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Secretary Condoleezza Rice about her 2006
agenda
Washington, DC
January 5, 2006
Remarks
» Iran
» Iraq
» Israel
» India
» Russia
IRAN
QUESTION:There's a lot
of talk about going to the Security Council, but
you've been saying the same thing for a year now.
Do you want to draw any sharper line about how long
this will go on? How much of a role are the Russians
playing? Do you have to wait for them before you
can take it to the Security Council?
SECRETARY RICE: I don't think there's any doubt
that we will want to demonstrate that we've given
diplomacy a chance. And. sometimes it takes a little
time give diplomacy a chance. The Russians had a
proposal that they wanted to make to the Iranians.
We've supported their making that proposal to the
Iranians. But let me just, if you don't mind, quarrel
a little bit with the characterization of the last
year.
Let me remind especially those of you who went
with me to Europe on my first trip, and I will
tell you that I was expecting a thousand questions
about Iraq and I got two about Iraq and a thousand
questions about Iran. And the position that we
were in at that point was that the United States
had somehow gotten in a position where the Europeans
were between or considered themselves to be between
Iran and the United States, trying to mediate
between Iran and the United States. It was not
a very good place to be.
And so the first goal was to get a unified position
between the United States and our key allies on
Iran. And if you remember, that had to do with
both giving the diplomacy a chance and also being
prepared to support the diplomacy with a couple
of relatively minor moves like allowing or --
withdrawing our
objection to an Iranian application to the WTO.
We've lived up to our part of the bargain. The
Europeans and we could not be in closer coordination
nor in greater concert about where we are in this
position.
The next steps have been to, in effect, bring
others into that consensus: Russia, India, China.
And the Russian -- what the Russians are doing,
I think demonstrates again that the Iranians presented
even with another possibility, a joint technology
venture where they don't have the fuel cycle but
they have access to a joint venture for fuel supply,
but they've also not been willing to take that.
So what I think you are seeing is that you're
seeing the consistent and sort of seriatim isolation
now of Iran to the point that when we had the
vote last November, I think the Iranians were
really quite shocked that they were out there
with Venezuela on their side and nobody else.
That's a much better
position to be in than we were a little more --
a little less than a year ago.
And I think we'll continue on that course. But
I don't have any doubt that at the right time,
a time of our choosing, we're going to go to the
Security Council if the Iranians are not prepared
to do what they say they want to do, which is
to pursue peaceful nuclear energy.
QUESTION:I'm struck in your opening comments
on Iran, you said that it's -- we're coming to
the point where it's time for diplomacy to take
a different form. Do you get a sense that the
EU-3 process has basically ended? Has that pretty
much run its course?
And secondly, specifically on the latest threat
from the Iranians to renew this research on the
enrichment in, what, four days, what's your reaction
going to be if they follow through on that threat?
Are you going to call for emergency meeting of
the IAEA?
SECRETARY RICE:This kind of makes the point that
I was making about the now concert that we have
with the Europeans. We didn't even have to say
anything. It was the French and the Germans who
were out telling the Iranians don't do it because
that would be a serious problem for any further
negotiation. And you know, I think I assume private
messages are perhaps even more direct. And so
I think that you are getting -- when the Iranians
make these threats, they end up isolating themselves,
not frightening people into playing by their rules.
And so I think we are exactly where the rest
of -- where everybody is on this.
They shouldn't do it because it really will be
a sign that they're not prepared-- we've been
prepared to let the diplomacy work, but they're
not prepared to actually make the diplomacy work.
In terms of the next phase, you know, all that
I'm referring to is that we've always said that
when it's clear that negotiation has been exhausted,
that we'll -- we have the votes, there is a resolution
sitting there about the Security Council (inaudible).
We obviously would like to bring as many people
to that assessment as possible.
And so as you know, I will not give you a timeline
on when that's going to happen, but I do think
that the Iranians are digging their own hole of
isolation deeper and deeper. It is dug even deeper
by the fact that their President seems to keep
reminding people of why Iran could never be trusted
with nuclear technology. I think it was the Russian
Foreign Minister who, when Ahmadi-Nejad blasted
forth with his first thing about Israel should
be wiped off the map, who said that the Iranians
had just given those who wish to go to the Security
Council another reason for doing so. So we don't
have the problem; the Iranians have the problem.
And we'll see whether they have a way to get ut
of it or whether we go to the Security Council
QUESTION: Madame Secretary, doesn't isolation
make them more dangerous or doesn't isolation
make North Korea more dangerous, or do you think
Bush Administration policy adequately reflects
the danger of forcing them --
forcing the two of them on the nuclear issue to
the wall? Is there another way to go about this?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the way is for them to
give up these nuclear ambitions. Look, the North
Koreans do not have to be isolated. There is a
-- it's a North Korean choice to be isolated,
not American policy to isolate them.There is a
six-party Statement of Principles that makes very
clear that when
the North Koreans are prepared to give up their
nuclear ambitions, that the United States, as
well as the other parties, are prepared to engage
them and engage them in a major way. So if they
choose isolation, I don't think it is a result
of American policy; it's a result of choices that
the North Koreans made. Now again, in terms of
danger, of course, you know, they're a dangerous
regime. But we should also not misinterpret the
security situation on the Korean Peninsula. There
is a significant deterrent to North Korean activity
there.Their illegal activities have drawn sanctions
from us because the President's not going to let
North Korea counterfeit American money without
action. And I would just note to you that there
hadn't been much uproar from anybody else about
the fact that we are engaged in trying to those
illicit activities.
In terms of Iran, again, the Iranians are digging
their own isolation. The United States, mid --
you know, March or so of last year said let's
give the diplomacy a chance to work. Let's actually
even put some things on the table so that our
European allies have greater chips to play in
the negotiation. The
Iranians haven't taken the deal. So I don't know
what other course you have when you have states
that will not take the opportunity to end isolation,
but I think the North Koreans, in particular,
there is every opportunity for a different kind
of relationship with the rest of the world.
Now, that doesn't speak to, you know -- we have
no illusions about the nature of the North Korean
regime. We have no illusions about what is happening
to the North Korean people and about the need
to speak out on those issues. But if
the North Korean regime would be prepared for
greater openness, for greater engagement and to
denuclearize, I think you would see a totally
different situation.
QUESTION: If I can just follow on Iran, for a
moment. Do you or does the President believe that
the time for diplomacy has been exhausted with
Iran? And if not, what are the indicators that
that time has arrived? Otherwise, there's been
an awful lot of saber rattling on the part of
the United States over the last year and we've
seen Iran do nothing but walk away from, for instance,
the Paris agreement and you've had a hard-line
President that's just been elected.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, again, I think the point
is that the last
several months, the last nine months or so, has
been used to build a consensus about the Iranian
problem. Now, it's very interesting, I remember
all the stories that everybody wrote about American
unilateralism -- let's just go out and do it.
This is a case in which we've carefully built
a consensus about the
Iranians. The European-American consensus is very
strong. Others are coming to that consensus. That
puts you in a very much stronger position when
you actually do decide to go to the Security Council.
That's not saber rattling. That's diplomacy.
Now, it's not a matter of diplomacy ending. It
could be a matter of the negotiations this --
you know, diplomacy also includes what you do
in the Security Council. So I think that what
you're seeing is that people want the Iranians
to decide whether or not they're prepared to live
with a civil nuclear structure that does not raise
proliferation risks or not. And when it is clearer,
as it is becoming clearer, that they are not prepared
to do that, I
think you will have a very strong consensus behind
a different course of action.
QUESTION: The first part of the question, was
that a yes or a no?
SECRETARY RICE: It's not a simple yes or no question.
I hope that the diplomacy has not been exhausted,
that negotiation has not been exhausted. I hope
that the Iranians show up at the next meeting
and say, all right, we understand that we can't
have the entire fuel cycle, we understand that
enrichment and reprocessing has got to be either
offshore or we have to have
assured fuel supply. I could write the script
and I continue to hope that that will be the case.
I think what is very important for us is on the
point of isolation. This is not about the Iranian
people. Nobody wants to isolate the Iranian people.
If there were ways to better engage and reach
out to the Iranian people, I would love to see
them. You know, soccer matches and musicians and
university students and all those things, because
this is a great civilization and these are a great
people. They happen to have a leadership that
seems, at this point, to have chosen confrontation
rather than cooperation with the international
system. And so it's extremely important that we
send the message that this is not intended to
isolate the Iranian people.
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