Remarks With American Chamber of Commerce Chairman Andrew Somers at a Russian-American Business Breakfast

With that, I would now like to turn the podium over to you, sir.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, thank you, Ambassador, Andy, Mr. Chairman. It is a great pleasure, too. I do appreciate all the accepting my invitation to have a dialogue this morning. And that is truly what I would like to have -- a dialogue. It would be easy for me to give you a speech or just take questions from you and provide answers, but this is your opportunity to tell me what message you want me to take back to the United States to share with the President, to share with my Cabinet colleagues.

I have had a very excellent trip so far. Yesterday, I spent several hours with President Putin and a number of hours, as well, with Foreign Minister Ivanov, as well as the Minister of Defense Ivanov. And in all of those meetings, we celebrated the strength of the U.S.-Russian relationship right now, three years into this administration. We have accomplished many things together: a new strategic framework, the Treaty of Moscow, expanded trade opportunities, working together on number of regional issues--whether it’s the Six Party framework to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem or how we have worked together to deal with the challenges provided by our friends in Iran with their nuclear program. The way in which we work with the Russian leadership when we were trying to defuse the crisis in the subcontinent, when it looked like India and Pakistan might be going to conflict a year and a half or so ago. Worked pretty closely with the Foreign Ministry Ivanov at that time.

At all levels American and Russian officials are cooperating. You know of the close relationship that exists between the President and President Putin, and with myself and Mr. Ivanov, and Mr. Rumsfeld and Dr. Rice with Sergey Ivanov, and at all levels. But it is just not personal relationships that count, personalities come and go. What is really happening is that institutional relationships are being created.

And nowhere is this institutional relationship more important than the way in which we deal with business, trade and commercial issues, because ultimately the engine of any society, especially democratic society, is how one provides for the means for people to earn a living, for people to make a profit, for people to put in place their ingenuity, their initiative, their entrepreneurial spirit and create businesses and trade opportunities, for the purpose of making a profit, as all of you here are interested in doing. But more fundamentally than that, for the purpose of providing jobs for people, so the people will have faith in their democratic system, people will believe they can provide a better life for their children. So ultimately we are here to make a profit, but to provide for people so people can see that this is the correct direction in which to move.

So, I am very pleased with the state of the U.S.-Russian relations right now and especially pleased that things are improving in the sector of trade, but there are still problems, there are still challenges. President Putin and I, and Ministers Ivanov and I, spoke yesterday about some of the difficulties that are ahead because we are getting along so well, we are such good friends with all of our Russian colleagues, we can speak candidly and openly when we see areas that we think we should speak more about or where we would like to see improvement from our perspective and also to hear back from them whether they think we are giving them correct advice or not.

This is the basis of the friendship, to speak candidly with each other. It is the kind of friendship that exists between the United States and Russia. Another way in which that was manifested was Mr. Ivanov and I in Georgia, the day before yesterday for the inauguration of the President of Georgia, Mr. Saakashvili, and how in our conversations yesterday we agreed that Georgia should be a place where we would cooperate with each other and not compete with each other. Why? Because that would best serve the people of Georgia.

And this is the spirit in which we conduct our relations with the Russian Federation. There have been disappointments in the past. We had a major, major disagreement over Iraq last year. It was a disagreement that wasn’t resolved between the two sides, but now we’re moving forward. Now we know we that we have to come together to help the Iraqi people build a new society for themselves, build a democracy for themselves, and we spoke yesterday of many areas of cooperation where we can achieve that goal.

And, so I am very pleased to be with you this morning. I thank you, Andy, for giving me the opportunity to meet with this group, and I am delighted to hear from you or answer any questions to begin the discussion, but more importantly just to hear from you what you see in U.S.-Russian relations, what we can do with respect to improving the manner in which we support business efforts.

I am sure I will hear a word or two about visas and I want to take that message back.

(Laughter)