British, others is to try to help Iraqis to come toa political center itself.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary,before your departure, you wanted Arabs to speak outagainst Iran, but we didn't hear a lot of statements veryaggressive against Iran during this trip, yes, againstIran. Do you want you wanted yes, you wanted them tobe more vocal against Iran.

SECRETARY RICE: I think whatI said was that I wanted people to support the international consensus that Iran has to live up to itsinternational obligations, be in compliance with the NPTand find a negotiated solution, returning to thenegotiations that Iran walked out on. That international consensus is pretty clear.

One of the countries, forinstance, that had a chance to speak in that regard, wasEgypt. Egypt spoke volumes by voting in the IAEA to referthe Iranian case to the Security Council. So I don't thinkanybody has been lacking in telling the Iranians that theyhave only one course, and that is to agree to a civil nuclear program that would allow Iran to have civil nuclearpower, but would mitigate the proliferation risks thatpeople are concerned about.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary,but even there is a GCC statement the common GCCstatement with you. It doesn't mention Iran.

SECRETARYRICE: We have an international consensus on Iran. Thatconsensus is that the Iranians have got to get back intonegotiations. There is a report before the Security Councilon Iran. It's very clear where the international consensusis. The discussions that we had about Iran were for everyoneto use whatever leverage they have, political, diplomaticcontacts that they have with the Iranians to convince theIranians to do precisely this. For instance, the ForeignMinister of Oman had just been in Iran. And he reported thathe said to the Iranians, you know, you need to find a way toget back to the international consensus on this. So I foundthe support of the international consensus on Iran thoroughand complete and very strong.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary,can I follow-up on that? During the before you startedout on your trip on the plane and while you said youwanted to get states to further Iran's isolation, unlessthey do the things that you said that they should do negotiations and things like that. So do you sense a willingness on the part of Arab states to use those levers,isolate Iran, if they don't do that, because when we sawthe GCC it seemed as if they didn't want to come out verystrongly against Iran, which indicates they may not want touse that pressure?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let's see whathappens in the Security Council. This is one step at atime. The international consensus has put the Iranian caseinto the Security Council. The Iranians now have anopportunity to react to that in a positive way. I thinkpeople are going to wait and see whether Iran reacts in apositive way. If Iran does not react in a positive way,then it will be in the Security Council and there willobviously have to be some action by the Security Council totry and again convince Iran that it has to respond.

So, Ithink every it's very clear where the entireinternational community stands on the Iranian case. When Isaid that I wanted them to people to be prepared toincrease Iran's isolation, that is if Iran does not respond.And if you remember in London, we gave the by delayinguntil March 6th any Security Council action, we've given theIranians an opportunity to respond. And I wouldn't expectany further statement or "pressure" until we know what Iranhas done.

But I do know that lots of states are visitingIran, talking to the Iranians. I believe Russians andChinese have recently been in Iran, may even still be there,I think. There are a number of countries that are pressingthe case with Iran that it Iran that needs to respond, notthe international community.

QUESTION: Did you sense thesame concern that you've been sharing about Iran becoming adestabilizing force in the region when you take theirnuclear ambitions into account along with the support forterrorist groups, things like that?

SECRETARY RICE: Thereis broad concern about Iran and Iranian activities and these are countries that have relations with Iran and Ibelieve are trying to get the Iranians to take a moreconstructive course.

QUESTION: Back on Iraq for a minute.You said yesterday that it doesn't do the Iranians anyfavors excuse me, the Iraqis any favors to talk about thethreat of civil war. But are you watching what's happenedover the last few days, concerned that the effort to dividereally could work?

SECRETARY RICE: Iraqis havedemonstrated time and again that they have a political let me call it political maturity that allows them toovercome, time after time after time, efforts of outsidersand violent people to separate them and to pit them againstone another. This is an extremely hard and extremelydelicate moment, obviously, for the Iraqis because there'sbeen a strike against Iraqi unity; I'm quite certain, bythose who do not want to see a political resolution. And ithas obviously heightened sensibilities and it's heightened you know, people's actually, nerves are a bit on edgewhen you have this kind of strike against Iraqi unity.

But what I see is leaders struggling to overcome that, totalk to one another. Yes, there will be undoubtedly someperiod of time in which it is hard to have a completelyunified response to what has happened, because it's veryterrible what's happened to these communities. But I have alot of confidence in Iraqis who have demonstrated time andagain that they are capable of overcoming these efforts byoutsiders to divide them and I fully believe they're goingto do it again.

QUESTION: A quick follow-up. Do you havean opinion about exactly who carried out the originalviolence in Samarra?

SECRETARY RICE: I don't think weknow, but I think one thing it's obvious, it's some force,some party that wants to destroy the basis for a nationalunity government and you know, I'm not going tospeculate, but it's rarely been Iraqis who talked aboutcivil war. It's usually been outside foreigners, outsideforeign forces that have talked about civil war like theal-Qaida forces that are operating there. But I don't thinkwe know enough about what happened or who did it to pointblame.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) I just wanted to follow upon my compliment to you yesterday when I talked about youvisiting Lebanon. Did you get any I was struck by thefact that we flew over Iraq and that we came near Iraq. Didyou give any consideration to going to perhaps shore up thenegotiations on the government even before the violenceerupted?

SECRETARY RICE: I'm definitely going to go backto Iraq fairly soon. I just frankly think when they're inthe midst of trying to form a national unity government, itprobably isn't the best time for a high-profile American visitor. But it just didn't seem like the right time.

QUESTION: Just to follow up on the previous questions,foreign fighters certainly want to start a civil war, buthave there been claims that suggest that this is whatcaused the bombing? What you're saying is just very confusing. Yes, there are foreign fighters that areagitating, but there are internal insurgents too who areindigenous.

SECRETARY RICE: Elaine, I said I don't knowenough to know who caused these particular bombings, butthey'll know that in good time. What I said was it's clearly somebody who does not want a national unitygovernment to form. Yes, there are also Iraqis who do notwant a national unity government to form, so don'tmisunderstand. I didn't say that foreign fighters causedthis. I said that there are a couple of different groupsthat don't want a national unity government to form and itappears to me that this is aimed at the efforts of theIraqis to come to a national unity government. I don't haveany information about who might have done it.

QUESTION:(Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: I talked to the Ambassadorthree times yesterday and he is I'm going to talk to himjust after we've had a chance to talk here.

QUESTION:Madame Secretary, how much more difficult is it, do youthink, for Iraqis to form the national unity government nowthat the sectarian violence has exploded?

SECRETARYRICE: Could you hear him?

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: Pardon me?

QUESTION: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let's give this a little time, allright? Again, this is a very difficult and complicated timefor the Iraqis and every time there is a patch ofturbulence, someone writes, "It's all over, they've had it,they'll never get this done," and the Iraqis prettyclose, pretty close and what happens is the Iraqis gothrough a period in which they come back together and theyget back on the course of that they're all trying to stayon, which is to form a national unity government.

Ithink we need to give this a little time, but all of theevidence is that they believe the only way the only realsalvation for their country is a national unity government.Yes, this makes it harder today and perhaps tomorrow, butI'm confident that the Iraqis are devoted to dedicated tothe formation of a national unity government and I thinkthey will get back to that process very shortly. But thishas been it's been you know, difficult and it'sobviously it's a blow to go through this kind of violence.

But they've always demonstrated that they thatwhenever someone tries to tear them apart, they find a wayto come back together and I think it's going to happenagain this time.

Thank you. 2006/T3-7

Released onFebruary 24, 2006

ENDS

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