Press Briefing Following NATO Ministerial Meeting

Every six months NATO gets together itself and a lot of friends and partners and every six months there is a lot of talk about splits within the Alliance.

I wanted to try to talk about this meeting in terms of what we have really going on. I think first of all, there is a certain wild factor that comes in a couple of ways that this at this particular meeting. Everybody notes that we are in Budapest, former member of the Warsaw Pact. People are taking a look around and thinking of them as members of the Alliance and how we can work with them and what we are doing with them. And it is not only a sign of how much change that’s been, but also how much change there still can be in terms of the overall of the Euro Atlantic relationship and how it is progressing.

Second of all, we had our first formal NATO European Union meeting. Twenty-three countries getting together. And third of all, we had the Euro Atlantic Partnership Council, the EAPC, meeting with the Yugoslav Foreign Minister. When you think about Yugoslavia’s former, Yugoslavia’s Milosevic, look at Yugoslavia’s relationship with NATO. As I said, there is a certain wild factor in having the Yugoslav Foreign Minister here and working with him as we work with other democratic countries in the region.

So what you basically see here are the Allies at work. We come together every six months and deal with the issues on our long-term agenda as well as some of the short-term issues going on.

May I go back a little bit to the meeting? At this morning’s NATO-EU meeting, we commented, most of the speakers commented that the fact that NATO and the European Union are working very closely together in a lot of ways. The examples that are sighted are the coordinated work that we have been doing in the Balkans, Macedonia in particular. Lord Robertson and Javier Solana have been cooperating closely, each with their own particular roles. The work we have done together in the ground safety zone. At NATO and KFOR, working on one side you have the Yugoslav army and the other side you have EU monitors in the area. And all of us working with the Yugoslav government on their programs for ethnic inclusion. There are other things going on. There is what is called the Headline Gold Task Force of the EU meets as the HTF sometimes with NATO experts participating and working with the EU as they set out their goals for European defense.

The comment made by one Foreign Minister this morning was "It works in practice; now we have to make it work in theory." We do in face have a lot of very good, strong NATO and European cooperation and there are still elements establishing the permanent coordinating kind of mechanisms in relationships between NATO, the EU and the European Security and Defense policy that are not yet worked out, but even though I think you heard from various ministers including Minster Cem and others, and Lord Robertson yesterday that we are in deed making progress on that and seems that we are progressing well at this point.

A lot of the discussion, first of all, yesterday’s NATO meeting is the North Atlantic Council meeting and this morning’s NATO-EU meeting was with Javier Solana and about the Javier Solana and the efforts he is making in Macedonia since yesterday afternoon. He went to Macedonia, one of our experts, Jim Swigert went with him and they managed to work out and helped the Macedonian Coalition Partners work out a way forward with each other. And they are going to have more meetings this week. I think to keep that process going in Macedonia.

An event that we found very interesting was called the SECAP, Southeastern Europe Common Assessment Program, which is an effort, by the countries of Southeastern Europe to deal with their own security questions and stability questions with each other. And if you think about our long-term goals in this region, it’s not to have NATO there forever, it is to have countries in a region that can work together and bring stability to their region. And so we think that is a very important development. Secretary Powell took the time, stayed late to make sure he was there for that event yesterday evening.

I think one of the other things discussed by various ministers, including Secretary Powell when you see a reflexive summary in the communiqué, Lord Robertson talked about it as well, is the issue of defense capabilities. We have always said that we supported European defense, as a way of adding to the capabilities of our friends and Allies. And so, both in terms of NATO’s future missions and European ones, the Secretary stressed and Lord Robertson and others stressed the importance of seeing increase in capabilities on the part of our European partners and that was a theme that was sort made its way through the meeting.

As many of you noted, we discussed Missile Defense and strategic thinking during these meetings. I would say, in general, that we have everything that we wanted at this stage. We are at a point in the consultation process where we need to talk to our friends and allies about concepts about strategic thinking that includes, as you heard from the Secretary yesterday, questions about offensive weapons and nonproliferation, diplomacy, counter proliferation, but also defense. When you see that reflected in the communiqué that is the point we are at. We didn’t come out here with a plan we don’t have a plan yet. You all know that. So we didn’t come here with a plan for approve, we came out here to continue the process of working with our allies having real consultations with out allies. As we move through this process ourselves of defining the concepts and then dividing the programs that will help people safe in the New Year. We had general discussions in February when the Secretary was out here. We had expert discussions when the team came here and elsewhere. We have had this discussion now with Foreign Ministries again, Defense Ministries will get together in a week or so. Next week and then leaders with have their informal meetings, so we are working though this and when we have a program need to come out and to get, talk it over with our allies. We will tell you about that too. But we are not there yet. And so at this point we are exactly where we should be. We are talking to our closest friends and allies about the thinking that is developing in the United States based on this strategic side and then on the program side.

The other thing that was talked about was the status of the forces in Bosnia and Kosovo. I think you all know that the Secretary has talked about going in together, we will go out together. I have to say that was universally welcomed. An example of how that process works is developing because the foreign ministers noted, I think in their communiqué, that the military committee has been finishing its six month review and came up with some recommendations. Although until those recommendations are formally approved. I can’t give you numbers at this point, but I am sure NATO will put them out when they are. That is the process by which we are going to work with our allies on the NATO military side and with European Union on the civilian side to build the institutions in these places. And as we do we will adjust our forces to make sure that we have the right forces and right sizes of forces to keep stability as we go forward. None of us want to have troops in the Balkans forever. The point is we all have to work to make a stable situation. And to adjust our forces, again the type of forces the Secretary talked about yesterday about the specialized units that need to be brought in to focus on crime and security, just a general stability situation there and goes more appropriate at this moment than some of the other forces. So there will be adjustments as we go along and as we all over time our presence with them.

So with that, let me stop and take questions. Tom?

QUESTION: Could you talk about the meeting with Ivanov this morning? Did the missile defense subject come up and did Secretary Powell talk about American incentives to Moscow to support the plan?

MR. BOUCHER: He didn’t come with any new proposals in that regard. The meeting this morning with Ivanov was a chance to go over a couple of the subjects they talked about briefly before. Let me go through the meeting. They talked about the President’s upcoming meeting with President Putin in general terms, and it was that context that the Secretary mentioned this strategic thinking, and the whole idea of missile defense will certainly be discussed by the Presidents. But the meeting of the presidents, I think I’ll leave it to the White House to do the advance on that one. It’s a chance for them to get together to understand each other’s thinking about the relationship and the importance that we each attach to the relationship with the other country.

They talked about Iraq and the work that has to go on, which is going on in New York, to get to a new resolution. They talked about the Middle East. The Russians have had some contacts recently with some political parties, and the Secretary talked to Ambassador Burns last night about midnight, about the situation there. So we’re continuing, as you know, to work out there with Ambassador Burns and Ambassador Indyk, and Consul General Schlicher.

They talked a bit about the Afghanistan groups, U.S.–Russia Afghanistan groups that have been held recently. They talked a bit about Nagorno-Karabakh, and a couple of bilateral issues. So it was just about a half hour meeting to talk about the President’s thinking, President Putin, Iraq, Middle East, a couple of other things.

Robin?

QUESTION: Can you go a bit further in terms of Iraq? Is there an agreement to roll over the resolution for six months or less, or do you think that there’s enough agreement now that you will produce a new resolution by the deadline on Monday?

MR. BOUCHER: I can’t talk in much more detail at this stage because the work is going in New York. There are different drafts out there as you know. I think we have said before and can say again today that there’s a general understanding among countries about the direction to go to control weapons for Iraq that would allow smoother flow of civilian goods to the civilian population. And the actual working out of that, and the text, and the resolutions, is going to be handled by our people in New York. So that’s underway.

QUESTION: But what do think of the French resolution?

MR. BOUCHER: As I said, there’re several resolutions out there. What ultimately emerges, I’m not in a position to say at this point.

QUESTION: Would you say that the Russians are accepting in theory your proposal to ease on the civilians and tighten up on the military equipment?

MR. BOUCHER: Yeah, I’d say there’s general agreement among the countries involved, the countries at the UN, and some of the frontline states and elsewhere, that this is what we need to do. And our people in New York can work it out in UN terms, in terms of resolutions.

QUESTION: But then what are the difficulties? Why is it that we haven’t come up with a resolution?

MR. BOUCHER: As I said, there are different resolutions out there now, and they’re going to have to work out how to proceed in this manner. I’m just not in a position to go any further.

Well, there has to be some resolution.

QUESTION: A new resolution versus a turnover?

MR. BOUCHER: At this point, I’m going to leave it to New York to work out how exactly the process is going.

QUESTION: Did Secretary Powell have any reaction to the Russian plan to send an envoy to the Middle East, and can you talk about it?

MR. BOUCHER: Not specifically. Ivanov mentioned it to him this morning. Each one, each minister, talked about the efforts that they were making, the contacts that they were having with the parties. I’ll leave it to the Russians to announce specifically who and when. But generally I would say we work cooperatively with the Russians on the Middle East, and there will be a lot of countries interested and involved. We continue to play an engaged and active role, and I think others are interested as well.

QUESTION: Mr. Boucher, could I just ask, in terms of getting ready for Bush-Putin, can you talk at all about what you expect that meeting to accomplish other than "get acquainted?"

MR. BOUCHER: I think that’s something that the White House will do, appropriately, closer to the meeting. I don’t think that’s something I would do at this stage.

QUESTION: I assume you’ve done some spadework for that?

MR. BOUCHER: They talked in general terms about the meeting, and the expectations. I’m sure there will be more done, and again it’s not for me to talk about, and it’s not for us to talk about now.

QUESTION: To what extent was the Secretary involved in having any references to ABM omitted from the final Communiqué?

MR. BOUCHER: The Ministers did not really discuss the Communiqué in any detail. I think Lord Robertson, at the beginning of the NATO meeting yesterday, said that there were still elements of the text that needed to be worked on. And the Ministers agreed that the experts should get back together, senior officials should get back together and keep working it. And Lord Robertson told them to come back with a new text by noon. By noon, they came back. And he announced it had been agreed, everybody looked at it, they’d been – obviously the Ministers had been talking to their experts about it. And then it was approved. So it was not a discussion among the Ministers.

QUESTION: Was there any discussion among delegates about omitting any references to ABM?

MR. BOUCHER: The communiqués at NATO are discussed for weeks in advance, worked out carefully, long night sessions, and everything like that. So I’m sure at some point it came up, but you have the final product as worked out, and approved by Ministers.

QUESTION: On Iraq, is there any one or two or three month rollover idea, instead of the standard six-month, to give you more time to work out the details? It sounds like you haven’t agreed on all the details?

MR. BOUCHER: Again, exactly how the process works out in the form of resolutions, I think I’m going to have to leave to New York at this stage. We really kicked the ball over there, and that’s where it has to be played.

QUESTION: On missile defense, I’m just curious to know if any of the ministers asked about the new arithmetic in the Senate, and Majority Leader Daschle’s comments on missile defense -- that the Democrats would a slightly different attitude than in the past.

MR. BOUCHER: Not that I know of…it didn’t come up in any of the formal discussion or bilateral meetings I was participating in. Whether it came up in corridor conversation I don’t know.

QUESTION: Richard, how is it that almost all the newspapers came up with an interpretation of what happened yesterday that is diametrically opposed to what you just told us?

MR. BOUCHER: I don’t know. I was in the meetings. I’m telling you what happened. You can explain newspapers to me sometime.

QUESTION: The bottom line is that they are all saying that you failed to win approval—not this specific plan because we know he didn’t bring a plan—but of the concept of the need for missile defense. Were you seeking that kind of approval?

MR. BOUCHER: This was not an endorsement meeting. It was not one or the other; this was part of the thinking through with allies and friends. This is part of the continuing discussion that we have on these concepts. And I think it is accurately reflected in the communiqué. There are allies that obviously some allies interested in the concept of missile defense. There are some allies that explicitly endorse, not only theatre missile defense, but broader efforts as well. There are some allies that explicitly endorse it. There are some that want to keep the discussions going. Everybody I think is appreciating the consultation process. So there is nobody that has specifically rejected it. So that’s where we are in the alliance.

QUESTION: A newspaper reported this morning that the US was presented a document sighting the existence of 13,000 ballistic missiles from thirty-seven different countries presenting a common threat to the NATO alliance and this document was rejected yesterday. Can you confirm the existence of such a document, and its submission to the NATO alliance?

MR. BOUCHER: It was not in any session that I was in and I was in the NATO sessions yesterday. And I’ve never seen something like that personally, whether it exists somewhere—maybe in military briefings—I can’t say for sure, but nothing like that was discussed at the meeting.

QUESTION: Can you tell us more about the Secretary’s impressions of his conversations with Ambassador Burns? Yesterday he said he saw a slight advance…how does he feel after his latest contact?

MR. BOUCHER: Well I think that yesterday the Secretary also talked about the importance of Security Meetings, and there was in fact a Security Meeting yesterday in the region, perhaps sort of confirming the impression he had, but I don’t think that I am going to go any further.

QUESTION: What is the US position on Russia’s idea of an international conference that Arafat thinks is a great idea as well.

MR. BOUCHER: I don’t have anything to say on that either.

QUESTION: What about the Security Meeting? Were there Americans present?

MR. BOUCHER: I don’t know. I’m getting to a region that I haven’t had time to focus on because I’ve been reading every paragraph of the NATO Communiqué.

QUESTION: Can you say whether or not any paper was exchanged in terms of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in this meeting today or has there been any paper exchanged…. in the Ivanov meeting? You mentioned that there may be a possibility a couple of weeks ago…. has there been any to this point?

MR. BOUCHER: Not at this particular meeting. No.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) Turkey has actually stopped the exchange of experts (inaudible).

MR. BOUCHER: We have always held the position that working out the NATO –EU coordination mechanism, the relationships, the questions of access was key, and overall this process of European defense capabilities was important to us, because…done in that manner it would add to the capabilities of the alliance. NATO’s own defense capabilities initiative also adds to the capabilities of the alliance. So where he commented was on the needs of countries to take those goals of both NATO and the EU, and turn them into reality—turn them into the kind forces we need—and make sure that we fulfill those commitments.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

MR BOUCHER: I’ll let Solana speak to EU members. I think Lord Robertson, the Secretary, and several other ministers have talked about this and have said that it is very important that NATO meet its own defense capability goals.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

MR. BOUCHER: I don’t have a time prediction, but we all feel that there has been progress. I have seen Minister Cem– I’ve seen Lord Robertson say that—so we all feel that there has been progress. We think we are on the road to resolving it, but I can’t predict exactly how and exactly when.

QUESTION: Did Secretary Powell ask Ivanov specifically to endorse the US proposal or British proposal, and did he come away with only a general endorsement?

MR BOUCHER: No that’s not the way it went. They discussed this goal that we all share. Then they discussed the need for delegations in New York to take up these issues, and they discussed a bit of how they should take it up. For the moment, that’s exactly where I want to leave it.

QUESTION: How would you quantify the issue of missile defense, and are people who need convincing being convinced?

MR. BOUCHER: (Inaudible) to questions about quantification is 42. I can’t give you the scale. Let me put it this way. As I said this is working with allies on strategic concepts and eventually leading towards working with allies on programs, that first of all I think just about everybody that spoke welcomed the process of consultations and recognized these are real consultations with our allies and friends. And they welcomed the fact that we are consulting with others as well, that trip to Moscow and things like that. Second of all many, several of the countries, a number of countries, a little more than several and not quite many, a number of countries explicitly endorsed preceding in this fashion. No countries that we shouldn’t. There was a lot of discussions about the structural control treaty now, including the ABM treaty, and that is an issue that we will keep discussing so I would say that again we are where should be at this point.

QUESTION: What does the (inaudible) mean, are you talking about the consultations, are you talking about looking into this defense.

MR. BOUCHER: In terms of going forward with a broader strategic concept that includes missile defense.

QUESTION: In the last couple of years, a lot people coming to talk to Europeans about the nature of the threats and yet it seems to me that the words they are actually using in the communiqué was the same ones in the 1999 Washington communiqué. Are we seeing any movement to describe the treats in last two years in common?

MR. BOUCHER: I am not a sophisticated reader of NATO communiqués over time. I am sorry; some of you have read them more carefully than I did. I think clearly, well, we are talking about the progression of NATO communiqués that you have memorized. I don’t even have them in my palm pilot. The threat discussions with allies and friends takes place on the basis of assessments and intelligence. So I would not expect to see all that reflected in public communiqués. There is a reflection in there that there is a threat that we need to deal with in a comprehensive manner. But that to us is important because it reflexes where we are and the Alliance will deal with it and they now have this to do it.

QUESTION: I was wondering where the communications end.

MR BOUCHER: When they finish. When, I mean obviously you know we need to keep talking about this with our allies. As we develop a program we need to consult with our allies on that. We can talk about identified areas of cooperation. This is a process that we keep working with our allies. I can’t give a specific time.

QUESTION: Did you offer to the allies any kind of assessment of at what points taking what steps in terms of research and testing would the ABM treaty be violated in the given administration. I know there has been a certain amount of analysis done as to where the trip points are in the treaty.

MR. BOUCHER: You know lawyers have been looking at this, people have been looking at this and experts have been looking at that in Washington in various times last year.

QUESTION: Yes, but some of the allies…

MR. BOUCHER: That wasn’t part of the discussion.

QUESTION: Identified areas of cooperation, what does this mean?

MR. BOUCHER: The Secretary said again yesterday that the programs of strategic thinking that we are talking about, whether they are non-proliferation efforts or defense efforts, are going to be in cooperation with our allies and perhaps others as well. So that will eventually be expected to be whatever program we come with.

QUESTION: The President has been saying for five or six weeks now we want to get this done in time for the role of the oil-for-food resolution, the deadline is five days away, and you have extensive compensation for the other members of the P5. You must have some idea if you are going to be able to do it.

MR. BOUCHER: I think you all know what a major change this is in the role of sanctions that has been applied to Iraq-- I think you all know that there is a lot of detail that has to be worked out in terms with arrangement of items and things like that. We’ve been working on that ourselves, we’ve been discussing that with other members of the council and other governments. How we finish that process or whether we can finish it in five days or however, is something that we (inaudible) in New York we have asked New York to work on that and to put in terms on UN resolutions, but at this point since they are working on it I can’t say what those resolutions are going to say.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

MR. BOUCHER: There is agreement among the countries on what we are trying to do

QUESTION: I have one – On Macedonia. Do you think there will be a need (inaudible)?

MR. BOUCHER:As you know, NATO and the EU have been working closely with the government of Macedonia. By the way, the Secretary had a meeting about mid-day with the Macedonian Foreign Minister. We very much supported Solana’s efforts, but I don’t think that I want to get to the point of describing specific steps. It was noted, and we have noted as well, that the process that seems to be working and has worked in Southern Serbia-- well, no two situations are the same-- that that process seems to have been working in Southern Serbia and everybody says that we should look at that process and learn what we can about the way to resolve some of these disputes.