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U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing, 01-04-19U.S. State Department: Daily Press Briefings Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The Department of State Foreign Affairs Network (DOSFAN) at <http://www.state.gov>DAILY BRIEFING Richard Boucher, Spokesman Washington, DC April 19, 2001 INDEX: RUSSIA TRANSCRIPT_: MR. BOUCHER: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let me mention one thing off the top. The Secretary has spoken to Foreign Minister Ivanov of Russia, and they have agreed that the Foreign Minister will visit Washington around May 17-18, precise schedule yet to be fixed. But you will remember when they met in Paris they discussed continuing those discussions in Washington, and so that will occur around the 17th or 18th. QUESTION: Around the 17th or 18th? MR. BOUCHER: Well, the exact time of arrival and exact time of meetings remains to be scheduled, but the 17th, 18th, will be the dates of the meetings. QUESTION: So he will definitely be here on -- MR. BOUCHER: He will be here on the 18th. When exactly he arrives, when they start the meetings, it remains to be scheduled. QUESTION: You're not going to tell us the subjects of mutual interest, right? MR. BOUCHER: As we said in Cairo and Paris, they look forward to discussing a broad range of things. Today, for example, they talked about the Middle East, they talked about Iraq, they talked about Afghanistan, about the ABM Treaty and strategic issues, and about their visit -- all of these conversations to be continued when Foreign Minister Ivanov comes to Washington. QUESTION: Exactly. I was going to ask if you thought the Administration would have its thoughts together on an ABM or a missile defense program in time for that meeting -- not that you would have to meet that as a deadline, but would it coincidentally be ready in time? MR. BOUCHER: As I think we outlined for those of you who came with us to Paris in our briefings there, the Secretary and Foreign Minister Ivanov have had, starting in Cairo -- more in Paris and now more in Washington -- a fairly -- beginning a discussion of the issues of strategic thinking, the Secretary making the point that defense needed to play a role in strategic thinking in our modern age, along with offense, defense, traditional deterrents and stability, that defense needed to be a component of that. So on that side of it, that's where they will continue their discussion of the strategic concepts, you might say. As far as a specific proposal from Secretary Rumsfeld and the things he is working on - technology and proposals for how to do a defense system, I don't think that was expected this month. QUESTION: May I try just for a brief word or two on the relationship? We're past a few weeks now the tit-for-tat expulsions. How would you describe the relationship at this point between the US and Russia? Is it just a little edgy, or kind of normal, which may be normally edgy? MR. BOUCHER: The choices that I'm offered don't appeal to me very much. Let me try to think of something on my own. QUESTION: Before you do that, can we go to a specific -- in the phone call with Ivanov, did they talk about NTV and the whole -- did they discuss -- MR. BOUCHER: Not that I'm aware of. I haven't had a chance to sit down with the Secretary and cover every single topic. I just know the big ones that were discussed. So I don't know if they got into NTV and Media Most at this point. QUESTION: Can I get a general answer on the relationship, if you have one? MR. BOUCHER: Let me just say that the relationship, as we have said, with Russia is sort of back on track. We are working with the Russians again on areas where we need to work, where we want to work with them, where we want to cooperate with them. It is a very important relationship to us. Obviously we are going to have differences over specific issues and incidents. We need to handle those properly. We need to try to resolve the ones we can, but we also need to continue our cooperation in areas that are important to both of us. And that is the way we approach this relationship, and generally several others as well. QUESTION: Thank you. QUESTION: Can I just ask, since you started very short, you mentioned a phone call -- is that what you said in the beginning -- MR. BOUCHER: That is what I said at the beginning. They talked on the phone just recently and agreed that Foreign Minister -- QUESTION: Today? MR. BOUCHER: Today, minutes ago, and agreed that Foreign Minister Ivanov's trip to Washington would be scheduled for the 17th or 18th of May. QUESTION: And can I follow up? Will he be bringing him any experts with him to begin any sort of expert discussions on different subjects? MR. BOUCHER: I'm sure he will bring experts. How broad a group of experts and what kind of experts meetings we have at that moment may depend in part on the people that we have in place and confirmed on our side at that moment, so we will just have to see. QUESTION: Do you expect this meeting in May to produce a date for the summit between Putin and President Bush? And secondly, on the Middle East, did they exchange notes, or was there some discussion of some joint action? I mean, these countries, I believe, are still the sponsors to the -- MR. BOUCHER: We are the co-sponsors, and we try to coordinate and work together. They obviously in Paris discussed Middle East quite a bit and discussed it again a bit today. I don't know the details of that conversation, so I really can't do that for you today. On -- I forget the first part of your question -- the summit dates, I don't know at this point. We have talked about the presidents getting together at the general G-8 meeting or before. It will be up to the White House to specify if something is settled before that. The schedules were obviously quite difficult to work out. QUESTION: Do you have anything on the case of Gusinskiy? We haven't talked about that too much, even though we have been talking about media discrimination in Russia, and now Spain has decided not to extradite him. Do we have a position on that? MR. BOUCHER: We have talked, as you noted, about the overall situation with regard to Media Most and the widespread concern here in the United States and elsewhere in Europe that the charges against Gusinskiy don't really stand up to scrutiny. So we would, I think, say that the Spanish court's decision not to extradite Mr. Gusinskiy actually supports this belief that these charges don't stand up to scrutiny, and lend credence to the widely held view that there is political motivation behind the actions that are being taken against Media Most. There have been Russian Government actions against several media outlets of the Media Most company over the past week, and that confirms this impression as well. As we said in our statement the other day, the Russian people have made important gains with regard to freedom of expression, which is a fundamental component of democracy, and these gains are put at risk by a campaign against free media outlets in Russia. And we are very concerned about that. QUESTION: New topic? MR. BOUCHER: Please. QUESTION: Do you have any comment on the -- I guess the Iraqis shooting down an Iranian spy plane -- renewed war skirmishes? MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't. I'm not aware of it, actually, but I don't think we have any -- I don't think we take sides on that one. QUESTION: Can you give us what you have on the China meeting, please, and what "productive" means? MR. BOUCHER: The China meeting. Let me do the two China meetings, because I think when we left the story yesterday we said that our Ambassador would be meeting with the Foreign Ministry in the morning in China. So that was the first meeting that occurred. Ambassador Prueher met with Assistant Foreign Minister Zhou about 9:00 a.m. for a meeting that lasted about one hour, and at that meeting we were told that the Chinese were prepared to address all the issues in the letter from Ambassador Prueher and that the EP-3 aircraft itself would be on the agenda for the meeting with the delegation. So the delegation then met about 11:30, a couple hours later, with the Chinese delegation that is headed by Mr. Lu Shumin, the Director General for Oceanic and American Affairs of the Foreign Ministry. That meeting lasted between an hour and fifteen minutes and an hour and a half. The meeting was businesslike. They dealt with all the topics that we wanted to deal with in the letter. They completed all the agenda items that they were to discuss. We proposed continuing our discussions of how to avoid such incidents in the future within the structure of the military maritime consultative arrangement. The Chinese promised to pass that request to their superiors, and next week we would expect to provide them in writing with full terms of reference for that working group meeting on how to avoid incidents like this in the future. In addition, I would just note that there was a meeting of the military maritime consultative arrangement that was going to be held -- one of the regular meetings -- on April 23rd in San Francisco. They agreed at that time to postpone this. So the next meeting within that structure that we have proposed would be to discuss how to avoid incidents like this in the future in a meeting of the working group that would be held once the Chinese get back to us. We'll hear back from them on that point. On another point, we explained to the Chinese our proposal on repairing and then returning our aircraft. They, again, promised to get back to us on that proposal as well. We would expect a follow-up for these proposals to come in normal diplomatic channels through our embassies in Beijing or perhaps in Washington, and our team will leave Beijing on Friday and come home. QUESTION: A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy gave a briefing today, and he said the plane is still in China because an investigation is not completed. And then, but he also said that China has a big problem with the plane incident, wants to resolve the problem, but his problem can only be resolved if the US and China abide faithfully by the three joint communiqu�s. Are you afraid -- is the US concerned in any way that the Chinese might be holding this plane hostage until it decides what the US is going to sell to Taiwan? Do you see them linking it in any way? MR. BOUCHER: I think that's a good follow-up question to ask them. We think the airplane ought to be returned. We think it's quite clear that it should be returned. We are looking for our airplane back, and we have proposed to them how to do it. At this point, unless you hear something from them, I don't have any way of explaining that to you. QUESTION: Richard, can I just clarify something about the meeting, the military maritime meeting? The one that has been postponed, is that actually going to be rescheduled, or has that just been basically canceled and the meeting -- the working group is going to meet as soon as the Chinese get back to you on your -- I mean -- MR. BOUCHER: Postponed is not the same as canceled. Postponed means it could be rescheduled. It's not rescheduled at this point. I think some of that remains to be seen. Clearly we are looking for a -- to follow up on the issue of avoiding these kinds of incidents in the future, we think the military maritime consultative arrangement is the best way to do that. We are proposing that they have a meeting to discuss that particular issue. At what point this group gets back to their regular sort of six-month or annual -- I forget what it is -- their regular meetings will be another question that we will take up separately. So whether that meeting in April is rescheduled or when, we will just have to see. QUESTION: US officials, prior to the meeting, said that you wanted to use this as an opportunity to ask tough questions of the Chinese, particularly why they are flying some of their intercepts very closely. Did you get any kind of satisfactory answers on this? Can you describe how that ended up? MR. BOUCHER: I don't have a full rundown yet, but I am not aware the Chinese changed their position on any of these issues. I don't know if we got any further explanation. I guess I won't speak for them on that account. QUESTION: I just wanted to follow up on Elise's question. Did the Chinese privately link the Taiwan arms sales with the return of -- the repair of the EP-3? MR. BOUCHER: Once again, you are asking me to speak for the Chinese. I am loathe to do that. I am not aware that they did but, again, I don't have the every word that was possibly said and every thought that is in the Chinese mind. So I just have to say we made proposals on how we can repair and return the aircraft; they promised to get back to us on it. And we will hear back from them in diplomatic channels. That is what we know. QUESTION: Okay. And what is the reason for the postponement of the military maritime commission -- the one that was going to take place next week? MR. BOUCHER: I think the two sides just basically agreed that having that meeting on the 23rd in San Francisco was not going to help necessarily -- was not going to be useful, that we wanted to get back together first on -- from our side we wanted to get back together on the issue of avoiding incidents in the future within that structure, but not necessarily at that time and place. QUESTION: How did this discussion change from yesterday if both sides were just expressing what they wanted? Is it simply that they said they would get back to us that you consider that more interaction on the issue of the plane occurred today than yesterday? And could you explain what you mean by we'll give them -- what we plan to give them in writing by next week? I didn't understand exactly what you meant. MR. BOUCHER: I think we described the meeting differently today than the one yesterday. We said this meeting today was businesslike. We were able to address issues -- we were able to address all the issues that we wanted to address. So this was the meeting that was forecast in the letter that Ambassador Prueher sent to the Chinese. QUESTION: But what changed? MR. BOUCHER: The tone, the substance, the topics discussed changed. That's two questions. The first one slipped my mind. QUESTION: The other one was, what are you giving then in writing next week? MR. BOUCHER: We are giving them the terms of reference for the meeting that we would propose to have within the military maritime consultative agreement. So the topics, the agenda, the issues, the substance of what we would hope to discuss in that group about avoiding these kinds of incidents in the future. QUESTION: And would that be something that has to be agreed to by both sides, much as the agenda for this meeting was in the letter Prueher wrote? MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I can quite predict that at this point because this will be our proposal for what we would intend to discuss. It is conceivable the Chinese would come back to us and say, well, that's -- you can talk about all that, and we will talk about it with you, but we want to talk about some other things. I don't know if it's -- I don't expect full negotiation of the agenda. The fundamental point we are waiting to hear back from them is whether they wish to pursue this issue in that forum. QUESTION: In the Chinese press conference that was held this morning, they said that there could be a devastating effect if the US decided to give Taiwan arms on the range of the Aegis -- I'm pronouncing that wrong -- Aegis ship, and I am wondering if the US is concerned by this, or do you see this as just rhetoric before an announcement? MR. BOUCHER: I think we have heard statements from the Chinese about their position on Taiwan arms sales, and we have made quite clear our decisions have to be based on Taiwan's legitimate defensive needs. That is the basis for the discussion that is under way within the Administration. But I don't have anything further on that at this moment. QUESTION: Richard, the terms of reference, would that include your interpretation of the relevant international law about the territorial sovereignty, that kind of thing? MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. What they will decide has to go into our proposal for the terms of reference for this working group. I may or may not. I haven't seen the paper at this point. I'm not even sure it's written yet. QUESTION: You mentioned earlier regarding Russia that relations are back on track, and let's talk about China now. Can you say that relations between the United States and China are not on track until this plane is returned? MR. BOUCHER: I'm not here to play word games and allow substitutions for what I might or might not say. The relationship with China, as the President has said, is important; it's a relationship we would like to be productive; it is a relationship wherein we would like to be able to deal with issues in a constructive manner. We have said quite clearly all along that there are issues where the United States and China can cooperate, need to cooperate, and have an interest in cooperating; at the same time, there are going to be issues where we have significant differences, whether it's human rights, as we saw yesterday at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva or whether it's about particular events like the holding of our crew and aircraft. So we are going to raise these issues, we're going to deal with them. Our approach, our hope, is to be able to deal with these issues in a straightforward and businesslike manner, cooperate where we can, and deal seriously with the issue that divide us. At this point, that's about the only characterization I can give you of our approach to the relationship. It's the one that we've had all along, really. QUESTION: Can I follow up on that? Is the issue of the plane going to dominate all other issues with China until that issue is solved, that there won't be progress on any other issues? MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I can make a sweeping statement like that at this point. QUESTION: Can I follow up on Ben's question? Just from the perspective that a lot of US officials had said that we were looking at this meeting and the Chinese behavior in this meeting to see where they wanted to go with the relationship, what conclusions at this point are we drawing? MR. BOUCHER: I'm not sure I have any broader conclusions than the one I just gave you, that if the Chinese want to, we can sit down and we can address some of these very difficult and contentious issues in a businesslike manner. We hope we can make progress on them. We were able to do that and see the return of our air crew. We have now made other proposals to the Chinese that we would hope that they would respond to. But we do think, as I just said, that the issues in our relationship, whether they are issues of cooperation or issues of sharp disagreement, can be addressed in a businesslike manner if the sides want to do that. We have said we want to; we'll see over time if they do. QUESTION: Richard, can you explain what you mean by terms of referencing? Could you offer any examples of what that might include? MR. BOUCHER: I sort of keep getting asked the same question about a paper that I'm not sure if it's been written yet. The terms of reference for any given meeting or session would be things like the topics to be discussed, some of the relevant material that might -- views that might need to be taken into account, how we might want to go about addressing these issues, the kind of presentations we might want to make. I don't know exactly what will go into this particular document, but it will be a description of the meeting as we see it. QUESTION: Wasn't that what Prueher's letter was in the first place to sort of lay the groundwork for the original meeting this week? MR. BOUCHER: To some extent, yes. But this is a further discussion. Admiral Prueher's letter said that we would -- I forget the exact words -- we'd take up the issue of how the two sides saw the incident and how to avoid these incidents in the future. This is a US proposal that says this is a way that we can discuss those issues in more detail with the right people in the room and the right facts on the table where we need to discuss those things. QUESTION: Today the State Department released a Public Announcement warning Chinese Americans about traveling to China. When was the last meeting on Gao Zhan and the other Americans that are being held? MR. BOUCHER: We have had regular meetings on this. I think the last one we had was April 17. When was that? Two days ago in Beijing, where our Embassy political counselor raised the questions of two Americans and of two American legal permanent residents who are in jail in China on various charges. We have raised these kinds of concerns repeatedly. I think you all know there is another person that we can talk about today. I think last week we talked a bit about American citizen Li Shaomin. Li Shaomin, we are concerned about him. The Chinese provide us with very little information about his detention. We are also concerned about the detention of another American by the name of Wu Jianming. We were informed of his detention by Guangzhou authorities on April 10th. He was actually detained in the city of Shenzhen on April 8th, and our consular officer visited him in Guangzhou on April 14th. They have informed us that Mr. Wu is being investigated for alleged espionage activities against China on behalf of Taiwan. So we raised these two cases, as well as the cases of American permanent residents Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang on April 17th at the Foreign Ministry, and we have made clear that we would like to see all these people released and able to return home. QUESTION: So this is a total of six that was brought up at the meeting? MR. BOUCHER: No, it's a total of four. Two Americans, two permanent residents. QUESTION: Are they all -- they have all been accused of espionage? MR. BOUCHER: Well, some of them are being investigated, we are told, for espionage, and some of them we just don't have much information about what they're doing. QUESTION: So that would be the Wu -- Mr. Wu you don't have -- MR. BOUCHER: Mr. Wu is being investigated for alleged espionage. I think the Chinese made a public statement about Gao Zhan. I'm not sure if they said anything in public about Qin Guangguang or Li Shaomin. QUESTION: Was there any response to your inquiry about these people from - - by the Chinese Foreign Ministry? MR. BOUCHER: I would just say at this point that we don't have much information on some of these cases, so I don't think we got much new in those terms. QUESTION: The Chinese said -- this Chinese spokesman today said that the Zhang Hongbao, who was granted an asylum hearing in Guam, is a criminal, and the fact that the United States freed a criminal doesn't help China's readiness in law enforcement to help the United States in these such cases. Can you respond to that? MR. BOUCHER: I think I would refer you to the Department of Justice, as I did yesterday on the questions of Zhang Hongbao, but point out that these things are handled through a very careful and open political -- judicial process in the United States, which I am sure the Department of Justice would be glad to explain to you. QUESTION: Great. But the fact that they are basically saying that this doesn't -- but they're kind of using American detainees as a kind of pawn in this, do you have anything to say about that? MR. BOUCHER: I don't have anything to say because I'm not sure that's implied by what you read me. But I'm not going to respond to something that I haven't seen. QUESTION: First of all, are surveillance flights going to resume? Has any decision been made on that? MR. BOUCHER: Check with the Pentagon. QUESTION: Secondly, do you believe that the threat to leave these talks unless they became productive affected the Chinese decision to change their tone? MR. BOUCHER: Check with the Chinese. QUESTION: Have you made any decision on visas for Taiwan officials? MR. BOUCHER: No. QUESTION: But have you received a request? MR. BOUCHER: We have seen the announcement by President Chen's office in Taiwan of his intention to travel to Latin America. In terms of transits, the criteria we use are the same as we have always used: safety, comfort, convenience of the travelers. I don't have anything new to say on that. As far as Mr. Lee Teng-hui, who is now a private citizen, we have not received a visa request from him. QUESTION: (Inaudible) visit for now at the beginning of May -- MR. BOUCHER: And we have not received a visa request from him. That is all I can tell you. QUESTION: Does that mean he can come into the country without a visa, or what? MR. BOUCHER: No, we have not received a visa request from him, and he would require a US visa to come here. QUESTION: Can you tell us if Secretary Powell endorses the proposals to withdraw American forces from the multinational forces peacekeeping in Sinai, and if he does, what are the merits of that? At this particular time, I mean. MR. BOUCHER: I think at this point, the main point to make is there are no decision on this or on any particular deployment. You have known from the beginning of the Administration that Secretary Rumsfeld was going to look at US deployments overall throughout the world. He has been doing that. He has been discussing various deployments with Secretary Powell and others within the Administration. They talk about these things. There are no decisions, there are no recommendations as far as I know, but you would have to check with Defense as far as any conclusion to his review. Whether one deployment or another is changed or recommended to be changed remains to be seen, but obviously they are looking at every deployment, including US commitments in the Sinai field mission, to see if they are necessary or can be done more expeditiously with fewer or no forces. QUESTION: But aren't you at all concerned about the perception? Whether you like it or not, there is a perception that the United States is retreating from the Middle East. This will strengthen those who have this idea. And also, I mean, there is an armed conflict going between the Israelis and Palestinians, Egyptian relations are strained at best with Israel. Aren't you taking this into consideration? Doesn't that concern you at this time? MR. BOUCHER: Obviously all the factors will be taken into consideration. If this approach is a stage of lists or recommendations, there will be an interagency discussion that tries to take all the factors into consideration. We are just not at that point at this moment. I would say nonetheless that this is a deployment that has lasted a long time -- 30-some years -- and it stands to reason one would want to look at it, discuss it perhaps with the other parties involved, and get some idea whether this was the best way to do it. Obviously we want to continue to make sure that the Sinai remains in the status that was agreed to in Camp David, but it needs to be looked at from time to time as to whether this is the best way to do it. But this, as all other deployments around the world, will be looked at and decide what is the best way to effectively reach the goals. QUESTION: Richard, is it your understanding that as part of the review of the deployment that no US contingent abroad is too small to be looked at for -- I mean, if you guys have 17 people in Cyprus, are you looking to pull them out, too? MR. BOUCHER: We don't -- QUESTION: Well, if you have to say -- MR. BOUCHER: So that takes care of that. QUESTION: No, no. I don't -- MR. BOUCHER: I don't think I can -- you can ask Defense, who is actually conducting -- QUESTION: No, it was this building's understanding that -- MR. BOUCHER: Let's stop a second. You can ask Defense as to their precise criteria for conducting this review. The review of deployments is firmly in their hands. Obviously Secretary Rumsfeld has regular discussions with Dr. Rice, with Secretary Powell about various ideas that are coming up, things being floated, things being looked at. What they come down with in terms of recommendations and then making it a more formal look by all the agencies, we will have to see. I am given to understand we have always, I think, described this as an overall full-scale look at the size and scope of our deployments around the world, so if they have decided that some are too small, then that is up to them. But I am not aware that that was one of the factors going in. QUESTION: You make this sound like the regular review of any policy that we have been hearing about for the last two months anytime we have asked a question on almost anything. But -- MR. BOUCHER: That is not true. QUESTION: But the report today was that Secretary Rumsfeld sprung this on Prime Minister Sharon and President Mubarak apparently without the prior knowledge of the White House and the State Department. Isn't that somewhat unusual? MR. BOUCHER: You can ask Defense about the discussions between Secretary Rumsfeld and Prime Minister Sharon or President Mubarak. I would just tell you that there are various ideas that have been discussed with Secretary Powell, including this one, and that these ideas have been looked at to some extent at the high level, but again, no decisions have been made. You will get from Defense anything about the exact status of consideration of these ideas. QUESTION: Shouldn't a decision be made, though, before it is raised to the parties? MR. BOUCHER: That is almost a theoretical question. I guess in some cases, yes; and in some cases you might want to get some reaction from friends before you decide what to do about particular deployments, get some idea what their reaction might be. QUESTION: Well, you didn't tell us if Secretary Powell endorses the idea. MR. BOUCHER: No, I didn't. QUESTION: Can you tell us? MR. BOUCHER: No. I want to leave the conversations between him and Secretary Rumsfeld on any particular issue -- to them to have. QUESTION: There are some reports from the region that suggest that the US is willing to take a more active role in the Middle East-East peace process, so to speak, between the Israelis and Palestinians, and perhaps some Palestinian officials might be here next week to pave the way for a visit by Yasser Arafat. Is there anything you can say about that? MR. BOUCHER: I hadn't seen those reports. Let me double-check. QUESTION: They are actually coming from a senior Western official who happened to be traveling in Syria. MR. BOUCHER: I am just double-checking to make sure there is not a new line in here. I don't see the old line. I don't know of anything new in the regard. Obviously we've been keeping in close touch with the Palestinians throughout this last period. The Secretary talked to him last week, to Chairman Arafat last week. Our Consul General in Jerusalem has been in very close touch with the Palestinians on a daily basis, and so our diplomats are really working out there in the region with all the parties to try to calm the situation at this point. QUESTION: Has the Ambassador not been in touch with the Palestinians? MR. BOUCHER: Normally, it's our Consul General in Jerusalem that works with the Palestinian leadership. Okay, you wanted to change the subject first? Let's do that. QUESTION: My question is what is the recent development in Ethiopia? Have you heard anything from the Embassy regarding the closing for the -- at Addis Ababa University last night and that the government just making the action for the freedom of speech of students. There was a demonstration yesterday morning. MR. BOUCHER: I wasn't aware of that. I'll have to check on it and we'll get back to you this afternoon. QUESTION: You put out a Public Announcement yesterday. MR. BOUCHER: On travel? QUESTION: On Ethiopia, which talked about the university. Not on the closing of the university, but there was -- MR. BOUCHER: All right, we'll double-check on these things and get back to you. QUESTION: It was reported in the Post this morning that our militaries have taken over most of that area in northeastern Colombia that was to be -- that the government was thinking of turning over to the ELN, the second guerrilla group. And President Chavez of Venezuela, who is over in Cartagena today to discuss with the Andino group the extension of the deadline for the AUCA, for the FTAA, something like that, until 2010, has offered to mediate between the ELN and the Pastrana government. How does the United States see the possibility of his getting involved in this, and does the United States support the turnover of that area to the ELN? MR. BOUCHER: Let me try to deal with all the different elements that you raise. I think we will leave this matter to be handled between the Venezuelans and the Colombians, first of all. Second of all, as far as the Colombian Government approach to these issues, we have supported President Pastrana's approach; we have supported his efforts to make peace, and that includes decisions that he might make about demilitarized areas or whatnot. I guess the only news I saw out of those discussions was President Chavez saying that he was -- any doubts he had had about Plan Colombia were erased. Perhaps that means that, like us, he will be a strong supporter of the Colombian Government's plan now. QUESTION: (Inaudible) any doubts he had about the ineffectiveness of Plan Colombia have been erased? Is that what he said? (Laughter.) MR. BOUCHER: There were words to the effect that he -- QUESTION: And he now supports it? MR. BOUCHER: -- any doubts that he had were no longer operative. QUESTION: (Inaudible.) MR. BOUCHER: Did I miss something there? No. As far as the date of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, you'll have to look at the summit. Nothing has changed at this point. I think that was quite clear from the Buenos Aires meeting. QUESTION: No, I had another angle on this. Were you aware that President Chavez has just announced that he is going to Moscow later this year? His Foreign Minister is there now, and he is going to discuss arms purchases and other defense matters? MR. BOUCHER: No, I wasn't aware. I don't think we have anything particularly to say on countries' relations with each other. QUESTION: Can I ask a logistical question about the summit? The Secretary is planning on going and coming back with the President? He's not like -- there's not any chance of -- MR. BOUCHER: That's right. QUESTION: Okay. QUESTION: Are the aid workers still in Afghanistan? MR. BOUCHER: No, they have come back. They finished their visit. QUESTION: Did they meet any Taliban people in the end? MR. BOUCHER: They went from the 11th to the 19th to assess the humanitarian crisis. They have completed their visit. We are waiting for a readout of their conclusions. As far as specific meetings, I think we'll just have to see when we get reportings from them. That's one of the questions we'll look for. QUESTION: So they were there for eight -- well -- MR. BOUCHER: From the 11th to the 19th. QUESTION: Right. That's quite a long time. Where did they go? MR. BOUCHER: They went into Afghanistan. QUESTION: Did they go to Kabul? Did they go -- where did they -- did they go see the remains of the Buddhas? MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. They went to assess the humanitarian crisis, so I think that was the primary purpose. QUESTION: Do you have any idea how extensively they traveled around? MR. BOUCHER: No, I just don't at this point. We're waiting for them to give us the full rundown. I imagine we didn't communicate very much when they were traveling in Afghanistan. QUESTION: Thanks. QUESTION: Wait, wait, I've got two more questions. First, Thai. Can you give us a readout of the Thai -- the meeting with the Thais? Is everything as hunky-dory as they say it is? MR. BOUCHER: You heard what the Secretary said when he came down -- QUESTION: Yes, but if you -- MR. BOUCHER: I don't think he used the term "hunky-dory" but it probably applies as well as any. The discussions with the Thai Foreign Minister this morning was a broad and rather interesting discussion in that at one point I think the Secretary remarked that you have two foreign ministers meeting and talking principally about economics and the economic programs and situation out there. And that was a great deal of the content of the discussion. It started with the Secretary and the Thai Foreign Minister noting, first of all, that our relations are stable; they're positive; it's a close treaty-ally relationship that has gone on for many, many years and that the new government in Thailand would want to continue in that vein. The Thai Foreign Minister noting particularly the new government was elected under a new constitution, which he felt was more open, democratic and provided for a cleaner election, and that they had a majority that would let them carry forward for some time. They then discussed the economic program, really. And I think it was the Secretary who said you have an opportunity to set an example of this democratic freedom and political freedom, but also of the economic freedom that goes with it and works so well in it. So a lot of the discussion mirrored the themes that you will find in the Secretary's op-ed piece this morning on the Summit of the Americas, that economic and political freedom work together. Again, that was the sort of main theme of the President's speech at the OAS yesterday and then of the discussion with the Thai Foreign Minister today. So they discussed the economic program, the example that Thailand can set of economic and political openness. They discussed the sort of basic Thai Government approach to stimulating the economy, but keeping open to investment, to privatization and things like that. The Secretary is supporting that. And then they also discussed the counter-narcotics programs that we had together, and various things that we were doing, not only with each other, but some of the developments in the region. QUESTION: Was there any mention of this recent gold scandal, the false US bond scandal? Or did the Thai ask for any technical assistance in dealing with this Muslim insurgency in the south, on the Malaysian border? MR. BOUCHER: No, those topics didn't come up. QUESTION: Okay. And then my last question is the news of the day. Tell us about the meeting with Paul McCartney. MR. BOUCHER: The meeting with Paul McCartney? Let me go back and get some of my numbers and facts together for this one, too. Once again, the Secretary gave you a few words, I think, at the entrance about the discussions that they had with Mr. McCartney and Ms. Mills. These were good and interesting discussions. They are both involved in the humanitarian de-mining programs. The United States is spending a lot of money and a lot of time, a lot of effort around the world to support humanitarian de-mining. So they discussed, first of all, the people who are affected by mines, left- over mines and the terrible accidents that have occurred around the world. Ms. Mills talked about some of her visits to Croatia, to India, to places like that where she has seen the effects of these things. They talked about the overall approach to humanitarian de-mining, and then the approach to sort of the use of mines in the world and how things were going with that. Then the Secretary, I think, commended the work that the United Nations Association of the USA is doing, that Mr. William Luers was there, the President of the UN Association of the USA, and the work that Sir Paul McCartney and Ms. Mills were making in this effort. He reiterated US support for this specific program, the good program that we do support, and that the United Nations Association of USA has helped to sponsor, which is the Adopt-a-Minefield program. Let me address two aspects of this. First of all, on the money side, just to give you some background, we provide humanitarian de-mining assistance to 35 countries around the world. I think we have got some fact sheets for you on this. Fiscal year 2001, we are providing about $90 million in mine action assistance that does clearance, training, mine awareness, assisting survivors, families and research and development of new technologies. Over the past eight years, we have spent nearly $500 million for humanitarian de- mining. On the other question of the approach to mines in general, Ms. Mills I think pointed out that you have in many cases the sort of persistence of mines that armies leave them behind and leave, and that it was important for all of us to look for ways of using what are self-deactivating mines, self-sanitizing mines. And, in fact, the Secretary made the point that the United States is a party to the 1996 Amended Mines Protocol of the Convention on Conventional Weapons. This is a protocol that places effective curves on anti-personnel land mines, requiring that they be detectable and that remotely-delivered mines contained reliable self- destruct and self-deactivation features in order to protect civilians and avoid for these dangerous "dumb" mines from being left behind. The United States mine programs are all geared to that. Those are the kinds of mines that we use, that do self-deactivate and self-sanitize. So that was pretty much the content of all this. QUESTION: Richard, 139 countries, but not the United States, think the best way to do is to ban land mines, and Mr. Clinton wrestled with it for months and finally concluded -- probably for political reasons, South Korea -- that the US couldn't do that, it needed land mines to discourage North Korea from overwhelming South Korea. The Secretary today said he still has problems with the convention. I presume he means the treaty. He didn't say what his problems are. Can you say -- and there has been nothing from the Administration that I can find, but maybe it's there someplace in a file -- can you say what the Bush Administration finds wrong with a flat ban on mines? MR. BOUCHER: I thought we have done this before. QUESTION: Have we? I'm sorry. If we did, I apologize. MR. BOUCHER: The reservations that this Administration has about the Ottawa Convention are indeed about Korea and about our deployments in Korea, where we think that the situation that we have there is necessary to maintain until circumstances should change on the Peninsula, or new technology should come along. But we do point out that we are heavily engaged in looking at new technologies, and that there are many things that we do with regard to land mines that are responsible, that support and only use detectible or self-deactivating mines, that the practice of the US forces in this regard is very responsible. We don't leave mine fields behind to hurt civilians. And so I think in that regard, the United States practice has been very, very responsible around the world, and continues to be at this stage, although we do have these unique circumstances that we think prevent the United States from joining in the Ottawa Convention. QUESTION: Thank you. MR. BOUCHER: Thank you.[End] Released on April 19, 2001
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