Press Availability
with Secretary
of State, Madeleine K. Albright,
at the Meeting of the Permanent Joint Council
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: It's a beautiful city for meetings with my colleagues
in NATO and its many partners. In this morning's meeting we reviewed progress
made in Kosovo, Bosnia and throughout Southeast Europe. I emphasized the
importance of being persistent in pursuit of our objectives and in providing
the resources required to achieve them. In this connection, I welcome
the expressed willingness of several allies to provide additional judges,
prosecutors and police for Kosovo. The recent elections in Bosnia and
Croatia's new and very hopeful direction are clearly welcome signs. Serious
obstacles in the region remain, most notably in Belgrade, but overall
trends are positive. Meanwhile, SFOR and KFOR continue to play indispensable
security roles. We also discussed efforts to improve our military capability
in light of 21st century threats. I reiterated America's support for a
stronger Europe that is able to act more effectively. I also stressed
the importance of developing this capability in a way that enhances European
integration, strengthens NATO and fully preserves the transatlantic link.
Also during our meeting I announced an important American initiative to
improve transatlantic cooperation in the area of defense trade.
The initiative is a package of seventeen specific steps aimed at getting
U.S. defense exports to NATO countries, Japan and Australia faster and
more smoothly. These measures will make American technology and expertise
more readily available to our allies thereby strengthening NATO and contributing
to the health and productivity of defense industry on both sides of the
Atlantic. This translates into a sturdier technological foundation for
NATO in the 21st century.
I also had constructive consultations with my colleagues on arms control,
non-proliferation and the issue of National Missile Defense. It is vital
that as allies we continue to cooperate closely in responding to the threats
we all face from weapons of mass destruction and the spread of advanced
missile technology.
I am now looking forward to the Permanent Joint Council meeting with
Foreign Minister Ivanov and I also look forward to meetings tomorrow at
the NATO-Ukraine Commission and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
Now I would be pleased to answer your questions.
Q: First question on Lebanon, yesterday you said you were in favor of
the Lebanese army deploying in south Lebanon do you still think that's
a realistic prospect and do you endorse the Israeli warnings to attack
the Syrian targets in Lebanon in response to any attacks on northern Israel?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Well first of all let me say I've been catching up
with this during somebody's night and somebody's morning as we have been
coming in. I've been in touch with Prime Minister Barak and we have also
been in touch with the United Nations and I have been consulting my colleagues
here. As you know yesterday the U.N. Security Council had a presidential
statement which really referred to support for Security Council Resolution
425 and that Resolution 425 has a part in it that is about withdrawal
which the Israelis have now carried out or are about to be finished with
and then what will happen is that the United Nations will confirm that
withdrawal. The Secretary General's representative, Mr. Larson, is either
on his way or is already in the region and he will be the one that will
be carrying out the initial, for his team, the certification of the withdrawal.
We would expect that UNIFIL would play a very important role in fulfilling
a part of the resolution that makes it clear that the UN should assist
the government of Lebanon to ensure its effective authority in the area.
And in this regard I think, it will be important for everyone to be supportive
of UNIFIL and we are working with our Security Council partners to see
that UNIFIL's can carry out its responsibilities. I think it is very important
for calm and restraint to be exercised. I do think that as I've said that
the Lebanese army and Lebanese police do have a role in helping to make
the area more secure and I think that it's important that this all be
done in a very orderly way and it's very important that the international
community make clear to all parties that restraint is very important.
And I hope very much that this is the beginning of the process of reestablishing
the authority, the Lebanese authority over its own country.
Q: Madame Secretary can you give us your reaction to Moscow hosting an
indicted war criminal and could you tell us what you are planning to say
to the Russian Foreign Minister? Do you think that theYugoslav Defense
Minister should have been arrested while in Moscow?.
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: We have already made clear and I will make clear
again that it is inappropriate for an indicted war criminal to be hosted
in Moscow. The Russians voted for the War Crimes Tribunal, they have been
a part of Resolution 1244 and it is inappropriate for him to have been
there and to have been hosted and that message will be made loud and clear
today in the course of the Permanent Joint Council.
Q: On NMD, the Europeans don't feel a threat from North Korea as the
American Government does, how are you going to solve this difference in
view?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Well, first of all, I think that we have had very
good discussions on NMD and the threat, not only today, but we have arranged
for all our allies to be fully briefed on their own programs and on the
threats. And those kinds of consultations are going to go on and briefings
are going to go on. We talked about it this morning in a session and it
is my belief that the allies felt much reassured by the fact that we would
continue these kinds of briefings. That we recognize the ABM Treaty as
central to the arms control system. We believe it can be modified in order
to allow for an NMD system should that decision be made. I think today,
you would have to ask them, but from my sense was that there was a general
sense that they felt much more in the picture and that we will continue
to have these kinds of discussions. The United States will make a decision
based on four criteria, which are the threat, the technology, whether
it works, the costs and how it effects the overall national security picture
and arms control and our allies. So those four criteria will be taken
into consideration.
Q: Do you think it will be a positive step if France decides to employ
ground troops in Lebanon and would you encourage France to do so?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: I do believe that France has a very important role
to play. In my on going discussions with my good friend Foreign Minister
Vedrine, we have talked about how UNIFIL will work. The Secretary General
believes that UNIFIL needs to fill be strengthen. He is in New York and
calling for additional assistance and I think that France's role in this
is very, very important and (they have) special connections and special
expertise and so we would be very supportive of that.
Q: Just back to Lebanon again. What specific steps have you taken with
the Syrian authorities to try to make it clear that you expect them to
try to reign in groups such as Hezbollah in southern Lebanon? And what
pressures have you brought upon the Israelis to exercise restraint themselves,
since clearly speaking to French Ministers they obviously want to see
very clear conditions and parameters before they send their troops in
harms way.
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: I spoke with Foreign Minister Shara, you'll have
to forgive me about time, 36 hours ago, somewhere, and urged him to use
Syrian influence to exercise restrain over the Hezbollah. And to make
clear that it is important that this withdrawal go forward peacefully
and that they have a special responsibility to make sure that the situation
is not exacerbated. As for Israelis, their desire is to remove themselves
as they are basically out now from the security zone and to be within
their borders and to have the situation in southern Lebanon stabilize
with use of UNIFIL and the local forces and not to have to be put in the
position where they are subjected to attack by Katooshas. And as I said,
we are urging everyone to exercise restraint. I have had a number of telephone
calls, not only from Foreign Minister Shara but I have spoken to other
regional leaders, I spoke with President Mubarak and Crown Prince Abdullah
and have generally tried to spread the word about the need for the international
community to assist in making sure that this withdraw is as orderly and
calm as possible.
Q: On National Missile Defense, do you think it is essentially the fairly
public objections and worries expressed by your European Allies that are
the prime cause why Moscow has not engaged at all so far in negotiating
amendments to the ABM Treaty? And if I may ask a second question on Kosovo.
You welcomed the provisions of more resources by European Allies yet the
Administration had a rather close call on Capitol Hill recently on the
Byrd-Warner Amendment about money and authority for U.S. troops there,
and accord from burden sharing by the Europeans, do you think that still
more has to be done by the Europeans to stave off a return of something
like that?
SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: Let me do the last one first. I think that we won
that vote, which is nice. We worked very hard on it and so did the Europeans
in terms of helping, providing the appropriate information about how much
they have done. We have said that they have helped, that the Europeans
are carrying the lion's share. The problem has been in the time between
the pledge and the delivery of the money or whatever part is needed. And
I think that here we are going to need, and I keep talking to my colleagues
about this, the more specific information that there can be about what
they have provided the more it helps in terms of dealing with some of
the congressional questions. As I said in my opening statement, I was
very glad to hear that some of the European countries were going to assist
in providing prosecutors and judges. We talked about additional police.
General Ralston discussed the need for additional forces especially as
there is a summer rotation coming up. So, while I believe that the American
Congress has to understand that the Europeans are in fact doing a great
deal, there's a great deal to be done and we all have to keep providing
what we can.
On the first question, I would not make that linkage. I think that in
my discussions with the Russians we have been briefing them and they need
to understand that the NMD system is not directed against them, that it
is designed to deal with these new threats that we've identified. And
I think that they need to absorb that lesson. How they're thinking and
that of the Europeans is connected is hard for me to tell. I think that
what I have found today is that while in reading the European press I
am reading about some skepticism, I felt that today's discussion in the
NAC was one in which there seemed to be an understanding of where we were
going and some gratitude, I guess, for the fact that we were having very
frequent briefings on this and the statement that I made reiterating again
and again, so it wasn't new, that the ABM Treaty was something that we
considered central and that what we wanted to do was not to dump it but
to adjust it.
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