CTV News Interview

SECRETARY POWELL: They didn't express that point of view to me. They recognized that all of us have to work with both sides, both Israel and the Palestinians. And, in fact, all of us are committed, I think I can say without fear of anybody disagreeing, all of us committed to the security of Israel, to the safety of Israel, but we all are also committed to finding a way to create a state for the Palestinian people, because only when these two peoples have their own states living side-by-side in peace with each other will we be able to go forward and find peace for the region. There has tended to be some feelings within the European community more toward the Palestinian cause than you might find in American constituencies, but it wasn't a source of disagreement at this conference.

QUESTION: Does the vision that will be put forward by the United States include Yasser Arafat?

SECRETARY POWELL: Yasser Arafat is there. We have been disappointed by his performance over the years and we're going to work with him, since he is the leader of the Palestinian people, but we're going to work with other Palestinian leaders as well. We are very interested in reforming and transforming Palestinian institutions so that they would be worthy of a state if we are able to create a state for them. We need responsibility, we need accountability, we need transparency. And what is interesting right now is that you hear Palestinians saying the same thing, that the strategy that their leaders have been following in recent months and years have not produced anything for them except more depravation, more futility in their lives. So they're looking for a change as well. I hope we can capture their desire for change with the outside world's belief that change is necessary, and move the Palestinians along in this direction. And we hope that Chairman Arafat will respond to this, but we have to work with other Palestinian leaders as well.

QUESTION: And how should he be responding more vocally to the suicide bombers that are present every single time there is any sort of diplomatic move?

SECRETARY POWELL: He has condemned these kinds of attacks, but now we need him to take firmer action. A number of these attacks are being committed by organizations, or at least being claimed by organizations that are more or less under his direct control. Tanzim, Force 17. And we believe that he has to do a better job of trying to bring these organizations under control and everybody to the realization that this just destroys the dream of a Palestinian state. And we believe that there is more than he can do and we certainly do want him also to speak out against this kind of activity and to ultimately bring the Intifada to an end. And we think the way of doing that is for us to keep pressure on him, but also give the Palestinians something to look forward to in the form of a state that will eventually come into being.

QUESTION: And then, you know, you're asking him to do this, he's not responding, and you feel still that he is someone you should -- do you not ignore?

SECRETARY POWELL: He is -- how can he be ignored? If you ignore him and say he isn't there and he is there, and the Palestinian people look to him as their leader, then you do nothing. You just are standing there not doing anything, and I don't think we can afford to do that. We have to find a way forward. Now, obviously our disappointment in his performance and the Israeli point of view that says we're not sure this guy can be a partner for peace. We will have to find a way to test him as we go forward, but it is not a question of ignoring him, because he is there.

QUESTION: It's been clear that the other Foreign Ministers are looking for a definite timeline on a conference that can move this forward. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect, though, in the US Government. You were initially pushing for one sooner rather than later, and now it almost seems like there is no -- there is no --

SECRETARY POWELL: No, that's just not -- that's not correct. We said that we were looking for a conference in the course of the summer, and we are still looking to see if we can put together a conference in the course of the summer. But the scheduling of a conference isn't as important as what will this conference do; do we have a vision, a plan to put forward that would cause people to want to come to a meeting, and do we have a solid work plan for that? So we haven't abandoned that concept or that idea. You hear different points of view in Washington, and you hear commentators commenting on the different points of view. But we're still on track for the President's vision as he laid out in his 4 April speech of a Palestinian state, the end of violence, Arab nations getting more involved in helping the Palestinians achieve that vision, and he believes that a conference might serve a useful purpose. We haven't scheduled it yet and we haven't determined the modalities for such a conference because the President is just now in the process of collecting all the advice that he has received and analyzing that advice. I expect that in the very near future he will communicate to the world how he believes we should move forward and, having communicated that, then we have the basis to determine when it would be appropriate to hold a meeting and who should be there and what should be discussed.

QUESTION: I know the United States has also given advice to Canada on improving its security as a result of September 11th. There is a perception in the US that Canada is a gateway for terrorists, and I'd like your thoughts on that.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, Canada is a marvelous gateway into the United States, and we treasure that. We want to have an open relationship with Canada and, frankly, with the nations around the world. We are a nation of immigrants. We are a nation that welcomes people to come to our shores, to resettle in the United States, to go to school, to get healthcare, to visit our country. One of the ways to get there is through Canada. At the same time, we, in light of 9/11, have to do a better job of knowing who is coming, and do we know enough about them? Have we checked them to make sure they are coming to behave properly in our country and, once in our country, will we know when it is time for them to leave our country because a visa has expired or it's, for other reasons, time for them to go?

So, working with Canada, we are trying to do a better job of remaining an open society, but a society that also protects itself and defends itself. The first obligation of any government is to protect its citizens. Canada has the same challenge. So I am very pleased that the collaboration that has taken place between Minister Manley and Senator Tom Ridge, working on homeland security issues and with my department, the State Department, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs working on those areas that are within their purview. So Canada understands this as well. They understand that they are not only protecting us, but protecting Canada and Canadian citizens, and I am very pleased at the level of cooperation.

QUESTION: At this moment, then, you feel confident that Canada isn't, as we've been hearing, a haven for terrorist organizations.

SECRETARY POWELL: No, I never would have said that. There is no doubt that there are terrorists in Canada; there are terrorists in the United States. We discovered that on 9/11. None of us is free from that scourge. What we have to do is work closely together with intelligence exchange, law-enforcement exchange, cooperation, how to defend our borders going back and forth, how to do a better job of getting into their financial network to see how they're financing all of this activity in order to protect ourselves. Nobody is immune. And to the extent that there are terrorists, Canada, the one thing I'm sure of in the Canadian authority is that every level and every ministry are doing everything they can to find them and bring them to justice.

QUESTION: I want to also talk about Iraq on this, because certainly since September 11th, it seems, even again here, that the -- Canada and the EU are looking for more assurances that there was some kind of role by Iraq in those attacks before they would agree to any kind of military action. Was that at all part of your mission here to convince them of taking military action?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, that was not a subject for the G-8 ministerial meeting. Essentially, we talked about a number of issues preparing our respective governments before the head of state, head of government meeting that will take place in Kananaskis. Obviously, we did talk about proliferation activities in Iraq. There is no dispute among the ministers that Iraq has been pursuing weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. This is of concern to all of us. We all work together within the United Nations to keep sanctions in place and to keep pushing to get inspectors back into Iraq.

Now, as a separate US policy, we believe that Iraq would be better served with another regime, new leadership. That is a goal of US policy. But we discussed with our friends around the world, through all of the ministers here from the G-8, why we think that is important. But, at the moment, the President does not have a military plan on his desk and he is not ready to make any decisions beyond those decisions that are now to our friends. The President has assured all of them that as he starts to move forward, if and when he does, he will consult with our friends. So I was not sent here to put together any combat operations.

QUESTION: You think people get nervous as a result of --

SECRETARY POWELL: People should be nervous about the fact that there is a country such as Iraq with all that wealth available to it through oil, that is using that wealth to develop chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons, if they could get their hands on them, in order to threaten innocent people throughout the Persian Gulf region, and in due course perhaps even threaten us here, this far away. That capability might well fall in the hands of terrorists. So, while people focus on will the United States take military action or not, and that causes them to be agitated, they're going to be more agitated about what's going on in Iraq and the nature of that regime.

QUESTION: Why doesn't the United States then stop using the oil from Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: Oil is a fungible commodity that goes into the world market. What we have been able to do -- and then it's available. What we have been able to do, though, is control the funds going into Iraq, for the most part through the oil-for-food program. There's still about two to three billion dollars a year that gets out through smuggling activities from outlying states. But the United States, working with its Security Council colleagues, we have been, I think, quite successful in the past year in putting in place a "smart sanctions" regime, as we call it, which the UN approved last month, that will continue to control the money that goes to the regime and will control it in a way that that money, when it comes to the oil-for-food program, will go for goods that help people, that help the economy. We're not against the people of Iraq, just the regime. But the money will not go for any technology or any equipment that might be used for the development of a weapon of mass destruction.

QUESTION: When we talk about the global good, then, certainly the term "unilateralists" has been hurled at the United States, saying that they won't participate in any international treaties, Kyoto land mines, war crimes, this kind of thing; that it's sort of a "my way or the doorway" concept. I wonder if that perception matters to you.

SECRETARY POWELL: It's a perception that does matter to us, but it's not a perception that's based in reality. It's an easy claim to make and it's an easy charge to throw when somebody disagrees with us on a particular position we might have taken with respect to, say, Kyoto or the international criminal court when we have a disagreement with our friends. But having a disagreement with our friends doesn't mean we're unilateralist, "my way or the doorway". It means that we have failed to persuade you of a principle position that we hold. We've failed to persuade our friends. But the amount of consultation that we do: President Bush's recent trip to Europe, President Bush signing a treaty in Moscow, reducing the number of nuclear weapons both the United States and Russia will have, President Bush signing a political declaration in Moscow with President Putin on a way focusing to bring Russia to the west, President Bush then going to Rome and, with his NATO colleagues, initialing another agreement that creates a NATO/Russia council, President Bush's summit meeting with the European Union, the amount of time he spends with foreign leaders and, if I may humbly say, the amount of time I spend looking in the multilateral community, suggests, to me anyway, that we are all doing all we can to consult with our friends. But when we disagree on an issue that we have strong feelings about, an issue of principle, because we don't join the consensus doesn't mean that we don't respect the consensus and respect the views of others. But if we feel strongly about something, then we feel we have to move in that direction. And sometimes we turn out not to have been wrong.

Last year there was a huge outcry, and my Canadian colleagues particularly were pretty scathing, some of them, in their criticism of the fact that the United States might leave the ABM Treaty. It was going to create an arms race, it was going to destabilize the world, it was going to break up relations with Russia, and we were being unilateralists and it was the wrong thing to do. Well, today, the 13th of June, the ABM Treaty went out of existence, and we have signed new agreements with Moscow, there is no arms race, and we are now permitted to develop technology to protect us from rogue states developing weapons of mass destruction and delivering them in missiles.

So sometimes the positions we take are seen as unilateral and are going to be so destructive turn out not to be destructive and turn out, perhaps, to have been the right answer.

QUESTION: You know, in a couple of weeks, the leaders are coming here for the full G-8 session, and the priority or the focus of the Canada Prime Minister has been on Africa. And I wonder if you feel that that should be a secondary position based on the war on terrorism, or if you think they should alter the agenda.

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm sure the Prime Minister will come up with an agenda that will reflect what the G-8 leaders want to talk about. Clearly, we will have to talk about the campaign against terrorism, and clearly we will have to talk about how to help developing nations, and Africa is an area of special concern because of poverty, because of economic distress, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, and because of the added problem of HIV/AIDS. You can be sure that the United States will be interested in participating in that.

We've been doing a lot with respect to Africa, the African Growth and Opportunity Act which makes it easier for Africans to sell products in the United States, and the Millennium Challenge Account which President Bush announced a couple of months ago that is adding five billion dollars a year of additional funding going to those nations that are committed to democracy and economic reform, and to help them develop the infrastructure to attract both aid and trade. A lot of that money will be going to African states. But we believe that with this particular account, we have to also make it available to other nations. (Inaudible) has great needs, and I'm pleased that the Prime Minister is focusing on those needs. There are other areas in the world that have great needs as well. You can be sure that the United States will be more than willing to participate in an extended dialogue on Africa, along with Prime Minister Chretien, so we'll make the case that there are other nations in the world.

QUESTION: Your watch has beeped and I think that means we're out of time. Thank you so much.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you so much.