U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesman

Press Briefing by
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
Aboard Aircraft en route to Paris, France
June 29, 2001

SECRETARY POWELL: Hi everybody, how are you? Ready to go home? Okay, who's first?

QUESTION: (Inaudible) problems with smart sanctions as proposed and said a week ago that it would cost him a billion dollars a year and that they've certainly lost their enthusiasm for them. How did you sort this out with them just now?

SECRETARY POWELL: His majesty and I had a chance to discuss it privately. We had a one-on-one, and then...it was a great one-on-one. (Laughter) It was a wonderful one-on-one. You've already done your Powell in a car (inaudible) stories. It was a two-seater, no assistants, no interpreters, no notetakers. I drove. We had a chance to talk in the car, and then we talked at lunch and I've been aware all along that this was, whatever we did, was going to create economic difficulties for front-line states, and especially for Jordan, and we did talk about that. He is nevertheless supportive of what we're trying to do, in general, but we are trying to arrange a resolution and the fixes that we are working on in a way that will minimize the impact on Jordan and not give them an immediate problem, and my folks in New York are working it in that way.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

SECRETARY POWELL: We're not working on compensation yet because there's not a loss yet. We'll see. Right now, the way the sanctions resolutions are being worded, the two competing resolutions - the UK-US one, and the Russian one, and the difficulties we've had with the list, as you know, but the way that's moving forward and really concentrating on those lists and less on the requirements for front-line states. We'll get to that at a later time.

QUESTION: What do you think's going to happen, do you think you're going to get it through before July 3? And why do you think the Russians are being so resistant?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know if we'll get it through by July 3. We'll have to do something by July 3. We've had some progress over the last 24 hours with the French and the Chinese, but I'm not saying they're all aboard yet. But we're having some progress. It's interesting to see the Iraqis reject the Russian resolution, fascinating. The Russians, I think, have strong commercial interests that they (inaudible) adequately protected, and they also have a different view than we do about what it takes to determine whether the Iraqis have complied with the resolutions and not the actual monitoring regime. I think we have a higher standard about what it will take to end the regime than the Russians do. But I think it's principally their concern over economic and commercial interests.

QUESTION: You spoke to the French, and who else by phone? The Chinese? Further activity on that?

SECRETARY POWELL: I spoke to Foreign Minister Vedrine, I've spoken to Foreign Minister Tong, His Majesty this afternoon, I'm sure I've spoken to, staying pretty close to it. Oh, and I spoke to Foreign Minister Straw last night. I haven't spoken to Ivanov this week, but I'll speak to him over the weekend.

QUESTION: Is the US going to win this one, do you think?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know. If you mean the specific US-UK resolution, I don't know. I think what we have succeeded in doing is bringing a political concensus together over the last 5 months from what was political disarray at the beginning of the year. What we are still trying to do (inaudible) is operationalize that when the form of the actual goods review list and the management of the oil fields, (inaudible) that. Right now I'm pleased with the political success we've had, (inaudible) on the first resolution 30 days ago. But we only gave ourselves 30 days to fix it and that's proving to be difficult, so I think that's a win, but whether we get another win right now, I don't know. Is this a follow-up, Jane, or are you cheating?

QUESTION: Follow-up. Do you feel that the Russians don't quite take the threat of weapons of mass destruction as seriously as the United States and perhaps Britain, number one, and do you think that Mr. Putin is really flexing his muscles here and saying I'm going to exercise some stamp on the world stage.

SECRETARY POWELL: I can't answer the second part as to whether or not he's used this as a muscle-flexing exercise. His side, my colleague, Minister Ivanov, has been thoroughly consistent over time that we were going to have problems with this change. So I don't think he way, on the grounds that they had commercial interests and risks, they didn't think this was necessarily the right way to go and they didn't think we had the right end point solution for getting rid of the whole sanctions regime ensuring Iraqi agreement. They're always looking for a solution that the Iraqis would agree to. But what I've found is that any solution that they would agree to would not be a solution that we would find acceptable. I think, Putin, we had never been involved directly with Putin on this before, and I think he's backing up his ministry of foreign affairs and I don't think it is necessarily a flex your muscles, mano y mano thing with the United States. On the first part of your question, the Russians have as good an understanding of Iraqi programs as we do. I think we tend to be more vigilant and more aggressive in our pursuit of these kinds of programs and perhaps a little more concerned than many others of the danger they present to the region and to the world and to the people of the region, especially.

QUESTION: I want to go back to the Israelis and the Palestinians. This morning, even before you left, there were new mortar attacks down in Gaza, so obviously this isn't day one of the seven.

SECRETARY POWELL: This is day one, but even yesterday, we had the tragedy of the young mother killed, so the violence continues, and so this is not day one of anything because the violence continues. We have not seen the cessation of violence, so certainly this day is not going to go into the books as a quiet day, in lieu of the mortar attacks, and as I was leaving, I heard about at least some early reports of some pipe bombing attacks, it might not have hurt anybody, but there were some other explosions that took place that were still being looked into. So this is not day one. Day one has not yet arrived.

QUESTION: Is it realistic to think that you're going to have, when you cede responsibility to Sharon to decide when this begins, it's a bit of a copout.

SECRETARY POWELL: It's not a copout. Sharon is the one who is receiving the attacks and the fire. It's his people, it was his citizen who was killed last night. And so he is a partner in this Mitchell-Tenet agreement, it is an arrangement between the two parties. It is not an American arrangement that is being imposed on them, and America does not become the judge. The Palestinians could just as easily have said we're not going to start until a certain set of circumstances comes into play. They chose to say they're willing to start now, right now and Sharon chose not to. He wanted to see quiet before he would start. And so, to bridge that difference, I spent a great deal of time yesterday working on it trying to have both sides agree to the seven-day period. Whether it will actually happen or not, that remains to be seen. I have made it clear in the course of my time with both the Prime Minister and the Chairman that if this doesn't get the Mitchell Committee report started, I don't know what will. I mean, you can't come up with a new idea every two weeks on how to stop the violence. We started with the Mitchell report, it didn't end it. Then we sent George Tenet over, he came up with a work plan. That didn't quite do it. And so now you come up with this seven-day idea. I don't know if that will do it or not. It is up to the parties in the region. The Chairman was very forthcoming, to the point of categorical, both in Arabic and in English, that he has instructed his people that he would do anything to make this happen. Whether it happens or not, remains to be seen.

QUESTION: Do you think that you have made any progress with Sharon in terms of his expectations of what a cessation of violence means, when he was at the White House he was talking about a 100% cessation of violence, last night he said it must be completely quiet, do you think there is progress there on any count?

SECRETARY POWELL: When you say did I make any progress you're suggesting that I was moving in a direction that I wanted him to move in to make progress. We have talked about being realistic. He has made it clear that what he wants is absolute quiet, he repeats it constantly, you have all heard it many times, and he will be the judge of what absolute quiet means. We all recognize that as a very, very tough standard. Would that include rock throwing? At what point do you consider it absolute quiet? So I wasn't trying, because first of all I've heard Prime Minister Sharon on this point for months, and so making progress to get him off the point would have been pretty futile on my part, and I wasn't trying to move him in a direction he'd want to go.

QUESTION: Did you discuss what the standard was with him...

SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, we talked about the standard with the Prime Minister many times over the months several times a week, and the standard is, all together now, "absolute quiet." He uses another expression that I'm sure you've all heard on many occasions if you've followed him, "yes is yes and no is no, I say what I mean and I mean what I say."

QUESTION: Secretary, when you say that you can't keep coming up with new plans every two weeks obviously, does that indicate that the United States is behind the Mitchell plan, but that if this does not go off... (inaudible)

SECRETARY POWELL: No what I am saying is that we are behind the Mitchell plan, a plan that never gets started or executed after a while loses its utility and we will have to find some other approach, we will have to try and find something else. It is our best shot for the moment, I may come up with a better shot later, but right now I'm not sure what it is. As you go over the history of this for the past several years', people have tries just about everything. You name an approach that has not been tried from peace plans put on the table and negotiated for long periods of time to the kind of approach we took with the Mitchell plan, and I mentioned the other night there really has been a shift since this administration changed which coincided with the Israeli administration changing. They went from negotiations on peace against a backdrop of some level of security and confidence that existed last year to a new environment where it is security first before you can go to peace negotiations against a background of the Intifada, Intifada II, and that is a fundamentally different situation this year than it was in the fall of last year and that is to some extent why we've handled it in a different way, I'm willing to go wherever we have to go to try to get something going, to try to get something moving, but after spending five months on this going the sixth month on this security certainly is the one objective that has to be achieved before you can really move on to the confidence building measures and solutions and I sometimes repeat myself, but you guys are kind and do not nail me on it too often. It's the same thing we said my first trip, security, then confidence building, and then you get to peace.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you sound pretty pessimistic, and I was wondering it that was a correct characterization and could you say what it is you feel you did accomplish? Both sides were already in agreement with the Mitchell plan, you seemed to get them to put a schedule on it, but what was the significance?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm not pessimistic or optimistic I tend to be realistic. I'm realistic to the extent that it is very hard to meet the standard that both sides have now set for themselves. Both sides have now said that they are going to do everything that they can to have a seven-day quiet period at some point in the immediate future. That is a very tough standard. I am very realistic as to how tough a standard that is and difficult it will be to meet. I hope that they will be able to meet it, and that is neither pessimism nor optimism. It is, I think, realism. If it is met, it is one path forward. If it is not met, then we will have to find another path forward. We cannot just stay where we are, and the United States will not give up, not quit, because we have no other option. We have to stay engaged. I will not stop calling people or stop thinking of ideas or stop working with my staff or consulting with my colleagues in the international community. But right now we're heading to a junction some days ahead when we either see some success on this latest idea or it doesn't work and we have to find new approaches. And so the accomplishment of this trip was getting past where we had left it with the Tenet work plan. Hopefully, this will also put the Tenet work plan into effect, if they finish the pieces of the Tenet work plan, and getting the chairman to commit to the seven-days of quiet so that the Mitchell committee plan can unfold. I'm pretty pleased with that as a 36- hour piece of work, because when we started over here it wasn't clear that there was anything but a lot of hand-shaking and smiling to be done. So I'm pleased with the investment of our time.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I'm sure you're going to find by accepting the Israeli position of 100 percent results, you're going to find that you've handed the whole process over to radicals on both sides who are going to hold the whole thing hostage. And how are you going to justify it when Arab leaders come to you and say this is just dragging on too long, that there is no progress. How are you going to answer that?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think I'll be required to justify it. Radicals are holding it hostage now. The whole thing is being held hostage now by the perpetrators of violence and those who turn to violence. So it is not a situation that I will have to justify. We haven't handed anything to anybody that encourages violence, violence is there now, and we are trying to find a way to get out of that violence. There will be those who will try to ruin this opportunity, just as they have ruined previous opportunities, and if that is the case, then we are in for a long period of, perhaps not much progress, but just stabilizing the situation until new circumstances arise that permit us to move forward.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, can you tell us what the Israelis and Prime Minster Sharon and any military people you might have met with told you what would happen if and when this really got out of hand and they took another hit?

SECRETARY POWELL: No. No, they did not tell me, we do not share contingency plans.

QUESTION: Just to follow up in a slightly different way, did you warn Sharon or other Israeli officials about what the United States' reaction might be if he were to act in a particularly heavily handed way to continued violence?

SECRETARY POWELL: What I did was I encouraged restraint of the kind they have been showing and I encouraged as Simon Peres calls it, "acting in self defense."

QUESTION: Since I've got the floor let me ask you, In '82 when Sharon was Defense Minister he said that Secretary of State Haig gave you a green light for the invasion of Lebanon. I'm pretty sure that Haig did not say go ahead and invade Lebanon, but he must have said something that Sharon could interpret that way, are you confident that you didn't give him a green light or something he could call a green light?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm confident. Mr. Sharon and I have a very good relationship and we speak pretty direct and straight language to one another to solve any confusion. When we are talking alone we'll slip into general to general talk and talk rather directly to one another, there is nothing of the kind that you suggest.

QUESTION: If today in not the start of the seven-days and if tomorrow is not the start of the seven- days, is there any point when, if this does not start, you will say it does not work? Is there a timetable when this thing does start?

SECRETARY POWELL: There is no discussion about when the first of the days may start I think that it was obvious that there has to be some time given for instructions to be issued and plans to be made or whatever one does to put in place direction, so I was not expecting it to suddenly break out last night or even today. But over a period of days and not weeks it will become obvious whether or not that happens.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, last night -- I have a Milosevic question. Last night, you said that you were pleased at Milosevic going to The Hague and that you were pleased at the role that the US had played.

Can you elaborate on what role you felt the US played?

SECRETARY POWELL: The role we played -- and so I don't mislead you all -- what I was referring to last night, the fact that we were able to use the legislation that we had as, I think, a very effective form of pressure and a way in which we conditioned the first release and then made it clear to them, and I made it clear on a number of occasions, that we would not go to the donors conference unless we saw significant progress after the 1st of April.
And I spoke to the Prime Minister on the phone once or twice, saw him, and made it clear that they shouldn't have any illusions about the requirements of our law and how I had to interpret the law for the President. It was presidential authority that I was exercising, and there was a great deal of interest in it on the Congress.
And so even when I certified for the second time earlier this week, it was conditional since, at that point, Milosevic was just being prepared for extradition and had not left. So it was conditional. In fact, it still is conditional because I haven't signed anything to remove the last condition.
And as you know, there are other indictments that are about to flow and perhaps other things may be happening as we are here.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) which you're going to be talking about with the Saudis if there's going to be anything different from the (inaudible)? What about Khobar?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know what will come up. This really is just an opportunity to spend some time with the Crown Prince. When I saw him earlier this year, you recall on that trip it was an abbreviated trip because I had to get up to Damascus. You remember that night?
And so I really needed to follow up and spend some more time with him to review our relationship and a lot of other bilateral issues. But it's really just as much a courtesy call and coverage of our bilateral issues. There are no major issues or problems I'm dealing with. I don't know what might come up.

QUESTION: I just wanted to pick up on Jane's question, and that is Jordan just a week ago was saying they can't support the resolution. Did you hear today from the King that he will support it, and are you going to be asking Crown Prince Abdallah to cough up some money to try to --

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think that will be a subject of this evening's conversation. The King and I really did not get into that. We talked about the status of the resolution. He just wanted to make sure that I was aware of the economic concerns that they have. I have been aware of them, and I assured him that it was being taken into account in our work in New York. But that's about as far as it went.
Okay?

END