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 You are in: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice > What the Secretary Has Been Saying > 2007 Secretary Rice's Remarks > February 2007: Secretary Rice's Remarks 

Remarks with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier After Their Meeting

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
February 2, 2007

10:45 a.m. EST

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier give remarks at the State Department. State Department photo by Michael Gross.SECRETARY RICE: I would very much like to welcome my colleague and my friend, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the Foreign Minister of Germany. We have had very good discussions this morning following on the discussions that we had when I was in Berlin, I think fewer than ten days ago. And so our discussions are very frequent. We will shortly go to meet our colleagues to have a meeting of the Quartet to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli issue and how to make progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. But during our conversation we have had a chance to discuss a number of bilateral issues as well as global issues, including the situation with Iran and the concern of the international community for the nuclear program that is developing there. We have talked about Afghanistan. We have talked about a number of other issues.

But thank you very much, Frank-Walter, for being here and I look forward to our working with the Quartet.

FOREIGN MINISTER STEINMEIER: (Via interpreter.) Thank you very much indeed not only for the very friendly welcome this morning, Madame Secretary, but also for issuing an invitation to the Quartet members. Indeed I believe that to be a very important day that we have today not only as far as we are concerned, but especially with an eye to the people in the region who are awaiting a result, who want to support -- see us extend support, to continue the process of rapprochement that has begun between Prime Minister Olmert and Mr. Abbas.

And I'm quite convinced that we are going to succeed during and in the course of today's Quartet meeting to send out a signal that on the one hand makes it very clear that the international community stands ready to do everything it can to help settle the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and on the other hand to see that we can define and describe a political framework for making come true what has been amply described in the plans of late, and that is to establish an independent Palestinian state.

We've got a lot of work ahead and we talked today about Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iran, and that is going to be a discussion that we will continue for a number of different reasons in a number of different bilateral and also international fora.

Thank you very much.

2007/069



Released on February 2, 2007

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