*WPD502   09/23/2011

Clinton Sees World in a New Era: The Age of Participation

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By Charlene Porter

Staff Writer

 

Washington — At a time when mobile phones and text messages have become the tools of political change, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the world has entered a new era: the age of participation.

 

“Through technology, the voices of everyone can be now, at least registered, if not heard,” said Clinton in remarks at a September 22 ( http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/09/20110923142645su0.6056134.html ) event in New York City, where she attended the meeting of the U.N. General Assembly September 19–23. “And the challenge, not only for government, but for businesses and for NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], is to figure out how to be responsive, to help catalyze, unleash [and] channel the kind of participatory eagerness that is there.”

 

Clinton spoke to an invited audience participating in the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, a yearly discussion about global issues and ways to address them, hosted by former President Bill Clinton and attended by world leaders in government, politics, technology, the arts and other fields. Secretary Clinton described the age of participation in an onstage interview conducted by her daughter, Chelsea Clinton.

 

The street revolutions that swept across North Africa and through the Middle East in 2011 exemplify the activity of this new era, Clinton said. The momentum for change came from the people themselves, but Clinton also underscored the importance of the international community’s reaction to the street revolution in Libya. When Libya’s Muammar Qadhafi responded to street protests with threats to hunt down and destroy the instigators, the Arab League went to the United Nations, seeking an intervention. NATO and Arab League nations responded with a commitment to provide cover for the protesters from the air, and Clinton called that decision “one of the most historically significant developments” during this period of change in the region.

 

To protect citizens, “it was both NATO members, European and Canadian, along with Arab, who were flying missions, who were there in the midst of the fight,” Clinton said.

 

Clinton said she makes no claims to being able to predict what the future might bring to Tunisia, Egypt and Libya after this tumultuous year. “But what I do know is that we’ve made the right decision to support the aspirations of people and to do so in a way that recognizes and respects their right to have a government,” based in democracy, participation and the creation of opportunity for the public good.

 

OUTREACH IN OTHER REGIONS

 

Partnership with other nations has been a priority for the Obama administration in other regions also, Clinton said. When the Obama presidency began in 2009, some international affairs experts predicted a U.S. drift away from the Asia-Pacific region, but the secretary of state said neither she nor the president were willing to let that happen. Both she and Obama made separate trips there in the early months of the administration.

 

“We’ve worked very hard to make clear that the United States is both a Pacific and an Atlantic power,” Clinton said, adding that it is important to ensure that the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region is maintained.

 

Similarly, Clinton said she wanted to clarify U.S. interests in the Arctic, so she stepped up U.S. participation in the Arctic Council, which is the small group of nations holding territory on the Arctic Circle. “With global warming, the Arctic is going to be open for transit much more during the year that it ever has been before,” Clinton said, and the United States must participate in the council if it is to have a voice in discussions about permissible activities in an ecologically sensitive area.

 

Responding to a question from daughter Chelsea, the secretary of state identified issues that she considers to be high priority, even though they may not have been at the forefront for this audience in New York City. Clinton named food security, health and disease surveillance capabilities worldwide and women’s participation in government and public life.

 

“We don’t have enough food, and a lot of what we have is not nutritious enough to keep kids healthy,” she said. The administration is working to improve that situation with its Feed the Future initiative, which aspires to increase the accessibility of staple foods, improve trade and transport routes and harness science and technology to assist populations that now suffer food insecurity every few years.

 

Regarding disease surveillance, the United States signed an agreement with the World Health Organization September 19 to advance the capabilities of developing nations in responding to serious health threats, particularly contagious diseases, which have the capability to travel as rapidly around the world as jets. The agreement will help all nations detect, report and respond to infectious diseases quickly and accurately.

 

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.  Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD504   09/23/2011

Nations Depend on Each Other for Nuclear Safety, Clinton Says

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By Stephen Kaufman

Staff Writer

 

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed strong U.S. support for the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) action plan on nuclear safety, saying nuclear power is vital to meeting the world’s energy needs, but it carries “special risks and dangers” and requires all countries to adhere to the highest safety standards.

 

Speaking September 22 ( http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2011/09/20110922133140su0.3311971.html ) at a high-level meeting on nuclear safety at the United Nations in New York, Clinton said that “because a nuclear accident in one country can quickly become a transnational crisis, we are all vested in ensuring each other’s success.”

 

The IAEA’s action plan offers ways to strengthen and expand the agency’s peer review programs, which allows countries to monitor the safety of each other’s nuclear plants. Clinton said the United States will continue to support peer review scheduling missions in the United States as well as contribute its own senior experts to participate in missions elsewhere in the world.

 

The action plan will also “improve emergency response training, enhance transparency and cooperation, and strengthen nuclear safety infrastructures around the world,” she said. 

 

Each country must be responsible for ensuring that its nuclear reactors meet “the highest, most up-to-date standards of safety,” Clinton said, and the IAEA’s standards “should be continually reviewed and revised as we learn more and detect new risks.”

 

The secretary said the fear of nuclear contamination “casts a long shadow,” and the disaster that befell Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactor in March brought that concern to the world’s attention.

 

“This crisis, if the world needed one, is a very stark reminder that nuclear power requires comprehensive security precautions,” and “[n]one of us is immune,” Clinton said, recalling the 1979 partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.

 

“On each of these occasions, the IAEA and nuclear regulatory bodies have moved to determine what went wrong and to try to prevent it from happening again. But it’s imperative that every nuclear country be prepared for scenarios that include multiple severe hazards and prioritizes public safety,” she said.

 

In the aftermath of the Fukushima accident, President Obama ordered a comprehensive safety review of all 104 active nuclear power plants in the United States, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has completed near-term inspections and made recommendations for improving the regulatory framework and safety procedures.

 

“As we design and construct next-generation nuclear power plants, we must integrate the lessons that we are still learning from Japan,” Clinton said. 

 

Clinton also called on all countries with nuclear reactors to adhere to the IAEA’s 1994 Convention on Nuclear Safety, which she said is still “our best instrument for promoting international safety standards.”

 

With the world’s growing energy needs, nuclear energy is “not an option that we simply can take off the table,” she said, but “it is an option that carries special risks and dangers.”

 

The secretary said international unity is needed to improve nuclear safety practices, and it is an issue that outweighs any existing political differences.

 

“We have to work together. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to future generations,” she said.

 

A senior State Department official who asked not to be identified told reporters September 21 that the IAEA’s action plan continues to call for a voluntary peer review process, rather than making those reviews a requirement.

 

“Establishing a mandatory requirement for member-states to submit to regular IAEA peer reviews would require the negotiation of a binding international agreement among member-states that most likely would take several years to come to fruition and no guarantee that all member-states would join in,” the official said.

 

The United States is “very much open” to exploring a longer-term approach that could include legally binding reviews, but it has agreed to continue its support for a voluntary process, the official said.

 

“We believe that these are important voluntary peer reviews that can happen and that will add to the data and the knowledge that we have and the kind of cooperation that we think we need to have,” the official said.

 

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.  Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD509   09/23/2011

Background Briefing on Group of Central American Friends Meeting

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(begin transcript)

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesperson

September 23, 2011

 

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

 

Senior State Department Official

Previews the Meeting of the Group of Central American Friends

September 23, 2011

 

Waldorf Astoria

New York, New York

 

MODERATOR: Good morning, everybody. We are pleased to have a background briefing this morning previewing the meeting of Central American donors that the Secretary will participate in this afternoon. For your records, our briefer, Senior State Department Official, is [Senior State Department Official]. Without further ado, over to Senior State Department Official.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Thank you, [Moderator]. This afternoon, Secretary Clinton will meet with what are known as the Group of Friends of Central America. Those are the major countries who are donors in Central America as well as foreign ministers from all of the Central American countries themselves and a number of the international institutions who have played a crucial role in supporting Central American countries on security issues. Those are CECA, the Central American integration organization; the IDB, the Inter-American Development Bank; the World Bank, and the OAS and the United Nations.

 

You may recall that the Secretary was in Guatemala June 22nd, I believe, for what was really the launch of a very large process from the international community and among the Central American countries to really focus on a new strategy for Central American security issues. Crime – transnational crime issues, violence – have obviously risen very high in Central America. They are the number one priority of citizens of those countries as well as the governments. And so Secretary Clinton felt very strongly that the United States, as a major donor in security issues in Central America, needed to lead at that meeting in the launch of this Central American strategy and the international community’s support for that strategy.

 

But if the June meeting in Central America in Guatemala was the launch of that strategy, this meeting is really an opportunity for us to turn from the commitments, both financial and political, that the international community has made to Central America to help partner with them and support their own efforts on anti-crime programs to actions that we can all take to implement that strategy. And so the focus of today’s conversation will really be on what everyone is doing, what we have figured out with our international institutions about where we are all working well together and where there are gaps that we are not covering in support of the countries of the region, and what more we can do to make that support real.

 

She will focus on the four pillars which have been outlined in the Central American strategy. Those are combating crime, rehabilitation and penitentiaries, institutional strengthening of democratic institutions, and preventing violence. And obviously, the United States, through the Central American Regional Security Strategy, is extremely active in all four of those pillars. But many other countries are working only in one or two areas, and so we will talk about how we can make sure that all of those areas are coordinated and supported.

 

The Central American countries will all be present, as will the following countries. I’m just going to run down the list to make sure folks know. They are Canada, Chile, Colombia, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Spain, the European Union, and Australia.

 

So I think I will leave it at that and take your questions, if you have any.

 

QUESTION: One of the sort of antecedent causes of all the things you’re trying to combat is, obviously, the narcotics trade. I wonder to what extent, in a meeting like this, and notably with the Central American officials, you nowadays hear them saying thanks for all the help, we want to work on this, et cetera, but if you would just do more to address the American demand problem, we would not be feeling all the ill effects from the drug trade, and the particular ones that occur as the trade through Mexico gets squelched, to whatever degree it does, and that it balloons up elsewhere. So to what extent is that a function of – is that a feature of the discourse nowadays? Or when they come into the room, are they all just focused on the international piece; they don’t see a point in making the other point about how it’s ultimately American demand that creates this problem?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think that is a key part of this equation, but I think it’s important to remember that – and this changes the dynamic in the room – it’s important to remember that no one more than the Secretary has acknowledged U.S. responsibility in this problem and that we each have to do our part. And she discusses that with them every time. But this is not --

 

QUESTION: She says it publicly, too. I mean I know – yeah.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Right. That this is not just an international effort to support Central Americans in Central America, but it is also the United States doing more at home to get at that aspect of the problem. And so I have to say that conversation, which some have, in the past, called sort of the blame game, the Secretary believes, and her counterparts do to, that we really have moved beyond that. The Administration’s efforts on demand reduction, efforts to increase that budget, numbers that are going down to 30-year lows in many areas in the United States, really does, I think, help change the conversation away from that dynamic, because we are, in fact, sort of walking the walk as well as talking the talk. And so we tend in these meetings – and the Secretary does at the beginning – talk about the practical cooperative steps that we can take transnationally, and sometimes that’s cooperation with the United States on both sides of the border as well as in Central America in a way that’s less present, I think, than (inaudible).

 

QUESTION: In the discourse. That’s the thing. And then one other thing – sorry, I’m so tired.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I know the feeling.

 

QUESTION: Yeah. Well, you’re doing – performing better than I am.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It’ll come back.

 

QUESTION: Forgive me, it’ll come through yet.

 

MODERATOR: Any other questions --

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It’ll come back.

 

MODERATOR: -- while Arshad gets his thoughts together? No?

 

And as you know, the Secretary is also having two bilateral meetings in [Senior State Department Official]’s region today, so if we have interesting things to report from that, we will put it out on paper, on background, later this afternoon.

 

QUESTION: I’ve gotten over my moment.

 

MODERATOR: Go ahead, Arshad.

 

QUESTION: Money – look, you’re in a really austere budgetary environment. To what extent have you perceived – and maybe not at all, frankly – but any desire on the Hill, where they’re scouring every line item to cut back on Merida, to cut back on any of this money? Or are you confident that you’re going to get this from FY 2012, that you’re going to be able to maintain the funding that you now have?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I’m always confident. I think in the conversations that I have had, that the Secretary has had, that many others have had with leadership in the committees on the Hill and others who are very interested in this issue, I have to say that the area of citizen security is not one that comes up as an area that folks really want to cut.

 

We are making sure, obviously, that what we send forward to Congress is as lean as possible. It’s – one of the reasons for this kind of an effort in the international community, quite frankly, is to make sure we’re all maximizing resources and that we know exactly what everybody else is doing, because if there are areas that there’s a lot of overlap, then we’ll step back if others are doing it or doing it better. We’ve seen the Columbians partner in Central America in ways that are very effective and efficient, and frankly less costly than having U.S. direct assistance.

 

So that is – I mean, part of the reason you do sort of coordinate more aggressively, if you will, is the lean budgetary times. But I think most of our contacts on the Hill have supported the fact that this is very directly in the U.S. interests, it is really an issue of shared responsibility, that we can’t fight it alone, nor can the countries of Central America. And there, I think, is a little bit less – let me put it in the positive. There’s considerably more support for these kinds of programs than there might be in other areas. But obviously, we’re going to continue to scrub the books all the time.

 

QUESTION: Thank you.

 

MODERATOR: Good? Thanks very much.

 

(end transcript)

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD515   09/23/2011

Secretary Clinton at New Silk Road Ministerial Meeting

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(begin transcript)

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesperson

September 22, 2011

 

REMARKS

 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

At New Silk Road Ministerial Meeting

 

September 22, 2011

German House

New York, New York

 

SECRETARY CLINTON:  Thank you very much Guido and thank you very much for hosting us here in the German House.  I am pleased to serve as co-chair alongside you and Minister Rassoul.  I am joined by a delegation of senior officials from across the United States government, including the Under Secretary of Commerce, USAID, and the White House.

 

I want to echo Guido’s condemnation of Professor Rabbani’s assassination. 

 

We have always known there are those who will do all they can to undermine the cause of peace and reconciliation and we will surely see more violence before this is over.  But I am confident that the Afghan people will not be deterred from seeking a more peaceful, stable, prosperous Afghanistan.  And the international community must continue to stand with them and support their efforts – including the work of the High Peace Council.

 

In previous meetings, our discussions have focused largely on the on-going coalition military campaign against al-Qaida and the Taliban, and on the political strategy we hope will end the conflict and chart a more peaceful future for the entire region. This does include a reconciliation process based on clear red lines, which Professor Rabbani was leading; regional buy-in, with firm pledges from all of Afghanistan’s neighbors to respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity; and enduring commitment from the United States, United Nations and other multilateral organizations on behalf of the entire international community that we will not abandon Afghanistan or let it once again become a safe haven for terrorists. 

 

Having said that, I am pleased that today we are turning to the economic side of the strategy.  Because we all recognize that Afghanistan’s political future is linked to its economic future – and in fact to the future of the entire region.  That is a lesson we have learned over and over again, all over the world – lasting stability and security go hand in hand with economic opportunity.  People need a realistic hope for a better life, a job and a chance to provide for their family.  And that is especially true in Afghanistan. 

 

For political reconciliation to succeed, Afghans must be able to envision a more prosperous, peaceful future.  That will take a lot of hard work, but I firmly believe it is possible.

 

Afghanistan needs a sustainable economy at home that is not dependent on international assistance, and that will require leadership from the government and investment from the private sector.  But it is also clear, as it has been throughout Afghanistan’s past that it's economic future, like it's political future is bound up with the fortunes of the wider region.  

 

For Afghans to enjoy sustainable prosperity, they will have to work alongside all of their neighbors to shape a more integrated economic future for the region that will create jobs and will undercut the appeal of extremism.

 

As I outlined in a speech that I gave this summer in Chennai, an Afghanistan firmly embedded in the economic life of a thriving South and Central Asia would be better able to attract new sources of foreign investment, connect to markets abroad and provide people with credible alternatives to insurgency.  Increasing regional trade could open up new sources of raw material, energy, and agricultural products for every nation in the region.

 

For centuries, the nations of South and Central Asia were connected to each other and the rest of the continent by a sprawling trading network called the Silk Road.  Afghanistan’s bustling markets sat at the heart of this network. Afghan merchants traded their goods from the court of the Pharaohs to the Great Wall of China. 

 

As we look to the future of this region, let’s take this precedent as inspiration for a long-term vision for Afghanistan and its neighbors.  Let’s set our sights on a new Silk Road – a web of economic and transit connections that will bind together a region too long torn apart by conflict and division.

 

Now, let me hasten to add that I am clear-eyed about the entrenched obstacles standing in the way.  But I don't know what the alternative is.  If we do not pledge ourselves to a new economic vision for the region, I do not think that a more prosperous future is as likely.  Now I also realize that this long-term vision may seem detached from everyday concerns of Afghans.  But I also believe it has the potential to drive tangible progress on the ground and make a difference in people’s lives.

 

Turkmen gas fields could help meet both Pakistan’s and India’s growing energy needs and provide significant transit revenues for both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Tajik cotton could be turned into Indian linens.  Furniture and fruit from Afghanistan could find its way to the markets of Astana or Mumbai and beyond. 

 

So how do we turn this vision into a reality?  Well, starting today, and in the coming months at international meetings in Istanbul, Bonn, and Chicago, we will have the opportunity to think through the specifics.

 

First, in the short-term, we need to work together to support the Afghan people as they meet the economic and security challenges that come with transition from the military mission.  As coalition combat forces leave Afghanistan, the support structure that has grown up to supply them will shrink dramatically.  That will mean fewer jobs for Afghans and a loss of economic activity.  So the Afghan economy will need new sources of growth independent of foreign assistance connected to the military mission.  Today at the World Bank, many of our colleagues are discussing this challenge.  We need to work together to support an achievable, Afghan-led economic strategy to improve agricultural productivity, develop Afghanistan’s natural resources in a way that benefits the Afghan people, increase exports and strengthen the financial sector, among other steps.

 

And as we head toward Bonn, I hope our partners will commit to reinvest a share of the so-called "transition dividend" achieved by drawing down combat forces back into Afghan-led economic and security efforts.  We will work closely together with all of you in the coming months to develop a transparent and sustainable mechanism to identify and deliver assistance in a way that builds Afghanistan’s capacity.

 

The United States will continue shifting our development efforts from short-term stabilization projects, largely as part of the military strategy, to longer-term sustainable development that focuses on spurring growth, creating jobs, invigorating the private sector, and integrating Afghanistan into the South and Central Asia economy.

 

We also know that governments alone cannot possibly solve Afghanistan’s economic problems, so we have to work to create an environment that attracts private sector investment. 

 

Just today we launched a new partnership to promote private investment in Afghanistan’s energy sector that will drive significant economic growth during the transition process and beyond. 

 

As transition proceeds, Afghanistan and its neighbors can begin taking concrete steps toward developing a more sustainable Afghan economy and better connecting it to the rest of the region. 

 

For example, upgrading the facilities at border crossings, such as what India and Pakistan are now doing at the Wagah Crossing.  Fostering private sector investment in rail lines, highways, and energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline, the so-call (inaudible) pipeline to run from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, Pakistan and into India.  This isn’t about grand infrastructure projects – it’s about promoting sustainable cross-border economic activity. 

 

And it will require removing bureaucratic barriers and other impediments to the free flow of goods and people that currently stifle trade and cooperation. 

 

We are very pleased to see Afghanistan and Pakistan implementing fully their historic transit trade agreement.  I think this could be seen as a benchmark to extend to the countries of Central Asia.  Indeed, several of Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors have already moved to implement similar transit trade agreements to the north.  And we are very much looking forward to the meetings of India and Pakistan’s commerce ministers next week, along with their large private sector delegations. 

 

All of these steps would have an immediate impact on economic activity and could help lay the foundation for true regional integration.

 

But let's be honest, any of this to be successful will require changes in attitude and a sustained commitment of political will.  To attract more private investment, which is critical, the nations of the region need to offer lasting stability and security.  That means as hard as it is, putting aside old enmities and rivalries, focusing on opportunities, not just threats.  And, I would of course add, welcoming the full participation of women in the economic and political life of the region, which will add to unlocking the enormous untapped economic potential we see in the countries there.

 

At each step of the way down this road, in the short-, medium- and long-term, economic and political progress will be mutually reinforcing.  Nations will not only enjoy the benefits of greater trade but they will also enjoy the benefits that come from working together.  And we know that there has to be tangible improvements in people’s lives.

 

But I think it's about time we have something we can say yes to, not just no to.  No to terrorism, no to extremism, no to insurgency.  Yes, that is our message and has been for more than a decade.

 

But yes to economic integration, yes to closer ties between the nations of this region, yes to a better future for the people who live there.

 

When we meet again in Germany, I hope we are ready to formalize our specific support for this vision, and to welcome regional commitments that will have been made in Istanbul and to commit to the transition dividends that I think are so important.  I look forward to working with all of you to realize the vision of the New Silk Road.

 

(end transcript)

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD516   09/23/2011

State Official at World Bank High-Level Meeting on Afghanistan

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(begin transcript)

 

U.S. Department of State

Thomas Nides, Deputy Secretary for Management and Resources

Remarks at the World Bank High-Level Meeting on Afghanistan

Washington, DC

September 22, 2011

 

Remarks at the World Bank High-Level Meeting on Afghanistan

 

This is a week when all who care about Afghanistan are mourning the killing of former President Rabbani. But we have to think about the short-, medium- and long term all at the same time. And today we need to be clear-eyed and focused on a challenge that is just over the horizon.

 

For the past decade, tens of billions of dollars in security-related spending have fueled consumption and economic growth in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. Today, we are in a period of transition. By 2014, our goal is for Afghans to take full responsibility for their security. Since last November, seven provinces and municipalities have already begun transition.

 

In many ways, the growth Afghanistan has seen is remarkable, and we should not minimize the gains made over the past decade. But we are right to be concerned that these gains may not be sustainable and may prove reversible — unless the region and the international community start to take action before combat forces leave and foreign spending decreases.

 

As the Bank’s analysis has shown, fiscal sustainability will be a major challenge — particularly covering the cost of security forces and maintaining existing infrastructure. Without outside help, the Afghans will not have the revenue to do so. This requires immediate attention by all parties — Afghanistan, the region, and international donors.

 

Growing Afghanistan’s own economy will be vital to this effort. The Afghan government put forward a vision for its economic future based on increased private sector investment and expanded regional trade. I appreciate the World Bank’s continuing analysis, and their focus on encouraging the creation of “resource corridors” to promote sustainable economic development.

 

I know that all of us are facing difficult economic times. No one, including the Afghans, is interested in having Afghanistan be dependent on foreign assistance forever. This is a time to promote self-sufficiency. This is a moment to draw on the full potential of legitimate agriculture, light manufacturing and extractive industries. All can be sources of prosperity for the Afghan people.

 

As we focus on these short-term priorities, it is important that we keep our larger goal in mind. Secretary Clinton called for the development of a New Silk Road when she was in the region in July. Afghanistan would be at its heart. Many of our Foreign Ministers, including Secretary Clinton, will meet later this afternoon in New York to discuss this vision of a web of economic and transit ties across South and Central Asia.

 

Afghanistan’s neighbors have a critical role to play — and much to gain if we get this right. A more integrated South and Central Asia will create jobs everywhere and make the region more attractive to investors. It will increase security and build constituencies for peace.

 

I have been encouraged to see Afghanistan and its neighbors move in this direction. Afghanistan and Pakistan are working on the technical and financial details to implement a Transit Trade Agreement. India and Pakistan are engaged in dialogue. And next Monday their Commerce Ministers will meet with hundreds of businessmen and women who want to unlock the economic potential of trade across the Wagah (Waa-Gaa) border. In August, a quadrilateral meeting in Dushanbe endorsed the principle of regional economic integration — especially in energy. They recognized it as a means of protecting peace and prosperity.

 

All of this will require private sector investment. But for that, businesses need predictability. They need assurances that governments are stable, have stable relations with neighbors and will make reforms where needed to improve the investment climate. We — governments and international institutions — need to make sure our political choices increase that confidence.

 

That starts with a solid commitment to a secure, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan. For our part, America is negotiating a Strategic Partnership agreement that signals our long-term civil-military commitment. We know the cost of neglecting Afghanistan. We will not repeat it. This is not about long-term bases, or about projecting power. It is about supporting the sovereign rights of the people of Afghanistan. It is about finally bringing lasting peace to a young country that has spent much of the past three decades at war.

 

A key test of our long term commitment will be what we do with the “transition dividend,” as I call it — the savings we will see from a drawdown of coalition forces. The Bonn Conference in December is not meant to be a donor’s conference, but I hope that our countries can make a political commitment to invest a portion of our transition dividend back into the Afghan economy. We know the cost of walking away from Afghanistan. Continuing to invest now may well save us from paying a higher price down the road.

 

At Bonn, we should agree on a vehicle to coordinate the delivery of the transition dividend to support priorities identified by Afghan government. This could be an existing international trust fund or possibly something new with a focus on programs that promote the regional linkages that would make up a New Silk Road. I thank you for your continuing efforts to bring peace and prosperity to the Afghan people. And I look forward to your ideas.

 

(end transcript)

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD517   09/23/2011

Clinton Family at Clinton Global Initiative Meeting

() (5614)

 

(begin transcript)

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesperson

September 22, 2011

 

REMARKS

 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

And Chelsea Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting

Conversation During the Closing Plenary

 

September 22, 2011

Sheraton Midtown Hotel

New York, New York

 

PRESIDENT CLINTON: That’s great. Let’s give them all another hand, that’s terrific. (Applause.) We are now going to proceed to have a conversation between the Secretary of State and her daughter. (Laughter.)

 

And let me say, I am very grateful for all of those who participated in this Clean Cookstove announcement. Because all along, the premise of CGI has been that the private sector, the NGOs, the philanthropists, the grassroots organizations should be working with government to try to reinforce the strengths of all.

 

And I’m very proud of the fact that Hillary has spent a lifetime as virtually a self-generated NGO before she got into public life, and so I think that the work she’s done as Secretary of State has served to reinforce this. And in a difficult budget period, I think the American people sometimes don’t sufficiently appreciate just how much good can be done in making a world with more friends and fewer adversaries with the spending of just a little money that amplifies all the efforts that all the rest of you are making.

 

So with that, I would like to introduce what, until 14 months ago, was two-thirds of my family, when I acquired a son-in-law, who is also here. And I want to thank him for giving me even odds for the first time in three decades. (Laughter.) And I hope you enjoy the conversation. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

 

MS. CLINTON: Well, thank you, Dad, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. A particular thank you to my mother, who trekked across mid-town in what we all know is unenviable traffic. And I think we should just start where Dad left off, in talking about what in the 21st century is the appropriate role of government and what is the appropriate role of civil society. What can and should government do and what can and should civil society do?

 

And I think it would be really a good starting place if you could articulate for us what you did last week in San Francisco in laying out your vision for participation age as a metaphor for how we should do that moving forward.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first, I’m delighted to be back here at CGI. It’s somewhat maddening to be on the other side of town, going to the United Nations General Assembly and not be able to participate as much as I would like. So, I thank Bill and Chelsea for giving me this opportunity to come and see a lot of familiar faces, to thank CGI, to celebrate the accomplishments of the work we’ve done in just one year for the alliance, the Global Alliance for Cookstoves.

 

But I am really pleased that I have this chance to talk about some of the trends and the forces at work that we deal with all the time from the perspective of the United States Government, from multilateral organizations such as the UN, where I am this week, and last week at an event for APEC, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization, that brings together countries on both the western and the eastern sides of the Pacific to further economic integration. I talked specifically about including more women in economic growth, because when you liberate women’s economic potential, you elevate the economic growth of nations and indeed regions in the world.

 

And in thinking about it, it struck me that we really are in a new age. We are in the age of participation. It is inevitable. It is linked to the Arab Spring; it is linked to what we are doing today. Through technology, the voices of everyone can be now, at least registered, if not heard. And the challenge, not only for governments, but for businesses and for NGOs, is to figure out how to be responsive, to help catalyze, unleash, channel the kind of participatory eagerness that is there.

 

And for me, certainly, including those who have historically been marginalized, like women, like people whose voices have been dismissed because of the ethnic, or the religious, or the tribal, or any other background that defined them in the eyes of majority — majorities in their societies, then our task is made both more challenging but ultimately more rewarding.

 

So part of what I do now as Secretary — as your Secretary of State, for the Americans who are here, and working with every other country that is represented in this CGI plenary, is to look for ways that we maximize the positive impact that governments can have, while at the same time forming partnerships on a level like the Global Alliance or — this morning I co-chaired a new group, along with the Turkish foreign minister, to focus on best practices to counter terrorism and to look for more effective ways at ending radicalization and extremism.

 

Because people are going to participate. They’re either going to participate positively or negatively. We’re either going to get the benefits of their talents, or we’re going to lose out on them. And I want to see us moving toward a world when we do try to maximize the God-given potential of every person. It’s a lofty goal, but I think it’s a good organizing principle to guide us. And it puts a lot more strains and presents a lot more challenges to governments, but we have to be up to it, and we have to try to figure out how to make this existing trend into one that produces positive results.

 

MS. CLINTON: And, since you mentioned the Arab Spring, thinking about one of our most iconic moments of participation this year — Tahrir Square — and then thinking about today, we reopened our Embassy in Tripoli. Could you talk a little about sort of what happened from the beginning of the year to today, and where you see us as a global community moving forward, and what you think the role of United States is to support that movement as appropriate?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’ve spent a lot of my time on this particular question and all that is related to it. And, as Chelsea said, we did raise our flag again in Tripoli — our prior Embassy was destroyed, but we found a new place to put up the flagpole, and we’re very proud to do that. And it is a great affirmation of the extraordinary courage and resilience of the Libyan people to try to take hold of their own futures. And earlier today, I signed an agreement of economic participation and support with the Tunisian foreign minister. And I have to urge people in the audience to really pay attention to Tunisia, which has a terrific opportunity, holding elections in October, to really manage this transition successfully.

 

So, I think it’s fair to say that, certainly, many people knew that at some point there had to be a collision between repressive, autocratic regimes, and people’s aspirations and their universal right to freedom, dignity, to be heard. I don’t know anyone who predicted it. I gave a speech in early January in Doha, where I said that the foundations of the governments in the region were sinking into the sand, because in this participation age, people were not going to be ignored. They were not going to be repressed; their voices were going to be heard. It would either be done peacefully, or it would be taken with a struggle that eventually would lead to a new future, unpredictable as to the outcome.

 

In Libya, itself, what was so remarkable about that particular revolution, is that after 42 years of Qadhafi’s rule and the demonstrations that began in Tripoli and Benghazi and Misrata, Qadhafi was determined to crush them, as we see happening in Syria today, with Asad’s regime. And he was very threatening in his language. He called his own people cockroaches and rats; he said they would be hunted down and destroyed. And it was a moment for decision, but it was also a moment for caution because no one was quite sure the best way to respond to what was getting ready to happen, which I am absolutely convinced would have been a very serious loss of life. Some have even posited a massacre in Benghazi.

 

What happened then was remarkable. It was the Arab League that asked for intervention, something that had never happened before. The United Nations passed, first, one resolution and then another. And I have to just underscore how critically important it was for the United Nations to say we cannot let this happen — and they didn’t need to add “again,” because there were those who remembered when the international community did not intervene and we saw Rwanda; we saw Srebrenica. And then we put together this coalition of NATO and of Arab League members. That may be one of the most historically significant developments during the Arab Spring.

 

And it wasn’t just a coalition in name. We had NATO members who helped to install a no-fly zone. Of course, the United States played an absolutely essential role. We have more assets; we have more experience. But then when it became clear we had to do more to protect civilians, it was both NATO members, European and Canadian, along with Arab, who were flying missions, who were there in the midst of the fight.

 

So we have seen the rebellion successfully liberate Benghazi to Tripoli. Today, we got word that a major city in the south, Sabha, was also liberated. And we are turning our attention to work with the Transitional National Council to help them understand what it means to run a government, because, as you know, Qadhafi had destroyed the institutions. But it’s been a very rewarding and very satisfying kind of partnership.

 

I will hasten to add, I cannot, sitting here today, tell you what Libya’s going to look like in one year, five years, ten years. I can’t tell you the same about Egypt. I can’t tell you about Tunisia. I don’t know. But what I do know is that we’ve made the right decision to support the aspirations of people and to do so in a way that recognizes and respects their right to have a government that is based on participation and which, hopefully, will make the right decisions to maximize prosperity and opportunity for people in the future.

 

MS. CLINTON: And do you think that new dynamic of partnership between different multilateral organizations will precipitate a new norm of cooperation in the future, when confronting similar situations?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: I hope so. I mean this was — I mean, we have a lot of regional cooperation on many issues, but this was unique. I’m not yet sure how replicable it is, because every situation is different. You may have noticed we can’t get a resolution condemning Syria out of the Security Council, but we’re still working on it. But I think that regional organizations have to serve as the base of both articulating and enforcing a rules-based order.

 

I’ll give you another example. We have put a lot of energy into our relations in the Asia Pacific. Fairly or not, there was a feeling at the beginning of the Obama Administration that the United States was receding from Asia. And that was certainly not what we thought should happen, so I made my first trip there. The President’s been there. We’ve worked very hard to make clear that the United States is both a Pacific and an Atlantic power.

 

But I also thought it was important for us to embed ourselves in the regional organizations that are working to help set the norms in the Asia Pacific region. So ASEAN — the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — we decided to sign the treaty to become a more active member. We have just joined something called the East Asia Summit, and President Obama will travel to Indonesia as the first American president to be there.

 

Now why is that important? Well, because the Asian economies are growing very quickly, as we all know. But we also have to be sure that nothing undermines the balance within the region so that the South China Sea, for example, stays open for commerce and navigation, that countries are able to exploit their own economic zones for potential economic benefits, like drilling for oil or gas.

 

Similarly in the Arctic, I decided we’d be an active member of the Arctic Council. Even though it had been an idea that we supported, we were not very fully participating again. And I went to Greenland. Why? Because unfortunately, with global warming, the Arctic is going to be open for transit much more during the year than it ever has been before. There’s going to be drilling, there’s going to be exploration. The United States needs to be at the table as those decisions are made, and we can’t do it if we’re not participating.

 

So kind of rounding back to Chelsea’s first question, participation is not just about individuals and citizens; it also is about governments, it’s about regional and international organizations, it’s about finding the best ideas and the best practices, and it’s about trying to enforce a rules-based order in a very challenging time in the world.

 

MS. CLINTON: Well, staying in Asia and kind of turning to someone who’s been trying to participate in her government for a very long time, those of us who were here yesterday morning had the incredible privilege of seeing Aung San Suu Kyi give her first public interview since she was released from house arrest late last year.

 

And in response to something Archbishop Tutu said, she said that democracy, though a Western word, was not a Western ideal, that the ideal of having a balance between security and freedom was something that everyone wants. And I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the role of democracy in Asia, in the Middle East, and in places where there is not yet a democracy in any way that we as Americans would tend to recognize.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I heard about Aung San Suu Kyi’s interview, and she is someone whom I admire greatly, and I’m sure all of you had a similar feeling when she finished speaking to you. And I particularly liked what she said, because she’s right. I mean, democracy goes back to Demos, it goes back to ancient Athens, it is an idea and a word, certainly, that was developed throughout Western civilization, but it does not in any way confine itself in its underlying values to any culture. It is a universal idea. All of the Declaration of Human Rights embodied in the — one of the founding documents of the United Nations makes that very clear. So I’ve always believed that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, all of the freedoms that we think are part of a true functioning democracy are the province and the right of everyone.

 

Having said that, there are different ways of defining and structuring and institutionalizing a democracy, and it is important for us to be conscious of the need to promote democracy and freedom but the humility to recognize that different countries have different backgrounds, different cultures, different histories. It’s also important that we make very clear, democracy is not just elections. That was an idea that began to be kind of hidden behind where groups of people said, well, we had an election, and in fact some people define democracy as one election one time, and then their side gets in and then there’s no more democracy.

 

So part of our challenge is to embed democratic ideals and democratic institutions and values into the cultures that are still seeking to maximize participation. We see some very vigorous democracies around the world, including in Asia. We see other countries experimenting with various forms of democratic activities like local elections and opening up more to the internet, more freedom of expression or assembly. But this is a long-term project for the world’s people, and it’s not just, again, a governmental imperative. And the only other point I would make is democracy is hard, it doesn’t seem to get any easier, it is often not very efficient, as we certainly have seen in our own country in recent times. And so how do we keep focused on and committed to and participating in our own democracies when all too often, it’s messy, it’s not something that seems to work as well as you wish it would?

 

And I don’t think there is any easy answer to this. I spend a lot of my time with people from very different backgrounds who come to the table with me with a really — an approach toward problems we’re talking about that is totally at variance with where I’m starting. And I have to remind myself there’s a reason for that. People see the world differently. Well, in a democracy, where you can vote and you can run and you can serve, people see the world differently, too. So part of our challenge is how do we improve the functioning of the existing democracies, how do we plant the seeds — and then nurture them — of democracy in countries, particularly those in transitions, and how do we continue to make the case that despite the inefficiencies, despite all the other problems, there truly isn’t any better way for people to maximize their own God-given potential?

 

So it’s a big order, but I think we’ve righted the argument so that, as Aung San Suu Kyi said, yes, it’s a Western word, but it reflects universal aspirations and rights, and therefore, people everywhere should be able to work toward its realization, and the United States, as the oldest existing democracy, should be working to help people achieve that.

 

MS. CLINTON: I’d like to go back to technology, partly because, as your daughter, I remember when I helped you send your first text message.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes. (Laughter.)

 

MS. CLINTON: And --

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: That wasn’t very long ago, I have to tell you.

 

MS. CLINTON: And I also remember, even before you became so identified for your vigorous support of, kind of, the internet and social media as a way for people to participate virtually, when you were first emailing, you would self-identify as Techno Mom.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.)

 

MS. CLINTON: So you clearly have an affinity in our own family for technology, but also sort of in our global community. So in what way do you think technology can help people not only participate in the world in which they find themselves today but also to build the world that they want to see for their tomorrow?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I mean, Chelsea’s being much too kind and gentle, because both Bill and I — I mean, if you don’t tell anybody, I’ll tell you, we are primitive. (Laughter.)

 

MS. CLINTON: My father still refers to the internet as the World Wide Web.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.) We are. We are, unfortunately, somewhat of a different generation. But I think technology is a tool. It’s no better or worse than any tool. It depends upon how it’s used, what its ends are meant to be, who is manipulating it. And in the work that I do in the State Department, one of the commitments we made early on was that we were going to dive head-first into technology, particularly social connective means of getting people the tools and the access that they require to communicate for all kinds of purposes, some of which we knew of and others we didn’t. And so we now train people to be able to use technology to get around efforts by governments to block them. We have all kinds of ways of helping to break embargoes, open up the internet again for people.

 

So we are absolutely committed to this as a part of what we call 21st Century Statecraft. But I will say to you that with the opening of communication, we’ve seen some very positive developments by governments using e-government tools to try to attack corruption. I mean, if you can go online and register your business or get your driver’s license, you don’t have to pay off so many people who are standing in line to give you the privilege of opening a business or having a license. So we’ve seen governments doing more on e-commerce, we’ve seen them doing more on mobile technology for agriculture and health. So we’ve seen governments really understand the potential for positive interactions and service delivery with their own people.

 

And at the same time, we’ve seen governments engage in brutally repressive actions on the internet to shut it down, to track people down, to target people, to strip information off of it so that it can’t be broadly available. We’re in a race, and we rely heavily on the experts and technology — those who are not only constantly inventing new products, but who are helping us try to stay one step ahead of the repressive use of technology or the repression of those who are engaged in it for political purposes or even just for expression.

 

I mean, some countries imprison bloggers who talk about music or art because they consider it to be subversive. Some countries are deathly afraid of having sites like Facebook because of what they saw happen in Tahrir Square. So we just have to be aware that as important a contribution as technology has made, there are people trying to use it against freedom of expression, against participation. And like any other struggle we’ve had over the last 235 years, we just have to keep trying to outsmart those who are on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of freedom.

 

MS. CLINTON: One of the things that we’ve been talking a lot about at CGI is sustainable consumption, particularly as we approach 7 billion, how we think about sort of more equitably distributing a finite amount of resources among a growing denominator of people. And I know you are an inveterate recycler at home and clearly have been a strong supporter of the United States’s engagement in all of the climate change talks. How do you think about balancing responding to the crisis of the day — and you’ve had plenty — with kind of continuing the dialogue on the longer-horizon challenges that we face?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, that’s one of the most important questions that I face every day. I mean, I think if you look at what comes across my desk, there’s the urgent, there’s the important, and then there’s the long term. And sometimes –

 

MS. CLINTON: What’s the difference between the urgent and the important?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’ll tell you, for example, if you get a call that an embassy is under attack, that’s urgent. (Laughter.) If you get a call that the decision by a governing authority in a country is to move toward shutting off NGOs, that’s important, but if --

 

MS. CLINTON: Shutting down the internet?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Shutting down the internet. If you get a call that, once again, we’re not making the progress we should make in the climate change talks, well, that’s probably all three, but it has for most people longer-term implications about sustainability. And there are — and there’s lots of overlap, too, so it’s not an easy categorization.

 

But we struggle because we’re living in a world of instantaneous communication, and people want reactions to everything right away, and you have to be responsive. And people are tied up in all the work that has to be done just to be responsive. And at the same time, you see all these trend lines. Your father often says there’s a difference between headlines and trend lines. We know what the headlines are, but oftentimes the trend lines, like we’re moving toward 7 billion people much earlier than we thought, that’s buried in a small piece somewhere that you may or may not even run across.

 

So trying to merge the headlines and the trend lines and to have enough brain power, whether it’s in the private sector with the pressure on quarterly returns, or it’s in the public sector, to have enough brain power focused on the longer-term, the trend lines, is a constant struggle. We see research being cut in the public sector and in the private sector. America has always been a leader in research. We don’t know always what it’s going to produce, but we know, for sure, that if we don’t do it, we’re not going to get anything. And there are so many short-term decisions that are made, some of them by necessity — you just have to respond — but some of them by choice. We just keep putting things off, and climate change is a perfect example of that.

 

MS. CLINTON: You talk about how you kind of navigate in triage what’s urgent versus what’s important. Are there any trends kind of beyond climate change that have gotten buried that you would like to elevate and talk about so that it’s more kind of top of mind for those of us at least in this room?

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I’ll just — I’ll mentioned three really quickly, because there are more, obviously, but food security — the world has got to produce more food. That’s a climate change problem, that is a government policy problem, that is an investment and research problem. But however one defines the problem, the fact is we’re not producing enough food, and we’re not getting enough food to be readily available at an affordable price in enough places where there are food shortages. And a lot of the food isn’t nutrient-rich enough, so that we have the double problem — we don’t have enough food and a lot of what we have is not nutritious enough to keep kids healthy, get them to develop well. And we know that’s an issue. We are working on that.

 

In our government, we have a new initiative that President Obama announced that we worked on and led in the State Department and USAID called Feed the Future. And two years ago, I talked about that here at CGI. And we now have a much bigger coalition of other countries.

 

And we — take the famine in the Horn of Africa. We have, yes, a drought. We have, yes, conflict, particularly in Somalia, and we have an organization called al-Shabaab that won’t let starving people get access to food. So it’s a problem that has real world implications right now and then longer-term ones.

 

Secondly, we have a great challenge when it comes to health surveillance. You know more about this than I do, Chels, but being — keeping up with new diseases — and it’s not just because of this movie Contagion — it’s something we worry a lot about. There are all --

 

MS. CLINTON: Those of us in the public health community are grateful for the movie Contagion.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yeah, well, you might — I wish you’d say something about that because this is a big deal problem. There’s lots of germs and other kinds of deadly viruses of all sorts that are flooding across borders, our modern world, we move from place to place. It is a challenge. We had the flu, the swine flu variant just last year. That’s a long-term problem. We’re not doing enough. We don’t have enough countries that have built up their own capacity.

 

And then finally, I guess, another trend line is something that I’m particularly devoted to, and that’s women’s participation. It’s moving; it’s not moving fast enough. There are lots of backlashes and setbacks. The 21st century really is the time to see women move into their full participation.

 

But maybe you could say something about that second, because this has been an area of your particular interest.

 

MS. CLINTON: Sure. Well, I think what you talked about with women’s participation relates to one and two. In your — I learned a lot from your speech last week, but one of the things that I have not been able to sort of psychologically digest is that if women farmers around the world were as productive as their male counterparts, and currently they’re not as productive, not because of lack of effort or a lack of skills, but largely because of a lack of resources — insufficient access to fertilizer, insufficient access to seed. The access they have to seed, it’s often the lower-quality seed. Often this is exacerbated by the fact that they spend a lot of time at home cooking, because they’ve not yet gotten access to the clean cookstoves. And that if women farmers around the world were as productive as their male counterparts, we would be able to feed, in a nutritionally sensible way, 150 million more people, which is just shocking. And as we not only approach 7 billion, but gallop pretty quickly towards 8 and 9 billion, that’s something we all should be more focused on. And then to the point about surveillance, I think this also really relates to women. There are a lot of amazing programs in the world that rely on technology, particularly cell phone technology, to enable women to report, and to nationally standardize numbers, symptoms that they’re seeing in their children. And that, by far, is the best leading indicator of many diseases that start in children in our most vulnerable populations, but quickly indeed become contagious. So I’m grateful you brought that up.

 

Moving quickly, though, to a headline that certainly has dominated a lot of the coverage today, the global markets have suffered devastating losses from Asia to just downtown here in New York City. You have been an incredibly articulate — and yes, I am unabashedly biased — advocate for those of us who are committed to civil society, being tuned in not only what’s happening in our governments but also what’s happening in our macroeconomic environment. It would be great to hear you talk a little about that.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I mean, there are many people in this audience who know so much more about this than I ever will. But, I mean, we do see a lack of understanding and involvement in a lot of these economic issues in, shall I say, an evidence-based way because there are a lot of opinions that are totally untethered to facts. And I think the more that we could create an economically literate citizenry, not only in our country but elsewhere, the more you could perhaps see decisions being made in both the public and the private sector that were reflective of the kinds of choices and the right choices that lie ahead of us.

 

We are very worried in our government, as you, I’m sure, know, about Europe. We’re still worried about growth in our own country. We’re worried about the potential impact in the consuming countries like ours, but also in poor countries, because contagion is not just a health term; it’s also an economic term. And how we begin to think through and act in ways that are, honestly, politically difficult — and it’s not just here but Europe and elsewhere — these are politically difficult issues. We need a stronger voice coming from the private sector and civil society to support political leaders. And media often is driven by the most alarmist information, the most outrageous or certainly strongest voice, whether it’s based in evidence or not. And therefore, we need more educated people and more people willing to speak out in ways that will help us navigate through this current economic crisis.

 

I have no doubt that the United States and our resilience and our ability to rebound is absolute. But I also know that the slowdown in growth has real consequences for people. It’s not just unemployment, but it’s incredible pressure on those who remain employed but may not be able to get ahead. I saw a recent statistic that one-third of the people born into the middle class in the United States in the last generation have fallen out of it in the last eight years. So we have a lot to do together, and I would make the plea for more people with knowledge and more people willing to be educated to not stand on the sidelines and shrug or throw a shoe at the TV when the political discussions take place but to try to –

 

MS. CLINTON: Participate.

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Try to participate, to play a productive role, and that goes full circle to what I believe is an age of participation whether we like it or not. I’m just calling on people who have educated opinions, who have a voice that should be heard, to participate and not just leave it to those who are — maybe have an axe to grind or a commercial or an ideological agenda to push, or are just not well-informed, because that doesn’t lead in a democracy or anywhere else to the best decisions.

 

MS. CLINTON: Well, thank you Mom. I’m, once again grateful that you’re my mom and my Secretary of State. 

 

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you, everyone.

 

MS. CLINTON: Thank you all. (Applause.)

 

(end transcript)

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD518   09/23/2011

Briefing on High-Level Meeting on Somalia, EU Ministerial

() (3178)

 

(begin transcript)

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesperson

September 23, 2011

 

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

 

Senior State Department Officials on

Preview of High-Level Meeting on Somalia

 

September 23, 2011

New York, New York

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Good morning, everybody.  Sorry for the delay.  We have two background briefs this morning.  The first is to read out the Secretary’s meeting with the EU – with her EU counterparts from the transatlantic dinner last night, and then when [Senior State Department Official One] arrives, we will preview the Somalia-Horn of Africa meeting later today.  We’re just flipping the order because [Senior State Department Official One] is running a little bit late.

 

So with regard to the U.S.-EU ministerial last night, the Secretary met with EU High Representative Ashton and the 27 member states of the European Union.  You won’t be surprised that meeting focused on the Middle East.  They discussed the Arab Spring and the need for the U.S. and the EU to work together to support transitions in the Middle East.  The Secretary also underlined that unity of the U.S. and the EU against the continuing brutality of the Syrian regime has been very important in tightening the noose on Asad, and she thanked the EU for its seventh round of sanctions a couple of weeks ago.

 

The Secretary and EU foreign ministers also discussed the way ahead on Israeli-Palestinian issues, and they all agreed that a negotiated settlement is the only way to a durable peace.  As you know, Quartet envoys are meeting again this morning to see how we can help the parties back to the negotiating table. 

 

The Secretary then went into the traditional annual dinner of transatlantic allies and partners.  This brings together the foreign ministers of all of the NATO and EU countries.  It’s informal and very small.  She used that opportunity, obviously, to reinforce the importance of close cooperation on all the pressing security challenges of the day.  She and her counterparts took stock in particular of where we are in Libya and reaffirmed their commitment to protecting civilians and continuing to support the TNC as Libya goes through its transition.  They also noted that NATO has an indispensible role in supporting the Libyan people and must continue to stay engaged.

 

The Secretary expressed our view that the integration of the Western Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic institutions remains unfinished business.  The ministers stressed their commitment to supporting their efforts towards reform and further dialogue to achieve regional security and stability.  As you know, the Secretary meets later today with the Serbian foreign minister.  She met earlier this week with the Kosovo leadership.

 

And finally, the Secretary noted that the United States is pleased to be hosting the next NATO summit, which will be May 20 to 21, 2012 in Chicago. 

 

QUESTION:  Is the Quartet meeting – that’s envoys, when does it start, or has it actually begun?

 

MODERATOR:  Quartet envoys are meeting this morning.  I believe they started at 9 o’clock, continuing to try to be supportive to the Israelis and the Palestinians in getting them back to the negotiating table.

 

QUESTION:  [Senior State Department Official Two], did they meet last night?  (Inaudible) came out last night and said they might meet again last night and then again tomorrow?  Did they meet last night and now it’s again this morning?

 

STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  They didn’t sit in Quartet format last night.  What they did instead was have small meetings in different formations to try to work through ideas and preparations for this morning’s meeting.

 

QUESTION:  Were the U.S.-Russian meetings last night?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  I can’t speak to that, but I do know that David Hale was in contact with his Russian counterpart last night.  I don’t know whether they sat down or just spoke on the phone.

 

Okay.  We are delighted to have with us this morning [Senior State Department Official One], hereafter known as Senior Administration Official Number One – Senior State Department Official Number One – to talk to us about the Secretary’s activities on Africa this week, but also to preview the high-level meeting on Somalia later today.

 

Senior Official Number One.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  It’s – glad to be here.  This afternoon, the Secretary will participate in a meeting hosted by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the political and security situation in Somalia.  As you all know, the Horn of Africa is the most complex, volatile, and climatically challenged region in Africa today.  Somalia is at the center of these many challenges and faces a humanitarian crisis, a security crisis, and a political set of challenges.

 

This afternoon’s meeting will focus largely on two things:  how well the AMISOM and TFG forces are doing in carrying out their UN Security Council mandate to protect TFG officials, to protect and defend TFG institutions, and to train and strengthen the TFG as TFG military.  It will also focus on how effectively the TFG has been operating as a government.  The meeting will also highlight the recent Mogadishu Accord that was signed by the TFG and a number of other political forces inside of Somalia, and witnessed and also signed by the secretary general’s special representative. 

 

That accord is particularly important for advancing the political agenda in Somalia.  It calls on the TFG to carry out elections before August 2012, to complete a new constitution by (inaudible), and to make progress in the political, security, governance, and reconciliation arenas.  The Mogadishu Accord has specific goals and timelines, and there will be many in the room, including Secretary Clinton, who will endorse the significance and importance of this Mogadishu Accord, and will urge all Somali political parties to live up to it, complete it in accordance to the roadmap – the Mogadishu Roadmap – and will call on the international community to continue to provide support.

 

This session this afternoon will not deal very much with the humanitarian crisis.  That will be dealt with largely tomorrow at a session on humanitarian affairs in which AID Administrator Raj Shah will be in the chair for the Administration.  All of you know that the crisis on the ground is enormous.  Some 750,000 Somalis are threatened over the next four months with the possibility of loss of life, and there are some 4 million people who are in serious need in the region out of some 14 million.  We continue to believe that it is al-Shabaab which is causing the greatest hardship there because of their refusal to allow international aid groups to come in in the past.  We note that if they had been cooperative weeks and months ago, we would have – not have seen the mass exodus of Somalis into Kenya, Ethiopia, and into other parts of the region.  We continue to appeal to al-Shabaab to let in groups and to stop their callous treatment of their own Somali neighbors and relatives. 

 

Two other quick notes for me is that the Secretary has had two major bilaterals this week with African leaders.  One was a meeting with Foreign Minister Mashabane of South Africa.  It was a broad-ranging discussion covering a number of the political issues confronting the continent, but it was also an opportunity for the Secretary to reaffirm her desire to move forward with the Strategic Dialogue with South Africa, indicating that she might, in fact, if her schedule permits, travel to South Africa for the next round of dialogues sometime in 2012. 

 

The Secretary also had an excellent meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan, the Nigerian president.  Again, she had an opportunity to express her condolences to the Nigerian president on the destruction of the UN headquarters in Abuja some three and a half weeks ago, but also to discuss the Strategic Dialogue that we have with Nigeria.  Our relations with Nigeria are excellent, and we consider them a strong partner. 

 

I’ll stop there. 

 

QUESTION:  I just have two things (inaudible), one on the Somalia, on – given the situation there, how realistic is it, I mean, to demand or call for them to have elections in 2012?  I mean, is that feasible?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  It is feasible.  We believe that it is important that the Somali parties who have signed on to the Mogadishu Roadmap on September 6 live up to the commitments that they made in that document.  That document has specific goals and timelines.  We think those goals and timelines are reasonable and can, in fact, be met.  We should not, some two weeks after signing that document, begin to question the feasibility of whether it can be implemented some 10 months from now.  We are determined to work with the UN Special Representative Augustine Mahiga, the IGAD countries who are also signers and signatories to this, as well as the international community to do it.

 

I might underscore that these are not direct elections.  These are not elections in which every Somali in every village will be able to walk into his or her neighborhood polling booth.  These are indirect elections.  They can be managed.  They can be managed well.  It is a timeline which is perfectly realizable, if Somalis and those in the region are determined to see it.  Our desire – and you will hear that from the Secretary today – is to see that the roadmap is completed according to the way it has been drawn and the timelines that have been laid out. 

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Let’s take one more from the room.  Then we have some folks on the phone.  Anybody?

 

QUESTION:  (Off-mike.)

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Go ahead, Matt. 

 

QUESTION:  It’s just about the South Africa meeting.  Did the Mid-East come up in that at all?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  Pardon me?

 

QUESTION:  Middle East? 

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  There was very little on the Middle East in that discussion. 

 

QUESTION:  Did the Secretary raise the issue of the possibility of Security Council and make a case for South Africa to not support a full membership?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  Let me just say that the – over the last few days in all of the conversations that we have had with senior African officials, presidents, and foreign ministers, this has been an important priority topic for every one of them.  Sometimes it has been 15 or 20 minutes, sometimes it has been several sentences.  But in each case, it has been made very clear what our position is.  The President made that clear in his speech.  It is something that the Secretary has iterated in her discussions with African leaders she’s met and something that we continue to iterate as well.  It is a priority for us.  The Palestinian issue is a priority, and it is one of the things that is driving our discussions with everyone, whether it is President Goodluck Jonathan or South Africa.  Both are members of the Security Council.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  From the – on the phone, anybody?

 

OPERATOR:  I’m not showing any questions from the phone at this time.  Once again, it is *1. 

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Thank you.  Anything else for [Senior State Department Official One]?

 

OPERATOR:  We do have one question.  Did you want to take that now?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Yes, please. 

 

OPERATOR:  Indira Lakshmanan, Bloomberg News.

 

QUESTION:  Hi, [Senior State Department Official Two].  This was actually a question for you regarding the first briefing.  Do you want me to ask that now or after [Senior State Department Official One] leaves? 

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Why don’t we just make sure we use [Senior State Department Official One]’s time well.  Anybody with a question for [Senior State Department Official One]?  Okay.  Thank you very much.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  Okay.  Very good. 

 

QUESTION:  Thank you.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE:  Yeah.  Okay.  Thanks.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Indira, go ahead. 

 

QUESTION:  You were saying how the folks last night did not meet in Quartet format.  By that, I guess you meant – you were talking about the foreign ministers and the Secretary.  But what can you tell us about the Quartet meetings that did go on last night?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  No, Indira.  What I meant was that envoys did not meet altogether last night.

 

QUESTION:  On the what?  I’m sorry.  I couldn’t hear you properly.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  That we are talking about Quartet envoys at the David Hale level.  They met yesterday afternoon, as I read out yesterday, for nearly three hours.  They then had smaller meetings and phone conversations in the evening in different formations in preparation for another Quartet envoy’s meeting this morning.

 

QUESTION:  Great.  Okay.  So what I was asking is could you give us a little more readout on the smaller meetings last night that were after the last briefing you told us about?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Again, this is onward diplomacy effort to try to work towards a Quartet statement that will be helpful to getting the parties back to the negotiating table. 

 

QUESTION:  So when are you expecting that?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  When are we expecting what, Indira?

 

QUESTION:  When are you expecting a Quartet statement?  When are you aiming for that?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Stand by. 

 

QUESTION:  Okay.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Anything else from the room?

 

QUESTION:  Well, I mean, just on that.  I mean, if you could just – do you have any idea how close they are?  I mean, is it (inaudible) distinct possibility at this point?  Or is it – do things look good?  What’s –

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  I’m not going to get betting off, but we continue to believe that a statement is important, and we’re continuing to work for it.  We’ll have more information for you later in the day if there’s something to report.

 

QUESTION:  Are you still hopeful that – well, if something is coming, then – I mean, this is basically just logistical and planning.  If something –

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  After we finish here, let’s do a little minute and –

 

QUESTION:  That’s fine.

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Yeah.  Anything on anything else?

 

QUESTION:  Forgive me for being late, but did you address Yemen already?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  I did not.  What’s the question?

 

QUESTION:  The U.S. hasn’t gotten any indication that his return (inaudible) is more inclined to begin the transition?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Well, as you know, there have been meetings going on for a number of weeks between his vice president and the acting President Hadi trying to broker a deal.  And as you know, the GCC envoy was there all this week trying to broker a deal.  So we remain committed to a path forward for Yemen along the lines of the GCC proposal.  So we want to see that go forward.  Okay?

 

QUESTION:  Question on Pakistan.  Have there been any conversations between the U.S. and Pakistan since Admiral Mullen’s testimony yesterday?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Conversations with Pakistan continue at all levels, including with our Embassy out there.  I think you know where we are on this issue, and you’ve seen a number of Administration principals have good exchanges, important exchanges, with their Pakistani counterparts.  We do believe that Haqqani* Network was responsible for the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on ISAF headquarters and a number of other recent attacks.  This is not a new concern of the United States, but it’s obviously a greatly heightened concern after these recent attacks, and we are continuing intensive conversation with the Pakistani Government at all levels.  As you know the Secretary met with her counterpart, and other senior officials have also been meeting with their counterparts.

 

QUESTION:  Can you tell us – I mean, I asked the question of the briefer right after the Pakistani Meeting on Sunday night, whether the Secretary had presented intelligence about that attack to the foreign minister during that meeting.  And he said, oh I can’t talk about intelligence.  And I’m not asking him or you to talk about the intelligence itself.  What I am trying – what I would like though is, did the Secretary actually present such intelligence or evidence as you may have about this during that meeting?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Again, I’m not going to comment on intelligence.  I will say, as our briefer said, last – earlier in the week, that they had a very full and candid and clear exchange about our concerns about the Haqqani Network, and our sense – our shared sense that we’ve got to work together on this.

 

Go ahead.

 

QUESTION:  How is it that – one last question.  And I realize this is a difficult one for you to answer, but – how is it possible for you to do business with a government, one of who’s arms you believe has encouraged a direct attack on one of your diplomatic facilities?

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  The President, Secretary, other officials have spoken to this over the last number of months.  The U.S. and Pakistan have a vital interest in continuing to work on these problems together.  These are problems that threaten both of us.  We have had some counterterrorism successes.  We need to continue to fight this battle together, and we will.

 

QUESTION:  So can you --

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Can I just do something else here, or do you want to continue on this?

 

QUESTION:  No, no.  I want to go back to the (inaudible).

 

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO:  Back on background on a second subject.  We’ve had a number of questions over the last couple of days on the U.S. role in working for and supporting the release of Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal from Iran.  I just want to underscore here that we in the State Department, throughout this ordeal, used all of our diplomatic tools to seek their release. 

 

The President and the Secretary made more than 10 public statements calling for their release, making this case a priority for the United States.  Both the President and Secretary raised their cases with a wide range of world leaders during their imprisonment, who we felt could have influence on the Iranian Government.  We used our Persian social media sites to raise awareness in Iran, linking the news of their plight and statements made by other world leaders.

 

We were in continuous contact with the Swiss Protecting Power to demand consular and legal access to them, and we remained in continuous contact with their families as we sought their release, including personal contact by the Secretary. 

 

We are very grateful for all the efforts of those who worked for their release, particularly the Swiss protecting power in Tehran, the Omani Government, the Iraqi Government, and many other world leaders who have raised their voices in support, as well as those inside Iran who pushed for justice.

 

Okay.  That’s it for me.

 

(end transcript)

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

 

 

*WPD520   09/23/2011

State Officials on U.S. Meeting with Gulf Cooperation Council

() (2653)

 

(begin transcript)

 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

Office of the Spokesperson

September 22, 2011

 

BACKGROUND BRIEFING

 

Senior Administration Officials on

U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Meeting

September 22, 2011

 

Waldorf Astoria

New York, New York

 

Via Teleconference

 

MODERATOR: Thank you. We are delighted today to give you a background briefing on a meeting tomorrow that will be led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Panetta with participation as well from the National Security Council. It is a U.S. plus Gulf Cooperation Council meeting to strengthen and deepen our cooperation together.

 

We have three briefers today. For your records, Senior Administration Official Number One is [Senior Administration Official Number One], Senior Administration Official Number Two is [Senior Administration Official Number Two], and Senior Administration Official Number Three is [Senior Administration Official Number Three]. So without further ado, let’s go to Senior Administration Official Number One to open the briefing.

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Thank you. Tomorrow’s GCC ministerial meeting with Secretary Clinton and Secretary Panetta really highlights the GCC-U.S. partnership for regional security. We have seen changes that have come throughout the region because of the Arab Awakening, but our shared goal of promoting regional security in the Gulf remains the same.

 

The GCC is emerging as an increasingly critical partner to advancing our common interest, which include but also extend beyond this shared vision for regional security on issues from Libya to Yemen to Syria, maritime security, counterterrorism, energy security, and countering weapons proliferation. U.S. collaboration with the GCC – with the six GCC countries working together as an institution – is critical, and I expect the discussion tomorrow will touch on all of those topics.

 

We have similar concerns about – for example, about the role that Iran tries to play in the region, and through a united position between the U.S. and the GCC, we send a powerful message to Iran that its aggressive activities undermine its regional standing.

 

Libya was an extraordinary example of shared leadership and cooperation, and the GCC came out early and strongly for UN action to protect innocent civilians from Qadhafi’s brutal attacks.

 

And Iraq is a critical player. We all have shared interest in its stability, sovereignty, and success. And it’s important to continue to build up Iraq’s relationships with its Gulf neighbors, not just for Iraq’s sake but because it is in the Gulf countries’ interests and Gulf security interests as well.

 

If I could sum up, I would just say that tomorrow’s meeting will be continuing to put the GCC at the heart of the regional – of the region’s security architecture, and in fact, starting to formalize how we work together between the United States and the GCC.

 

MODERATOR: Good. Senior Administration Official Number Two, please.

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Okay. Good to be here. Secretary Panetta’s participation in tomorrow’s U.S.-GCC ministerial is intended to send a strong signal of how much we value these partners and the importance of not just the diplomatic relationship but also our security relationship. As [Senior Administration Official One] said, we share significant common interests, including countering extremism, stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, ensuring the free flow of commerce in the region, and addressing any threats posed by Iran.

 

So at the meeting tomorrow, Secretary Panetta will emphasize the need to strengthen and deepen the security architecture in the region, which already includes a number of important elements, including a robust schedule each year of multilateral and bilateral joint military exercises, cooperation on maritime security, including counter-smuggling, counter-piracy, and other issues of common concern. And there’s also increasing cooperation on ballistic missile defense and shared early warning.

 

So by deepening and expanding the cooperation, we want to send a strong signal to our partners regarding our enduring commitment to the security of the region. And it will also convey to Iran that if it continues its destabilizing activities in the region and refuses to meet its international obligations, it’s going to find itself less rather than more secure.

 

Secretary Panetta will also discuss Iraq and reaffirm our commitment to a long-term partnership with the Government of Iraq and its people. A relationship with the Iraqi security forces will be an important part of that partnership, and we will be encouraging our partners to do more to reintegrate Iraq into the region.

 

So we think it’s going to be an important opportunity for dialogue on some of the pressing security issues in the region, and we would hope that this can become a more regular form of dialogue with these key partners in the future.

 

MODERATOR: Thank you. Senior Administration Official Number Three, anything to add or shall we move to questions?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: I have nothing to add here.

 

MODERATOR: Terrific. This is how we’re going to do this, we’re going to take two from the room here in New York, then we’re going to take a few from the callers on the line, and then we’ll see where we go. Before we do that, Operator, can you explain to the folks on the call how to activate their buttons, please?

 

OPERATOR: Yes. If you would like an open line, you can press *1 and you will be queued. I will introduce you into the call.

 

MODERATOR: Okay, good. So first, two from the room here. Please speak loudly so our friends on the call can hear you.

 

Nicole.

 

QUESTION: In your conversations this morning and in your conversations with the GCC, are you going to discuss measures to handle any potential violence that might arise after UNGA and the Palestinian bid for statehood? The Secretary has expressed great concern about the possibility of violence. I’m just wondering what you’re going to plan (inaudible).

 

MODERATOR: Other briefers, were you able to hear the question?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: It was a little faint. Could you repeat it?

 

MODERATOR: The question went to whether this is a forum that can be used to discuss quelling any potential violence after New York and related to Israeli-Palestinian issues.

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: I mean, first of all, all of our partners share that same goal that we have of an independent, viable Palestinian state. And we’ve seen this week, for example, Saudi Arabia coming forth with the announcement of $200 million in additional aid for the Palestinian Authority’s budget needs, which I think demonstrates the type of commitment they have to not only seeing that the Palestinian aspirations for state are (inaudible), but the day-to-day living conditions of the Palestinians remain good, remains strong, that the salaries are paid and services are rendered.

 

We are, of course, discussing with the Israelis and the Palestinians directly the security issues that you raise, because one always has to plan for all contingencies. We have been impressed with the developments of the security services of the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad over the past few years. We’ve also been impressed with the gains they have made in how they are able to use peaceful means to control demonstrations. We saw examples of that again yesterday, while there were some minor incidents, that in general you had peaceful Palestinian demonstrators with Palestinian police protection and control. So we are watching this issue and it’s one that we’re in direct contact with both our Israeli and Palestinian partners on.

 

MODERATOR: Other briefers anything to add?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: Not from here, no.

 

MODERATOR: Okay. Lachlan.

 

QUESTION: Yeah. This is Lachlan Carmichael, AFP. For Senior Official Number Two, you talked about deepening and expanding the cooperation with the GCC. Are you talking about simply the exercises you mentioned? And what kind of new exercises would you have compared to what you had in the past, and are you thinking of any military sales?

 

MODERATOR: Where you able to hear that, [Senior Administration Official Two]?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah, I did. I think we’re looking tomorrow to talk about more longer-term forms of cooperation rather than presenting proposals for any specific new military exercises. As I said, we already have a pretty robust program each year. But I think in the areas of maritime security, regional missile defense, we see opportunities to do things more on a multilateral basis than has been the case hitherto for, building on the bilateral ties that we already have with some of the key partners and doing things more in a U.S.-GCC framework. So that, I think, will be one of the themes that Secretary Panetta will be emphasizing.

 

QUESTION: Can you expand on regional missile defense? You mean exercises to (inaudible)?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Lach, I don’t want to get too deeply into the specifics, but I think several of our partners are acquiring missile defense assets. The U.S. has Patriot systems deployed in several of the countries in the region. And I think there could be some advantages by bringing the experts from each of the countries together to discuss ways that we could mutually reinforce one another’s capabilities, as we’re doing on the European level, to enable countries to get the advantages of a multilateral network approach to regional missile defense.

 

MODERATOR: Good, thanks. Operator, do you have calls from folks on the line?

 

OPERATOR: I have Dan De Luce from AFP. Your line is open.

 

QUESTION: Yes. Is there a danger or risk that the U.S. promoting ties with these Gulf countries runs counter to the sort of democratic uprisings of the Arab Spring, that these countries represent the past and undemocratic rule?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Look, there’s been a lot of changes in the region that we’ve witnessed this year with the Arab Awakening. As I said before, even though we have new opportunities because of these changes – the ability to promote human rights and democracy in places like Egypt and Tunisia – we also have a lot of strategic interests that remain constant, that remain the same. And Gulf security, with all the aspects that we mentioned in our opening remarks, is certainly one of those enduring strategic interests that we have in the region. And so I think it makes a lot of sense that we’re looking at more formal mechanisms to work with the GCC on these enduring interests.

 

But I also note on the political side, the GCC was, in fact, the first international sort of grouping of states that came together to denounce what Qadhafi was doing to his own people. The GCC, that in its communiqué and its meetings in February, provoked the Arab League to suspend Libya’s membership from the Arab League. And that, of course, then helped us get the Security Council resolution that we needed to put in the civilian protection mission.

 

So the GCC is an important partner when it comes to our enduring interest regarding Gulf security, and it’s also becoming a more assertive partner on the international and regional stage on these political issues, such as Libya.

 

MODERATOR: Good. Operator, anybody else on your side? Operator, anybody else calling in on your lines, please?

 

OPERATOR: There are no further phone questions. No further questions on the phone.

 

MODERATOR: Okay. Any further questions from the room? Steve Myers, New York Times.

 

QUESTION: Could I ask you gentlemen to follow up a little bit on the discussion on Iraq? You talked about enhancing cooperation with the GCC on Iraq. Where – how does that fit into the negotiations now underway over the U.S. presence in Iraq itself and maybe elsewhere in the Gulf as a result of the drawdown?

 

MODERATOR: [Senior Administration Official Two], were you able to hear that?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah. I think I got the gist.

 

I think part of our message, as I mentioned about the importance of reintegrating Iraq into the region, is sort of how this all fits together. We, as I said, are working to develop a long-term partnership with Iraq. Last month, the Iraqi political leadership indicated publicly that they’re interested in an ongoing training relationship with the United States after 2011, and we’re currently in discussions with the Iraqi Government about the nature and the scope of that relationship.

 

But regardless of the outcome of those talks, the United States is going to stay committed to the security of the region and to a long-term security partnership with Iraq. So I think we want to see our GCC partners do their part in helping strengthen Iraq politically and economically, help make it a success story in terms of its democratic reform process, and that this can be a factor both for greater prosperity in the region and also an important counterweight to Iranian influence, which is a key concern of our GCC partners.

 

MODERATOR: [Senior Administration Official Three], do you want to add anything there?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: Yeah. I mean – I’m sorry. What was the exact question?

 

MODERATOR: Was how this forum and our talk there about Iraq links up with the U.S. drawdown and our discussions with the Iraqi Government about a future training role.

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: Yeah. Well, I think [Senior Administration Official Two] hit the right points there. I mean, from our perspective – and you heard the President articulate this in his speech before the UN yesterday, where he said that we will have a different relationship with Iraq at the end of this year, consistent with our – the commitments we’ve made, that we will have a robust security relationship, we hope, as part of a broader relationship.

 

And so I think the message is that, in a sense, we’re not going anywhere. We’re going to be around. We still care deeply about the security of the region and the security of Iraq and our broader relationship with Iraq going forward.

 

MODERATOR: Good. Operator, I understand you have no further questions on your lines. Is that right?

 

OPERATOR: That’s correct.

 

MODERATOR: Anybody else in the room?

 

QUESTION: Is there any reason why we shouldn’t regard this basically as not aimed at Iraq but – at Iran – excuse me – but largely a way to develop better ties to help contain (inaudible)?

 

MODERATOR: That was Arshad Mohammed from Reuters.

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Arshad, I think you have put your finger on one of the key shared interests that we have with the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which is the concern with the role that Iraq – Iran, I’m sorry – Iran too often has played in the region and the ambitions that Iran may have.

 

But I would look at this more as a positive vision going forward, because we’re looking at ways that we are working together with our partners to provide the type of foundations for Gulf security well into the future that allows the freedom of navigation, that prevents proliferation of weapons, all that sort of stuff.

 

And you’re right that we are motivated in part by our concern about Iran. But the partnership with the GCC goes far beyond that, and we want to use tomorrow’s meeting to really reinforce the long-term commitment we have to a positive vision for Gulf security.

 

MODERATOR: Any other briefers have anything to add there?

 

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: Yeah. I’d just add that it’s no surprise that Iran is going to be on the agenda. I mean, if you look back at the last couple of GCC meetings and the statements that have been issued afterwards, they have quite vociferously expressed their concerns about Iranian interference in the region. And so since this is going to be a broad regional discussion that’s going to be held tomorrow, it’s no surprise that Iran is on the agenda.

 

MODERATOR: Good. If there are no further questions, then I want to thank our briefers and thank those for participating.

 

(end transcript)

 

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/iipdigital-en/index.html)

 

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