08/07/2001: Daily Press Briefing Excerpts
EXCERPTS FROM PRESS BRIEFING RELATING TO ISRAEL/PALESTINIANS QUESTION: The Palestinians have made an urgent call, or a call for US -- or for some sort of monitoring. The Israelis have, in a sense, loosened the restrictions on live fire against the Palestinians. And finally, there have been reports that the State Department had urged last week in some meetings, or over the weekend, that more pressure be put on the Israelis, the Israelis be encouraged to move forward somehow or other, either to accept the first day of the cease-fire under the plan -- to move Mitchell forward -- and that subsequently, that the National Security Council said -- basically rejected this idea, and sent it back for more ideas. Could you in any way -- MR. BOUCHER: There have been a lot of reports about internal debates within the US Government, but I think we pretty much stomped those last week when they appeared. The US Government is obviously looking at different ways that we might proceed, different ways we might help. But we continue to believe very strongly that the responsibility of the parties themselves is to stop the violence and get on to implementation of Mitchell. They need to stop the provocation, stop the incitement, stop the violence that makes it hard to proceed with the implementation of the Mitchell Committee and a return to normal life, and a return to the process of negotiations. The United States is active, so our senior officials both here and in the region have been in continuing contact with the parties. We have continued to encourage them to reduce the violence, facilitate the implementation of the Mitchell Report as quickly as possible. We think both sides need to recognize that down the path of escalation and retaliation only lies disaster, and we have urged both sides to take immediate steps to restore an atmosphere of restraint and calm. Ultimately, the parties themselves are responsible for making those difficult decisions necessary to implement Mitchell and to end the violence. QUESTION: Did the Secretary or did he not receive a letter from Yasser Arafat or from Nabil Sha'ath or from any of the Palestinians? MR. BOUCHER: There are two letters, and I think some people knew about one and some people knew about the other. There are two letters. One letter went from Chairman Arafat to President Bush. The White House has confirmed that. In addition, the Secretary received a letter from Nabil Sha'ath, both on the subject of the continuing violence and both expressing the Palestinian view of the situation. QUESTION: When did he receive that letter? MR. BOUCHER: The letter from Nabil Sha'ath, I think, actually got here yesterday or today, although it might have been dated earlier. QUESTION: Were those letters basically -- was one just a kind of courtesy copy or a version of the other one? What's the relationship between the two? MR. BOUCHER: I am not going to try to speak for the Palestinians any more than I try to speak for the Taliban. But in some cases, I guess, I would say that you write a shorter letter to the President and a longer letter to the Secretary of State, basically expressing the same views in more detail. QUESTION: Is that what happened in this case? MR. BOUCHER: And that would be the case with these, yes. QUESTION: So the President on the golf course today in Texas seemed to answer not surprisingly, saying that the violence must stop before Mitchell can be implemented. So I don't know if he put those words on paper. What is Mr. Powell doing about his letter? Is he responding and is his message basically that? MR. BOUCHER: I don't think we have sent a written response yet. But I think you will find a remarkable similarity between what the President said and what I am saying here, and what we have, in fact, consistently said all along. And that is that the only path to a normal and safe life for Israelis and Palestinians, the only path back to negotiations, is the Mitchell Committee report, Mitchell Committee recommendations. And those recommendations begin with the cessation of violence. And that has been our effort, to try to achieve a cessation of violence, to try to encourage the parties themselves to take the steps, to stop the cycle of violence and to cease the violence so we can get on with implementation of Mitchell. QUESTION: Richard, did you have any response to the President speaking to Abdallah today on the subject? MR. BOUCHER: I think that would be for the White House to do. I am not aware of exactly which phone calls he has made. QUESTION: You talk every once in a while about how, if Mitchell is not implemented sooner or later, that it might become just another piece of paper on the shelf. Is there any thought to that happening any time soon? And if so, are you examining other avenues that perhaps -- MR. BOUCHER: We don't intend to shelve Mitchell and we don't intend to put forth some other option. There is not a "Plan B" waiting to be presented. As we have said before, we still consider that the Mitchell recommendations are the path back to normal life and the path back to negotiations, that that is the path that needs to be followed. QUESTION: But if the parties aren't willing to implement Mitchell and you don't intend to shelve it, doesn't it just become a meaningless piece of paper then? MR. BOUCHER: We have made that point in the past, that at some point eventually it does. But that doesn't mean that there is some other way to go scurrying around. If you are going to stop the violence, the way to stop the violence is to stop the violence. And that is where the rest of this all starts. You can't imagine, you can't do the things that are necessary in an atmosphere of continuing violence and escalation. QUESTION: If you could comment on the change in the Israeli rules of engagement, which came out today. Do you have anything to say about those? MR. BOUCHER: I am not aware of that. I don't have anything on that at this point. QUESTION: Another one. To go back to the Mitchell Report, when the Secretary was last in the Middle East, he said that if there was no progress within maybe days or weeks -- and this was many, many weeks ago now -- he said you would have to reconsider what course of action to take. Does this -- what you say now seems to suggest that you have pretty well abandoned any thought of adopting a new approach, as you said. But why has that been this change? MR. BOUCHER: Jonathan, I would invite you to go back to what the Secretary said on the airplane on the way back from the Middle East, when he talked about this. He made quite clear what we were discussing before, that we recognize that eventually any report that is not implemented becomes just another piece of paper on the shelf, but that we don't have a second option, we don't have a Plan B, we don't have some other fancy-dancy attempt that is just waiting to be tried as soon as we can declare this one dead. This is the way to go, this is what the international community agrees upon is the way to go. The international community has repeatedly endorsed implementation of the Mitchell recommendations and continues to urge the parties to stop the violence and get started with the Mitchell Report. That remains our goal. We are not looking for another option at this point. QUESTION: He said all of that. MR. BOUCHER: Yes, I know. That's what I said he said. QUESTION: But he also said, if it doesn't work, we are going to have to find some other way. MR. BOUCHER: And he said, if it doesn't work, we are going to remain involved, but there is no other way waiting to be tried, I think. QUESTION: Okay. QUESTION: He definitely said, within days -- if it doesn't work within days, we will have to look at other ways to do it. QUESTION: (Inaudible.) That's right. QUESTION: All right. He changed his mind. MR. BOUCHER: No, I won't say he changed his mind; I said the days and weeks are a little longer than we might have said at the time. QUESTION: Well, the Secretary did talk about a moment of opportunity -- he said a moment of opportunity, and he said that we risk losing that moment of opportunity. Have you lost the moment of opportunity at this point? They are just changing the rules of engagement. Everything deteriorates every day. MR. BOUCHER: I don't know about the change in the rules of engagement, so I am not going to pin anything on that, and let you pin anything on that right now. I would say that there have -- obviously the longer this goes on, the more difficult it gets. Clearly there have been moments when things were much quieter than they are now, and those are the moments when security cooperation, constructive attitudes by the parties would have brought us forward. I guess the question, is there an alternative? And the answer I am giving you today, and I think the answer we gave before is, no. The only way to get down this road, to get back to the path of normal life, to get back to the path of peace for both the parties is to stop the violence. Since the beginning of the Administration, since before the Mitchell Report came out, the Secretary has described the process of ending the violence, easing the restrictions and the difficulties of daily life and getting back to a peace negotiation. That is the path that is described in the Mitchell recommendations. So to that extent, it is the consistent recommendation, it is the consistent urging of this Administration that we follow that path, and it remains consistent to this day. The parties need to take the steps to get it started, and we will continue to look for the opportunities, we will continue to look for other moments. But it is within their power to do this, and we think it is still within their power to do this. QUESTION: Are you reconsidering, at least, the timetable, the seven-week timetable? I mean, if by some miracle there was an -- MR. BOUCHER: Seven days or six weeks? QUESTION: No, if by some miracle there were two or three days of peace -- MR. BOUCHER: I am just questioning. You said seven weeks. QUESTION: Right, one plus six. MR. BOUCHER: Oh, one plus six. One plus six plus two or three? QUESTION: One plus six -- MR. BOUCHER: Okay, it is a different formula. Keep going. Are we reconsidering the timetables that have been identified? QUESTION: Yes. MR. BOUCHER: I think if you look at the situation, first and foremost we have urged all along that the parties take the steps to establish a period of calm, a period of quiet. Prime Minister Sharon has asked for seven days of quiet. If you remember when we were in Ramallah, Chairman Arafat said he would make a maximum effort to do that. So in that way, that is what the parties have looked for, that is what the parties have committed to. So we are still looking for the parties to take those steps; we are still looking for the parties to create the period of quiet so we can then get the implementation of the Mitchell Committee recommendations. QUESTION: On the original question that Ben asked, just to tie this loose end up, is the Secretary preparing a response to the letter from the Palestinian Authority? MR. BOUCHER: I don't know if we will write a response or not, whether we will respond orally. We have meetings all the time. Our consul general has meetings out there all the time. Our ambassador has meetings all the time. And so, to some extent, some of the letters get answered orally in terms of our discussions with the parties. But I will have to check and see if there is a written response being prepared for this. QUESTION: Richard, you say that you want the parties to establish these -- you know, end the violence and move forward. What if the parties are incapable of doing it without somebody from the outside? Not that they are unwilling, but they are incapable; they can't stop it. MR. BOUCHER: I guess the question that you raise is, without somebody from the outside -- certainly we have been involved with the parties. We have been involved in meetings with the parties in defining the specific steps that should and could be taken. We have tried to encourage the trilateral security cooperation that gets us involved with them in looking at what needs to be done, what can be done, and how to take care of some of the most difficult areas. So we continue to emphasize that that kind of trilateral coordination is the most important way to end the violence together, and we continue to be committed to working with them to find the opportunities in that cooperation. So it is not like we are not there; we are there. But in the end, they are the ones that have to stop shooting. QUESTION: Just a quick one. Just on the off chance, has the Secretary or the Assistant Secretary had any calls from Arab leaders in the last 48 hours, say, on this violence? MR. BOUCHER: I haven't checked with Ambassador Burns. I don't think so, but I know the Secretary hasn't gotten any calls in the last day or two. Complete Transcript of August 7, 200l Briefing
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