Special Briefing on Secretary Rice's Schedule and U.S. Priorities at the UN General Assembly

So, Kristen.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Good morning. Good to see everyone. The White House just concluded a briefing on the President's schedule, so I'll hop right into the Department's key events for next week.

On Friday afternoon, today, the Deputy Secretary will attend a high-level event on Darfur where he'll call for rapid deployment of the UN-African Union peacekeeping force and urge all parties to work to a political solution to the crisis.

QUESTION: Is that in New York?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: It is in New York. It is.

Tomorrow on Saturday, Secretary Rice will attend a high-level meeting on Iraq, co-chaired by Prime Minister Maliki and the Secretary General. This meeting will discuss implementation of Resolution 1770, which you'll remember was adopted last month to call for more -- greater UN presence on the ground in Iraq to help the Iraqi people on the political process, reconciliation, economic reconstruction. The International Compact on Iraq will also be discussed. Secretary General -- I'm sorry, Secretary Rice will urge Iraq's international partners to follow through on their pledges on financial and debt relief to Iraq.

On Sunday, September 23rd, the Secretary will host the first foreign minister-level meeting of the Afghanistan Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board. This is a multinational body created by the Afghanistan Compact, and it's an opportunity for us to reaffirm U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, to call for more energy on the part of the international community in supporting Afghanistan's reconstruction and political process and also to reiterate U.S. support for greater relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, including through cross-border trade, security and development initiatives.

On Sunday afternoon, the Secretary will meet with the Quartet principals, with Quartet representative Tony Blair, who we expect will provide a readout of his two trips to the region as well as his thoughts on the best way forward.

The issue of Palestinian development will also be discussed Monday morning, September 24th, at a meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee which will be hosted by Norway. On Monday afternoon, the Secretary is scheduled to make remarks at the high-level climate event hosted by the Secretary General. She'll discuss our approach, which the White House went into in some detail this morning, in developing a post-Kyoto framework. And again, we want to develop this by the end of 2008. And her remarks, by the way, at this event will help lay the groundwork for the event she'll host here of major economies on September 27th.

On Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the Secretary will follow the President's schedule as the White House discussed this morning. The President will address the General Assembly on the 25th at 9:45 a.m. He will meet with the Secretary General as well as the UN General Assembly President Kerim. He will attend a UN Security Council meeting on Africa, chaired by French President Sarkozy, where he'll highlight the U.S. commitment to conflict prevention, resolution and reconstruction in Africa. He will also underscore the point the Deputy Secretary is making today about the need for rapid deployment of the UN-AU force and a peaceful democratic transition in all of Sudan.

On Wednesday morning, Secretary Rice will host a meeting of the GCC+2, that's the Gulf Cooperation Countries plus Jordan and Egypt. They'll discuss a number of regional issues, including the two-state solution, Iraq, Iran and others. On Wednesday, she will also attend a G-8 Foreign Ministers lunch where proposed agenda items include Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and the Middle East peace process. And on Wednesday evening, she will host a transatlantic dinner which brings together NATO, EU and Swiss Foreign Ministers.

Thursday afternoon, she'll host a meeting of the ASEAN foreign ministers. Among other things, Secretary Rice will press for ASEAN leverage to end the crackdown in Burma and to initiate genuine democratic reforms in Burma. On Thursday evening, she'll attend a meeting of the Kosovo Contact Group where she'll press for the need for a viable way forward on Kosovo consistent with the Ahtisaari plan.

On the morning of Friday, September 28th, she'll host a breakfast for women leaders to discuss all of the U.S. commitments to the promotion of women worldwide. And then on Friday morning, she'll host a meeting of the P-5+1 on Iran. As you know, Nick Burns is hosting a meeting of political directors here at the Department here today, and this is the ministerial follow on to that meeting.

On the October -- on the afternoon of October 1st, she'll attend a launch of the Partnership for Democratic Governance. This is an initiative which will establish a new partnership of interested countries and international and regional organizations to help weak democracies and fragile states build capacity to govern and deliver basic services. This will be co-hosted by OECD and the UN Development Programme. And then immediately after that meeting she'll make remarks at the Community of Democracies Foreign Ministers meeting.

October 1st is currently scheduled to be the Secretary's last day in New York, but as always is the case at UNGA, there inevitably will be some scheduling changes and so PA will keep you updated.

And with that, I'm happy to take some questions.

QUESTION: Can I just ask you about this. Deputy Secretary Negroponte today and then the President next week, and presumably Secretary Rice all through the week, you said -- you're talking about Darfur and the quick deployment. But you also said something about peaceful democratic transition in all of Sudan.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: They --

QUESTION: What -- are you trying to get rid of Bashir now?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: No, what I was referring to was the meeting in Tripoli on October 27th regarding next steps and implementation of the CPA. And so what we're talking about is a transition from the current situation where parties are not implementing their cease-fire agreement, there's violence against civilians, violations of the UN's arms embargo to a Sudan that's stable, at peace throughout the country, where the parties are complying with their international legal obligations.

QUESTION: The CPA, though, is the North-South agreement.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: There's the CPA and the DPA and we want both fully implemented.

QUESTION: Okay. But does that imply that you would support a vote for independence for the South when that referendum comes up?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We have said repeatedly that we support Sudan's territory integrity. We're not trying to --

QUESTION: All right. So I shouldn't look at this peaceful democratic transition as some kind of change in what you --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: There has been no change in policy. What the Deputy Secretary and President Bush will be pressing for is first, as I said, some move -- some steps to move forward on the security side. And we think that's -- that an essential piece of that is deployment of this UN-AU peacekeeping force. We think it needs to happen more quickly and there are a lot of parts to that. One is the UN and the AU need to reach agreement on all the pieces of it. One is that troop-contributing countries need to come up with their contributions to the force and critically the Government of Sudan needs to eliminate any obstacles to deployment of this force and that's something that we've pressed on consistently.

QUESTION: Can we just look at tomorrow's high-level meeting on Iraq? Despite Ambassador Khalilzad's op-ed talking about a greater role for the United Nations and the push that the Administration has made on this? Unless I'm mistaken, I don't get the sense that there has been a great rush by the UN to try to do a great deal more to expand its presence dramatically. Can you -- correct me if I'm wrong -- but can you give us a sense of what exactly you'd like to see the UN do and, you know, what kinds of soundings you get about their wishing to increase their footprint?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We actually think we've seen some good progress on that since the Secretary General took office. You'll remember that we asked him early on to make this one of his priorities. We think the UN has a role to play in political reconciliation, in the constitutional review process, in advising the Iraqis on how to implement their agreements under the compact. And so we called on the Secretary General to consider a broader UN role. He went to Iraq early on to explore this issue and then supported our efforts in the Council to adopt the resolution, expanding the UN's mandate. That resolution was just adopted on August 10th, so we wouldn't expect to see it implemented this quickly, but this is one of things that will come up at the Maliki-Ban hosted meeting attended by the Secretary.

QUESTION: And what would you actually like to see them do and when would you like to see them do it? I mean, for example, let's just take one of those -- political reconciliation. Do you want to see the Secretary General appoint someone in particular to take a lead on that? When would you like to see that happen?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: He has recently appointed someone, Staffan de Mistura, to be the replacement for Qazi to be the -- his special representative in Iraq. And there really are a lot of ways the UN can participate -- obviously as part of the neighbors, in expanded neighbors meetings. But there really may be a host of other things they can do to help promote reconciliation, constructive relationships with Iraq's neighbors. All of these things will be subject to discussion at the meeting, so I don't want to prejudge the outcome of that. But really, we want broad thinking by everyone supporting Iraq about the ways that the UN can bring their special expertise to bear in Iraq.

Yes.

QUESTION: Oh --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Sorry.

QUESTION: It was a direct follow-up, actually --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Okay. Yeah.

QUESTION: There was a hope that the UN would expand its presence, meaning the number of people. But when you talk to them, it seems like while there's an increased willingness to go there, security may not be so amenable and maybe they might expand their presence from like 55 or 60 to 70. It doesn't seem so earth-shattering. I mean, is it -- is the big deal what they are actually doing on the ground versus the actual number of people there? I mean --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: The UN is supporting -- currently is supporting Iraq's efforts, both with their on-the-ground efforts and then also some things outside the country. And the Iraq compact meetings are a good example. But obviously we think that the kind of presence we're talking about and the kind of activity we're talking about is going to require more people on the ground. We understand and fully appreciate the security risk. This is something we're very sensitive to, but we do want to see more UN officials on the ground in Baghdad. And I think this is one of the things the Secretary will be raising at the meeting.

QUESTION: But would -- is more -- like, ten or fifteen is more, but is that the more that you are looking for?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I don't want to assess, you know, at this point, the exact number. It could depend on a lot of different factors. And obviously these are people in Baghdad and outside of Baghdad. There are people in safer areas of the country and less safe areas and so, I can't -- couldn't pick the exact number, but we do think there's going to be -- need to be some kind of meaningful increase in the UN presence on the ground.

QUESTION: Just a technical thing on --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Sure.

QUESTION: They're going to discuss the compact, but it's not actually a compact group meeting, right? Or are the other members --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: There are two items on the agenda, both the compact and question of this implementation of the resolution.

QUESTION: Yes. But are the compact group members all going to be there? Or is it -- I thought it was just a three-way. Maybe I'm wrong.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: No, it's not a three-way. It's a -- let’s see confirmed attendees: the P-5, G-8, EU, European Commission, World Bank, IMF.

QUESTION: So it is (inaudible) compact --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Iran, Kuwait, Syria.

QUESTION: Iran, Kuwait, Syria?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Italy and Portugal is who I have attended. But you may want to double-check with the UN on the exact attendees. Yes.

QUESTION: Do you know at what level Iran will be represented?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I don't.

Yes.

QUESTION: When Secretary Rice make a remark on UN General Assembly will she touch the Taiwan issue?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: She's -- Secretary Rice is speaking to the General Assembly on climate change specifically, and so the substance of her remarks will address the President's initiative on a post-Kyoto framework. She'll talk about some of our priorities, including the importance of technology and that issue, the need for some kind of global goal supported by national efforts. And so, no, I would expect to her to limit her remarks to climate change.

QUESTION: Okay. Does she have the arrangement of meeting with Chinese Premier Minister -- Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi or she will meet him in this building after the UN conference?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: They're -- I don't want to get into too much detail about some of her bilateral meetings, but I think that she will be in the room with Chinese representatives at different points throughout the week, including at the Security Council session. I think that's at the ministerial level, although I can't recall exactly.

Yes.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) to check again on the schedule of the Secretary of State. Is there going to be a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister? And if so, what kind of questions are going to be discussed?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: She will be meeting with the Ukrainians, and I think that was in the schedule released to you. I think they'll discuss a range of issues, including upcoming parliamentary elections. But for more detail on that, I'd want to refer you to EUR, the experts, because it's a bilateral.

Yes.

QUESTION: Could you take a general question of bilaterals? I mean, how many are -- just name them to the extent you know them without going into them.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Sure. They -- the Secretary will have bilaterals with the Saudis, and that can -- will I expect draw us a number of issues, including Middle East peace process, two-state solution, Iraq. She will have a bilateral with the Kuwaitis, and I think that will certainly talk about Iraq and we'll welcome Kuwait's continued support for the process.

Let me double check. She will have a Korean bilateral. I would expect that to talk about six-party talks.

QUESTION: South Korean bilateral, right? (Laughter.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Yes, sorry. Thanks for the correction. Turkey and India and -- I'm sorry, Colombia and Congo, DRC.

Yes.

QUESTION: Just on Iraq again, can you give us a sense of the time scale or the level of urgency on this issue? I mean, obviously greater UN involvement on Iraq is hardly perennial to some extent. Can you give us a sense of any kind of time horizon in terms of wanting the UN to increase its tasks and presence?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We'll see what comes out of the meeting, but obviously the sooner the better. And I should say -- I should say very clearly, the UN already is supportive of efforts on Iraq. We just think that there are some limitations on what they can do because of the limited presence on the ground and because they were operating under a limited mandate. We now have a greatly expanded mandate, thanks to the Security Council action. And we have a Secretary General who's motivated and I think energized to really be -- play an important role on this issue. And so we hope they can start implementing the resolution as soon as possible.

Yes.

QUESTION: Just to go back to that. Some of -- you know, when you talk to people in the UN about Iraq, a common refrain is that they haven't been given the political space to do the things that they'd like to do because U.S. -- you know, diplomats are on the ground in Baghdad with far greater presence, doing far more. And so I guess my question is: Is the U.S. going to make a commitment to move over and let the UN take control of some of these issues?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I think we've done two things recently in that regard. One is to invite the UN to co-host this process on the international compact. We specifically called for UN leadership on the issue because we think they have a real expertise in advising the Iraqis on this. And the second is this resolution where we were the chief proponents of some language calling on the UN to exercise more influence in the political process. So yes, I think we're working very cooperatively with the UN. I think there's a lot of space for them to be constructive and helpful and we hope they will.

Yes.

QUESTION: Are you considering a new resolution on -- or any steps regarding the presidential elections in Lebanon?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: They -- PRST was agreed to yesterday, which both condemned the assassination in Lebanon, but then also called for some free and fair elections, free of international inference. This has, of course, long been the Security Council's policy since Resolution 1559 that we should move to a free and fair election. And we hope that the Security Council will really keep very active in making sure that that happens.

QUESTION: But no new resolutions?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Well, we'll see. We're open, obviously, to Security Council attention to this issue. We think it's important to make sure that all parties involved know that we want an election consistent with Lebanon's constitution, free of foreign interference, on time.

Yes.

QUESTION: What's the status of the investigation, the Hariri -- UN investigation of Hariri?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: This is -- Mr. Brammertz, of course, is conducting this in a professional way and so we don't know what his investigation has revealed. He hasn't briefed us on that. Appropriately he's keeping that kind of information confidential. But we did, as you know, pass a resolution creating an international tribunal available to try any suspects that come out of the Brammertz investigation. We're working with the UN and the Lebanese on rapid implementation of that resolution. There are a number of steps, including identification of a prosecutor and a deputy prosecutor who will be from Lebanon, identification of Lebanese judges and also international judges. We had, I think, a real success from the UN in negotiating a location for the tribunal in The Hague. And so we're starting to see that tribunal, the process in setting up that tribunal move forward which is, I think, very good news for the people of Lebanon.

QUESTION: Can I ask you, are there any UN-specific issues that are going to be on the Secretary's agenda? The Security Council expansion, is that dead in the eyes of the U.S.? Dues? Relationship -- this legislation that passed on the Human Rights Council? I'm trying to think if there are any other --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I wouldn't be surprised to see any of those issues come up. We do not think that Security Council expansion is dead. There's an ongoing process in the General Assembly to discuss it. We've said, consistent with what we said many times before, that we support expansion. We think it should be modest and we think that it should be done with a lot of -- with really broad consensus in the General Assembly. I can't say we see that consensus developing in the short term, but we support it and I think we'll be very active.

QUESTION: But she's not going up there with any specific ideas, new -- or new ideas on that or on -- is she going to be able to tell them that there's movement on dues? Is there going to be something on the human rights -- is it the council now?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I think she will certainly reaffirm. The President will be meeting with the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly, so that it's entirely possible that these issues could come up there. And I think the Secretary would reaffirm our support for Security Council expansion, our particular support for a Japanese permanent seat on the Council and, I think, say that we are prepared to engage very actively in making sure that happens.

QUESTION: But you're not expecting any big -- a couple years ago when the President announced that U.S. would rejoin UNESCO, there's not going to be any big --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I don't want to get into what will or will not be in the President's remarks. And I -- as I came down here, the White House was still briefing. But I think --

QUESTION: In terms of her --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Our policy is, yes, consistent with what I just said. On the Human Rights Council, the Secretary I think will be very critical. You know that we think this council got off to a terrible start. It has really I think in some ways much worse than the commission, it was meant -- it was designed to replace. It's had an obsession with Israel. It has an unwillingness to take action on some of the critical human rights cases: Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe and other cases, so we are very disappointed.

We are particularly discouraged by the end of the last session when a sort of backroom deal was cut in the council to eliminate the special rapporteurs for Belarus and Cuba. And we thought that was really disappointing. We are particularly disappointed by European agreement to that deal. The Canadians were -- objected quite loudly to it, and we applaud them for their resolve. But we are really disappointed that countries with a commitment to human rights agreed to that kind of thing.

QUESTION: But aside -- you know, the -- yes, the Canadians, you’re right, of course, they jumped up and down and screamed point of order and tried to stop it. But you're not of the opinion that had you had a seat on the council, that things might have been different.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We're not. And you know that when --

QUESTION: So you've given up completely and there's no way the U.S. is --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I wouldn't say that. We're still the -- our mission in Geneva is still involved in helping. We certainly give our advice to members of the council. We certainly make our views clear on things. We have renewed our efforts in the Third Committee of the General Assembly because we think it's important that the UN show that it has a seriousness on human rights issues; that it can take action; it can take determined action with respect to critical cases. So I think you'll see a very active United States effort in conjunction with the Canadians and the Europeans and others to press resolutions in the Third Committee this year. When it -- some of those will be country specific, calling attention to particular cases. One resolution in particular will condemn the use of rape as a tool of state oppression. There's obviously -- we've been -- long been leaders in condemning violence against women generally, but this is a resolution specifically focusing on rape as a tool of policy. And so we've -- were demarching very broadly for support for that.

Yes.

QUESTION: On Iran, despite the meetings of P-5+1 this week and next, obviously the progress on a new resolution is less advanced than the U.S. and some of its allies had hoped.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Yeah.

QUESTION: Does that indicate that the ElBaradei-Iran agreement has actually slowed progress towards a successful resolution to 1737 and 1747?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We heard from some countries at the last Board of Governors meeting that continued progress in the Security Council should wait for resolution of the ElBaradei work plan. That is not at all our view. And in fact we think the IAEA process and the Security Council process are very much complementary. The IAEA has a role in -- as a technical agency in investigating what is happening and has happened on the ground in Iran, but the Security Council has a very unique role in creating international legal obligations. Iran is now subject to three different resolutions instructing it to suspend enrichment and reprocessing and two resolutions that impose sanctions. And so we think that the Security Council, which has made a commitment to move ahead if Iran fails to suspend needs to continue to do that, notwithstanding the efforts by the IAEA.

QUESTION: Do you have any times when you think the Security Council will move by: Thanksgiving, Christmas?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I don't want to -- it's perilous to predict timing in the Security Council. Obviously there are 15 members and they all have views about how quickly we move and this is something that we are talking to our P-5+1 colleagues about today, as Under Secretary Burns, as you know, is hosting a meeting that will start shortly. So I don't want to predict. But we do think it's time for the Security Council to move ahead with the third sanctions resolution. We've started to see the positive consequences of the last two resolutions, including and in particular the financial restrictions, and combined those disincentives to Iran, combined with our package of incentives if they take the right course, we think is important to moving ahead and encouraging a diplomatic solution.

QUESTION: One technical scheduling question. You said that October 1 was currently scheduled to be her last date there, but it might change.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Uh-huh.

QUESTION: Did you mean to suggest it might go longer or shorter?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Neither. Just that the General Assembly is sometimes slightly chaotic and so I wouldn't want to -- any of you to make firm plans dependent --

QUESTION: Just very briefly. There is a Security Council election -- for the elected members. There is an election this time or not?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: There is -- yes, there is an election every year. The five members turn over.

QUESTION: Do you have any favorite or unfavorite candidates?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: We never disclose our votes. So I can't tell you.

QUESTION: Well, that's funny because they always -- we always seem to find out about them.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Sometimes you do. Sometimes you're -- yeah, very clever.

QUESTION: Who's up? (Laughter.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Let's see. We have a -- from Africa we have Burkina Faso and Libya, from Europe we have Croatia and the Czech Republic, from Latin America the candidates are Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic, from Asia, Vietnam.

QUESTION: Wow.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: That one is uncontested. Yeah.

QUESTION: A few years ago, it would have been easy to say who you liked, but it's not this time.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: I know. I think is that --

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: Thanks. Thanks.

QUESTION: There's no automatic opposition to Libya this year?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SILVERBERG: No comment.

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