(U.S. forming coordinating group to help parties work together) (3030) A senior State Department official said May 23 that the roadmap to peace in the Middle East is "the way to move forward, it is the only game that we have" to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The official, speaking on background to the press en route to Andrews Air Force Base, said that the Bush administration's willingness to address concerns raised by the parties over the roadmap did not necessarily mean that the plans would be revised in favor of one party or another. "That's why we used the word address," said the official. "We don't know yet what will happen with any one of these concerns. Some of them, I think, will be easily dealt with. Others will be more difficult. We'll have to address them and find a solution, but there's no suggestion that all of them are going to be satisfactorily resolved in the favor of one party or the other. They're all going to be addressed to find a satisfactory solution." The official said the United States is willing to help with the implementation of the roadmap, coordinate between the two sides, and to investigate claims made by one side against another. He said a small coordinating group of U.S. civilians was now being assembled to go to Jerusalem "We're already assembling a small team of people so that if this moves forward, in a satisfactory manner, in the days ahead we can put some people on the ground to help the two sides start to work together," he said. The official also restated the Bush administration's view that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "should be isolated," and encouraged those countries that continue to meet with Arafat to send him the message that "he has to do everything in his power to support [Palestinian Prime Minister] Abu Mazen, support the effort to get started on the roadmap, and to end terror and violence." "I think this is time for him to realize that if he has any interest in peace, if he has any interest in the Palestinian State, he ought to be using his power, his authority, his influence on the Palestinian people, to help the new Prime Minister get the job done. We have seen indications where he is undercutting him," said the official. Turning to Syria, the official said the United States has seen "some indications of curtailment" of support for terrorist organizations in Damascus, but "not yet what we're looking for." "We're not going to be fondly inclined toward a Syria which continues to provide the means by which terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad can do their jobs out of Damascus, and we are not going too look fondly toward nations such as Iran or Syria which serve as origination and transshipment points for weapons going to Hezbollah. We've made that clear to both of them," he said. Following is a transcript of remarks by a senior administration official en route to Andrews Air Force Base May 23: (begin transcript) Press Statement Office of the Spokesman On Board Plane May 23, 2003 Remarks by Senior State Department Official En Route Andrews Air Force Base QUESTION: Could you tell us how the breakfast with Dominique de Villepin went? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Dominique and I had a lovely French breakfast, roughly 50 minutes long. We had a good discussion of the bilateral relationship, a good discussion of where we have been, and a good discussion of how we should move forward together. But it was for the most part a private meeting and a private discussion. There are no memcons. So that's about all I'd like to say about it. He and I talked to each other in very straightforward, candid terms. QUESTION: You suggested something about monitoring. What might we be willing to do on the ground? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We've said for 2 years now that we were prepared to put in U.S. monitors if we got started moving, to observe what's going on, to coordinate between the sides, to look into claims or charges that one side might make against the other. We're not talking about an armed, interpositional force. We're already assembling a small team of people so that if this moves forward, in a satisfactory manner, in the days ahead we can put some people on the ground to help the two sides start to work together. I am not prepared yet to call them monitors. Let's just call it a coordinating group on the ground, which might grow into a larger group over time that could serve a monitoring function -- U.S., United States folks. If I could just, just in the way of laying out the whole roadmap process, because I get asked questions from time to time that suggest maybe not a complete understanding of the sequence. We formed the Quartet in April of 2002, put out a statement, you remember my 10-day excursion last April. Then we broke the siege of the muqata, we broke the Church of Nativity scene, and we saw no real movement on the part of Mr. Arafat, and after reviewing our policy, the President made his speech on June 25 -- excuse me -- June 24. Thank you, the 24th of June. After, also we had the Arab League initiative, the Crown Prince's initiative. It was later in the summer, in the middle of July, when the Arab foreign ministers were in Washington for a meeting with me, that we realized that in order to make the vision a reality, you had to have a roadmap and it had to have a political dimension to it. In an Oval Office meeting with the President, we discussed this issue with the Arab foreign ministers, the three of them that were there -- Prince Saud of Saudi Arabia, Foreign Minister Muasher of Jordan and [Foreign Minister] Maher of Egypt. It was at that meeting that we all came to the realization that we had to work hard for something that came to be known as the roadmap, and then for the rest of the summer and fall, under the leadership of Assistant Secretary Bill Burns, the Quartet worked on it. Worked on it with the parties, worked on it with a number of people. It wasn't easy, lots of drafts, lots of controversy, but we kept working on it and never turned loose of the need for a roadmap. Otherwise, the vision was just a speech. On the 20th of December, the Quartet assembled again in Washington, and at that time, we finished our work on the roadmap and froze it. That's it. And presented it to President Bush, and then as you know, in the early part of the year, we were waiting for a change of leadership of the Palestinian Authority, waiting for the Israeli Government to get it its election and form a new government, and for the pieces to start to come into place. When Abu Mazen was made Prime Minister, we released the roadmap. The President has been for the roadmap ever since 20 December, and certainly strongly for it ever since its release Then we got Iraq behind us, and the pieces came into place for us to make a concerted effort now to get moving down the roadmap and get it accepted by both sides. QUESTION: (Inaudible) maybe not who they are, but what types of people and what they would actually be doing? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They will be in the region, probably Jerusalem, and it would have people who are knowledgeable about security matters. It would have some other elements to it. Bill Burns is still structuring it, working with Elliot Abrams over at NSC, so I don't want to go into greater detail, but just see it as a small coordinating group that would be coordinating our efforts, the efforts of the Quartet, and the efforts of the two parties of course, to make sure that we all are talking to on another and we get started. I don't have a name of a leader yet for you. QUESTION: Civilian? Government? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yeah, for the most part, the initial core group will be my folks. Not all State, there may be some other government agencies that have a role to play. QUESTION: Including uniform? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't know, I don't think so at the moment. Certainly those with an intelligence or security background who have been involved in this before. QUESTION: (inaudible) SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Exact number to be determined, but let's say between 7 and 10 to get started. QUESTION: What happened to the Tenet or Zinni plan, and is that still going to be put into effect, and could you describe it a little bit? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think the elements of the Tenet and Zinni plans have applicability and will be subsumed in the roadmap work. Tony Zinni did a lot of work last year that is still relevant and useful with respect to the kind of capabilities that you need, as did George Tenet. So all of that is available to serve as a resource for the roadmap effort. QUESTION: Formally incorporated? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I wouldn't use the word formally incorporated. The roadmap is what we have, and I don't know that they were formal plans to begin with. They all were trying to get a handle on security, Tenet and Zinni. The roadmap does that, but the roadmap, more clearly than the Zinni-Tenet efforts, talks about the political horizon and the political solution. QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, in your negotiations, in your dealings with the Russians, in your discussions with the Russians today and yesterday, did you talk at all about the Iranian situation, involving the nuclear situation, and also, how the heck all their night vision goggles got into Iraq? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On Iran, we spoke about it last night at the G-8 dinner, all of us did. I've had extended discussions with the Russians over many months, but especially last week when I was in Moscow, I had discussions on Iranian nuclear developments with both President Putin and Foreign Minister Ivanov. I think they share our concern about what the Iranians may be doing, and we will be working closely with the IAEA to learn as much as we can about it. I think the caution for all nations now is to make sure that we are watching what actions we might be taking, or any nation might be taking, that would (inaudible) the capability to Iran at a time when the IAEA is still looking into the nature of their programs. So the direct answer is yes, but more extensive discussions were held with them last week in Moscow. On the night vision goggles, I don't know what got in. This has been raised with the Russians in the past. They have indicated -- night vision goggles are almost a commercial item, you can get them almost anywhere -- and they denied making any kind of concerted effort to provide it as a military capability, but night vision goggles are not hard to come by in any sporting good store these day. So I have not discussed it because I don't know what actually got in or the exact source. We had concerns about such devices getting in. We had intelligence to suggest these devices were getting in, and we raised it with the Russians. QUESTION: Could you elucidate for us at all what sort of arguments you made to convince the Israeli Government to come out publicly in favor of the roadmap or what efforts might have been done to pressure them to do so? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We've had the most intensive discussions over the last several weeks with the Israelis at a variety of levels. I've had conversations both in person and on the phone with the new Foreign Minister, Mr. Shalom. Delegations, as you know, have come to Washington on a fairly frequent basis. Mr. Weisglas, working with Dr. Rice's office and Elliot Abrams and my Assistant Secretary Bill Burns participates in those conversations. And then I had conversations with Prime Minister Sharon that went to the heart of this issue. I reported those conversations back to the President. We were expecting to discuss all of this directly, President to Prime Minister, I guess it's this past Tuesday, the 20th, when we had all of the bombs over the weekend. We were anxious not to lose the thread at this point, not to lose the momentum that was building up, and so the President called Mr. Sharon, as you know, discussed this with him, and another delegation came from Israel a couple of days ago, met again with Dr. Rice and Bill Burns and Elliot and others, and we just made it clear that we've got to move forward. Even in the presence of this kind of violence. And so the roadmap is the way to move forward, it is the only game that we have, and we made a convincing case. QUESTION: Address Israel's concerns by no means necessarily means satisfy them? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That's why we used the word address. We don't know yet what will happen with any one of these concerns. Some of them, I think, will be easily dealt with. Others will be more difficult. We'll have to address them and find a solution, but there's no suggestion that all of them are going to be satisfactorily resolved in the favor of one party or the other. They're all going to be addressed to find a satisfactory solution. What will serve the interests of both parties so that we can keep going down the roadmap. QUESTION: The Europeans keep meeting with Arafat and saying that they have no intention to marginalize him. How big an impediment is that, or is it at this point irrelevant? And what can you tell us about any preparations about the possible summit with the President and the two Prime Ministers? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We believe that Arafat should be isolated. We give that message to our European friends and other friends, the Japanese Foreign Minister for example, at every opportunity. They have a different view. The one thing I do know is that they are giving Mr. Arafat a strong message that he has to support the new Prime Minister, and he has to do everything in his power to support Abu Mazen, support the effort to get started on the roadmap, and to end terror and violence. So while we have a different view from our European colleagues and other colleagues about seeing him, I know that they are conveying a strong message to him, the kind of message he needs to hear, but what we have found over the years is that Arafat doesn't respond very well to such messages. Therefore, we stopped delivering them to him. We made it clear last June 24th that we needed new leadership that we could work with. That's the same thing that the Israelis have been saying. The Palestinian people, through their legislature, provided that new leadership, and now we must work with Abu Mazen, do everything we can to help him get started on the roadmap, beginning with the end of terror and security, and not let Mr. Arafat interrupt, interfere, or undercut the new Prime Minister in his efforts. It's a consistent message I give to my European friends and I'm confident they are conveying that message to Mr. Arafat. Summit? I think I'll just leave that one and wait until announcements are made, if they are to be made, by those who make White House announcements. QUESTION: Do you have any evidence that Arafat is being supportive to Abu Mazen? For instance, your joint news conference with him was not carried live, when it certainly could have been. It was available to Palestinian television. Do you have any evidence that he is supportive, and do you have evidence that he is, in fact, undermining him? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't think he's being as supportive as he could. You've just given a pretty good piece of evidence. I think this is time for him to realize that if he has any interest in peace, if he has any interest in the Palestinian State, he ought to be using his power, his authority, his influence on the Palestinian people, to help the new Prime Minister get the job done. We have seen indications where he is undercutting him. QUESTION: In terms of security issues? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I don't want to specify, no, I don't want to get more specific than that. QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, any indications that either Syria or Iran are reducing in any way support for terrorist groups? SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes, we can continue to believe that both of those countries are state-sponsors of terrorism, they're on our list. I've had direct conversations with the Syrians about why it is in their interest (inaudible) to start changing their policies with an engaged United States in the Middle East. We're not going to be fondly inclined toward a Syria which continues to provide the means by which terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad can do their jobs out of Damascus, and we are not going too look fondly toward nations such as Iran or Syria which serve as origination and transshipment points for weapons going to Hezbollah. We've made that clear to both of them. In the case of Syria, you all know that I went there three weekends ago to deliver that message. We have seen some indications of curtailment of activity in Damascus but not yet what we are looking for. There's been some response, but not what we're looking for yet. [End] Released on May 25, 2003