Press
Conference
by
US Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell
following the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council
Secretary Powell: Thanks to the Government of Iceland for hosting
our conference. We have enjoyed wonderful hospitality and we
are deeply indebted to them.
I am pleased to follow on from Lord Robertson’s presentation
to report that we did have a very successful meeting of NATO
Foreign Ministers here. I was happy to brief my colleagues in
our meeting on the historic treaty that the United States concluded
yesterday with Russia. They all welcomed this agreement which
will dramatically reduce nuclear warheads on both sides.
I noted that May 16th, this coming Thursday, will mark the
formal conclusion of NATO AWACS flights over the United States
and I thanked our Allies for having offered this vital support
for America in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington.
Today’s meeting also revealed, I believe, a remarkable
degree of consensus on the way forward as we approach our summit
meeting in Prague this November. Our Allies share our views
that NATO needs to develop new capabilities, take in new members
and develop new relationships with Russia, Ukraine and the other
countries in the Partnership for Peace.
My colleagues and I have agreed that NATO, the entire Alliance
and not just the United States, needs to develop its capabilities
to meet new threats we are facing. We all need to have highly
mobile, sustainable forces with modern combat capabilities.
Forces that can get to the fight - wherever it is - and carry
out a mission with efficiency and precision.
We all look forward to inviting new members into NATO. We congratulated
the nine aspirant countries for the progress they have made
to date while stressing that they all need to continue their
reform efforts. While we will not make any final decisions until
the Prague Summit in November, we remain hopeful that we will
have a robust round of enlargement at Prague.
We also welcomed the new relationship NATO is building with
Russia. We believe we can lay the foundation for increased cooperation
between NATO and Moscow while fully protecting the Alliance’s
ability to act independently. This afternoon we will approve
creation of a new NATO-Russia Council in our meeting with Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov. We look forward to the summit meeting
in Rome on May 28th, where President Bush, Allied Heads of State
and Government, and President Putin will sign the new NATO-Russia
Agreement and hold the very first meeting at 20. We hope this
will open a new chapter in NATO-Russia relations.
We also signaled our desire to deepen our relations with Ukraine
and with the nations of the Partnership for Peace. We particularly
expressed our desire to increase cooperation with the Central
Asian states who are in the forefront in the struggle against
terrorism.
Overall, in my judgment, this has been an extremely productive
meeting so far, and I look forward to the other meetings we
will be having here this afternoon and throughout tomorrow.
With that I would be delighted to take your questions.
Question: Mr. Secretary, as you head into your meeting this
evening with Foreign Minister Ivanov, could you give us an idea
of the unresolved issues still pending with the Russians?
Secretary Powell: With respect to, of course, the treaty on
strategic arms, that’s done. We’ll do some tidying
up and shake hands on it formally. But that’s done and
ready for our President’s signature next week.
On the political declaration that will also be issued at the
time of the Summit, there may be a few outstanding issues, but
nothing of any great significance. I think all of that documentation
is in pretty good shape.
I’m sure that Foreign Minister Ivanov and myself will
discuss, as we have in the past, proliferation issues, especially
with respect to Iran. There is a difference of opinion there.
It’s an area that we discuss every time we are together,
and it is an issue I am sure that President Bush will be discussing
with President Putin as well. Otherwise, I am looking forward
to a productive meeting with Foreign Minister Ivanov this evening.
The preparations for the Summit are well underway.
There are some trade issues that cause me more concern than
I would have anticipated when I first came into this job. Many
years ago, when I used to come to NATO meetings as Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I worried about strategic weapons
going back and forth and, right now we are in a poultry dispute
with Russia. So I am more worried about chickens going back
and forth than missiles going back and forth. This is good.
It is much better to worry about these kinds of exchanges than
the kinds of exchanges I used to worry about.
So I think that our relationship with Russia is on a very,
very sound footing and I think it will be greatly improved as
a result of the upcoming Summit. I think that the treaty that
we concluded yesterday with Russia on the strategic framework,
as well as the agreement we will reach this afternoon on the
NATO-Russia Council, is indicative of how things are improving
with Russia as we move forward into the 21st century.
Question: Secretary of State, what evidence have you seen to
encourage you that NATO will succeed in closing the capability
gap, and how worried are you about the spending levels of defense
of European governments?
Secretary Powell: I’m concerned about it and we have discussed
it. I think that we need to do more. We need to modernize our
force. We need to put into our force structure - the NATO force
structure - more lift capability. The kinds of challenges NATO
may be facing in the future won’t always be located in
Central Europe. NATO has to have the ability to move to other
places.
I think a greater investment is needed in communications capacity
and intelligence capacity, in navigation devices that allow
you to have precise information about a potential opponent and
precise information about what your own forces are doing.
There are many things that need to be done. I think there is
a sound plan that has been in effect since 1999 of some 58 specific
initiatives. I think that between now and Prague, however, that
has to be narrowed down to some greater specificity. Pick five
or six of these capabilities that you are really going to focus
on and you’re going to be serious about and you’re
going to invest in.
I know that Lord Robertson has been giving this speech to all
of my colleagues. It’s one I take very much to heart. The
United States, which has the largest defense budget of all is
continuing to add more money to our budget in order to deal
with the threats that we know are out there, that we see are
out there. And we think that all of our colleagues in NATO should
be doing likewise. Not just making sure that they are spending
adequate amounts for their defense, but making sure they spend
it wisely. Rationalization of spending across the Alliance,
I think, is one area that deserves greater attention.
Question: Mr. Secretary, you’ve referred to the NATO enlargement,
especially to the Prague enlargement, and you call it a "robust"
one. I want to ask you why we cannot find these words - "a
robust NATO enlargement" in the final communiqué.
Secretary Powell: I wasn’t the author, but had I been
I would have put it in there.
Question: You weren’t the author, but I guess the U.S.
delegation made this contribution.
Secretary Powell: We made our contribution and I’m not
sure why the specific choice of words was made. But I use robust
here and robust is, I think, a pretty accurate description of
the feelings of my colleagues and the positions that I see emerging
in all of the Alliance members, and I think the position that
is emerging as a consensus within the Alliance, that it will
be a robust enlargement, meaning more rather than fewer admissions
to the Alliance as a result of the Prague Summit.
Question: How many? How many states will be invited? Could
you tell us that?
Secretary Powell: A robust number (laughter).
No, it's very important that we not start giving out specific
numbers, or saying who looks like they are in, who looks like
they are out. All of the nine aspirants have to keep working
as hard as they can to meet the requirements of the Membership
Action Plan and other things that they have to do. And so it
is best not to start lifting the curtain yet as to who might
get in or what the number might be.
Question: By saying today that the idea is to ask all the possible
aspirant countries to join on the same day, don't you have some
doubts that it will create difficulties in the process of ratification
in national parliaments as, let's say Baltic states and Bulgaria
are maybe not in the same capability level?
Secretary Powell: I don't think that I said all aspirant countries
on the same day would be invited, but those who are selected
for membership, I think it is best to invite them all as a group
and then the ratification of the protocol will take its natural
course. So I prefer to see it done in that way, as opposed to
other models that have been suggested, such as the Regatta,
where you put them in queue in some way. They have all been
working hard. They all filled out their membership application,
they all have been doing what we asked them to do, and if they
meet the standards that were put before them, if they meet the
test that we will apply to them in the course of the summer
as we get near Prague, then it seems to me we should invite
whatever number in all at the same time. That's my judgment.
Question: Do you think that NATO, especially when it expands
to perhaps 25 - 26 members will have a military future as well
as a political future? Especially since, as in Afghanistan,
it's very much a multi-national coalition force rather than
a NATO-based one.
Secretary Powell: No, I think that NATO has a bright military
future. I mean, when you look at Afghanistan there are some
fourteen NATO nations who are there, not necessarily in a NATO
capacity, but bringing NATO capability, bringing NATO training,
bringing NATO experience. It was training within NATO, to understand
modern doctrine, to work with one another, learn how to operate
on a battlefield with other countries and other soldiers who
speak different languages, have different equipment, but nevertheless
can operate together. That doesn't just come out of the ether,
it comes out of NATO. It comes out of our experience in training
together, operating together and spending a great deal of time
on exercises in our various joint commands throughout NATO.
So 14 NATO countries represented in some way in Afghanistan,
and seven of them are involved in active combat. And when the
United States, in a time of crisis, when we have planes flying
into our buildings, we feel absolutely comfortable in going
to NATO and saying, "Please send AWACs over. Come guard
the continental United States." And I don't know who's
in that airplane, all I know is it's a NATO airplane, with a
NATO crew that has been trained to NATO standards. That is a
tremendous capability to have to available to the Alliance for
whatever missions might come the Alliance's way.
So I think the Alliance is as relevant as it has been in the
past, both in political terms and in military terms. With the
new nations coming into the Alliance, they will bring their
unique capabilities in as well. I think that adds to the value
of the Alliance and it adds to the ability of the Alliance to
deal with the kinds of challenges that I believe are out there.
I have seen this not just in Afghanistan. I saw it in Desert
Storm when we brought forces from Europe -- not only our own
forces but forces from a number of countries represented here
today -- and they could operate together on the battlefield
because we had practiced that same kind of military action on
the plains of Central Europe. So I think that it is very relevant,
and I have seen it over and over and over in the course of my
military and diplomatic career.
Question: Mr. Secretary, on weapons proliferation and linking
it to this strategic arms agreement with Russia. One of the
great problems and concerns about proliferation is the security
of stockpiled weapons, stockpiled materials inside the former
Soviet Union, in Russia today. Are there going to be additional
measures as part of this new strategic deal to help provide
more money for securing nuclear materials, more money to help
the Russians, dismantle warheads and so on? Most think tanks
seem to suggest that it is the more likely source of the proliferation
of nuclear weaponry.
Secretary Powell: Not as a direct result of this treaty, nor
was that the purpose of the treaty. We have a number of bilateral
programs with the Russians dealing comprehensive threat reduction,
"Nunn-Lugar" programs. We're working at some other
interesting programs having to do with Russian debt that might
be used to create new opportunities to help the Russians get
rid of their nuclear stockpile as well as their chemical stockpile
and any other technologies that we do not wish to see floating
free throughout the world.
And so I think, perhaps, that with this treaty, with both sides
going down to much, much lower levels of deployed warheads,
more warheads are going to be going into stockpile waiting for
destruction. Therefore, that gives me greater ammunition to
take to my Congress and encourage them to put more resources
to this kind of cooperative reduction program with the Russians.
So I think I'm emboldened by it.
One has to remember that even as we came down from higher numbers
of nuclear weapons under previous treaties, even then, you couldn't
get rid of the warheads that were freed up, as quickly as you
might like, because there is a limit, both in the United States
and in the Russian Federations as to how quickly you can break
apart a warhead, dispose of it, get rid of it's components.
It is not the simple disposal problem that some people think
it is. It is hard to do, it takes time, it's very technical,
sensitive work. We understand the importance of keeping control
of our stockpiles, and it is an area of continuing discussion
with the Russian Federation.
Thank you.
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