US Department of State
Feb 28 2009

Special Briefing: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Upcoming
Travel to the Middle East and Europe
Office of the Spokesman

Washington, DC
February 27, 2009

Speakers:
Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
Jeffrey Feltman, Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs
George Laudato, USAID Acting Assistant Administrator for the Middle East
Gordon Duguid, Acting Department Deputy Spokesman

MR. DUGUID: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A brief word on the
ground rules, please, before we start. We have first with us Assistant
Secretary Daniel Fried, who is our head for European and Eurasian
affairs. He will make two to three minutes of remarks on the record.

He will then take a few questions on background as a Senior State
Department Official. He then has to leave for another meeting, and
then our other two guests will come to the podium.

QUESTION: Can I please ask you why the questions are on background?
That seems a little unusual that you make your statement and then
you’re not prepared to put your name to the questions that are asked.

MR. DUGUID: It is not unusual. We do this regularly, particularly with
scene-setter backgrounds, which is what we have. Thank you. Ambassador
Fried.

AMBASSADOR FRIED: I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.

Morning, everybody. And the Secretary will be making her first trip to
Europe as Secretary next week following the Middle East portions of
her trip. And so I can walk through this starting with her arrival in
Brussels. She will be arriving the previous day, and she will have an
informal dinner that night of the so-called ` the transatlantic
dinner, which is an informal meeting which brings together the NATO,
EU foreign ministers all together, plus the Swiss. That will be a good
way to informally exchange views in a very relaxed atmosphere before
the next day. The next day will feature NATO ` the NATO ministerial
meeting at NATO headquarters.

QUESTION: Ambassador, what day are we on?

AMBASSADOR FRIED: That would ` yes, that’s Thursday, so arrives
Wednesday, Wednesday night is the transatlantic informal dinner
discussion. The next day is the NATO ministerial, her first
ministerial as Secretary. She will also be meeting with EU officials,
the so-called troika of Solana, Ferrero-Waldner, Czech Foreign
Minister Schwarzenberg, and I believe the Swedish Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt, because they’re the incoming presidency.

>From Brussels, she will go to Geneva, where she will have a bilateral
meeting with Sergey Lavrov, and I believe also a ` I believe a
bilateral meeting with the Swiss Foreign Minister Calmy-Rey.

QUESTION: That’s on Friday?

AMBASSADOR FRIED: Yes. And then on Saturday, she will go ` I think
Friday after that, and Saturday, she will be meeting with Turkish
officials in Ankara, I believe meeting with the president and prime
minister as well as the foreign minister. So that’s an overview of the
trip.

In terms of the substance, there are really three ` there is an
overwhelming ` overarching theme to the trip to Brussels, which is the
reconnection of the United States with Europe and really a sense of
consolidating some of this enormous political goodwill on both sides
of the Atlantic, harnessing it to a common agenda ` not an American
agenda, but a common transatlantic agenda.

We have started this ` the new administration has started this process
with Vice President Biden’s trip to Munich for the Munich Security
Conference, and this will ` and Secretary Gates’s defense ` NATO
defense ministerial in Kracow last week. This is a chance to make this
political reconnection more operational. The Secretary wants to
channel this energy into ` this tremendous positive political energy `
into action on a common agenda. Now at NATO, there will be several
themes, but two of them are worth mentioning here.

One of them is Afghanistan, where, as you know, we are in the process
of both reviewing our strategy and intense consultations with allies
and countries in the region about the strategy, so it is very much an
iterative process. I honestly cannot speak too much to the
details. Ambassador Holbrooke is, of course, the lead in this
building.

Another issue is relations with ` NATO’s relations with Russia, and of
course, in Geneva, it’ll be U.S.-Russia relations. Much has been
written about the phrase the Vice President used and President has
used of pressing the reset button. That is obviously a colorful and,
therefore, effective metaphor for using the opportunity of a new
American administration to capitalize on the many areas where the
United States and Russia have common interests and can work in a
common fashion, particularly in arms control. START is one area that
certainly deserves attention.

The Vice President’s speech in Munich, though, not only used the reset
button, also used ` included some important cautionary notes which I
will recall for you, since they didn’t seem to get as much attention
as some of us on the trip thought they should. One of them was that
the United States will not recognize a Russian sphere of influence. At
` another related is that the United States will not recognize the
independence of those breakaway Georgian regions, South Ossetia and
Abkhazia. A third that the Vice President mentioned is that each
European country has a right to seek membership in alliances, to
choose its own way forward, which is a reference to NATO enlargement.

And it is important that the balance in the Vice President’s speech
was not there by accident and it was not casual. It reflects the
thinking of the new administration, both those of us who do Europe,
those of us who do Russia, those of us who do both, about the most
productive way to move forward with Russia, and the most productive
ways to do so building on areas where we have common interests, but
also mindful of our differences, not shying away from them nor
abandoning our values and our friends. That makes for a complicated
relationship with Russia, but we believe we can ` it is right to
emphasize the positive. Our initial work with the Russians so far has
been positive.

And to segue into Geneva, we’re all looking forward to the meeting
between Secretary Clinton and Minister Lavrov. There have been letters
between the leaders, between the foreign ministers, outlining a way
forward and a positive agenda, and it is on that that we want to
build, but with our eyes open about some of the differences we have.

Then we will be going on to Turkey. There is a very rich agenda with
our Turkish friends and allies. Turkey is a major player in the
region, has relations with all sides in the Middle East. It has ` it
is an important player in the South Caucasus, very much a friend of
the United States both generally and then specifically, as we try to
work to support Georgia, and as we work to advance peace between
Azerbaijan and Armenia’s settlement over Nagorno-Karabakh.

There’s a tremendously rich agenda with Turkey. And Turkey itself has
been going through a very important evolution at home, moving in a
democratic direction, but also with a lot of strains as Turkey
addresses issues of its democracy in its ` under its secular ` its
secular system. So we have ` we of course, had tremendous differences
with the Turks in the previous administration about Iraq. These are
largely passed. There was tremendous frustration in Turkey, I will be
honest, about attacks on Turks and on Turkey by the terrorist PKK
organization. And there was a great improvement in U.S.-Turkish
relations, starting after November 2007 when the United States leaned
forward and started cooperating very actively with Turkey against the
PKK terrorist organization.

So this is ` so the bilateral relationship with Turkey has
improved. Now we have an opportunity with the new administration to
build on that and build a genuine, close strategic partnership with
Turkey, encouraging them all the while to continue their democratic
reforms under their secular system. So that’s a survey, giving you a
sense of the themes. And I am obedient to the rules, so ` and you know
what they are.

QUESTION: Can I ask for clarification? Are ` all of you are speaking
on the record?

AMBASSADOR FRIED: Yes.

QUESTION: On the record clarification of one point you made. This `

AMBASSADOR FRIED: Yes, of course.

QUESTION: You referred to tensions with Turkey over Iraq in the
past. Were you also referring to the disagreements about using Turkish
territory to begin the invasion of Iraq? Were you referring strictly
to the Kurdish issue?

AMBASSADOR FRIED: No, I was actually ` the tensions I was referring to
` it is a fair question. The tensions I was referring to were over
Iraq in 2003 —

QUESTION: Okay.

AMBASSADOR FRIED: — where the Turkish parliament ` the Turkish
Government in the end supported the transit of U.S. troops. The
Turkish parliament by, I think two or three votes, did not approve
it. It was a difficult period, now thankfully belonging to the past.

MR. DUGUID: I’d now like to introduce our Acting Assistant Secretary
for Near East Asian Affairs Jeffrey Feltman and the USAID’s Acting
Assistant Director for the Middle East Greg Laudato[1]. Their opening
remarks, again, will be on the record, questions on background.

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FELTMAN: I think all of you know that the
Secretary is traveling, leaving tomorrow night for her first trip to
the Middle East. She will be participating in the Gaza donor
conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt on Monday. She’ll also have the
opportunity while in Sharm el-Sheikh to meet many of her Arab and
European counterparts who will be gathered for the Sharm el-Sheikh
conference. She also will have a bilateral meeting, of course, with
Egyptian President Mubarak.

>From Sharm el-Sheikh, she will travel on to Jerusalem and
Ramallah. She’ll have a series of meetings with Israeli officials,
both her counterparts now, as well as Prime Minister Olmert and
President Peres, as well as have a chance for consultations with `
Benjamin Netanyahu, of course, has been asked to form the next
Israeli government. She will also go to Ramallah and have meetings
there with Palestinian officials.

QUESTION: That’s all on `

ACTING ASSISTANT SECRETARY FELTMAN: It’s Tuesday and Wednesday. She’ll
be in Jerusalem and Ramallah on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Sharm el-Sheikh conference has gathered a lot of international
leaders to try to address the immediate humanitarian concerns in the
Gaza Strip. The United States and others will be showing leadership in
stepping forth with new forms of assistance to reach the people in
need in the Gaza Strip. It’s also worth keeping this in context,
because not only do we want to address the needs ` the very real needs
in the Gaza Strip, but we also want to move forward toward that
comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace that President Obama talked about
here in the State Department a few weeks ago when the announcement was
made about the appointment of Senator Mitchell as Special Envoy for
Middle East Peace.

Part of this, of course, is a two-state solution for Israel and
Palestine, and the Secretary will use this trip to talk to Palestinian
leaders, Arab leaders, Israelis, about how to move forward toward the
two-state solution. But it’s also about a comprehensive peace between
Israel and all of Israel’s Arab neighbors.

In Israel, she’ll also have a chance, of course, to see a lot of
friends. She’s had ` Senator Clinton is a longtime friend and
supporter of Israel, and she will be able to compare notes on a
variety of issues that concern both Israel and the United States about
the region, including topics such as Iran. And I think I’ll let George
` yeah, sorry.

MR. DUGUID: I must correct the record. Mr. George Laudato.

MR. LAUDATO: Thank you. USAID’s Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham
will travel with the Secretary to the region to participate in the
conference. We expect that the U.S. ` while the U.S. pledge is still
being finalized, we expect that it will be a ` it will be announced at
the ` at Sharm. And we expect that the portion of that pledge that
USAID will manage will be generous and probably large ` somewhat
larger than what we are currently doing in the region, in Gaza.

We expect also that any activities that flow from that pledge will
look very similar to the types of activities that we are currently
working on in Gaza. Since late December, we’ve committed and ` we’ve
committed over $10 million to the relief effort in Gaza, have moved a
significant amount of that assistance into Gaza, and we operate
through eight major NGOs that have operational entities on the ground
in Gaza and allow them to reach out and move assistance directly to
the people in the towns and villages of Gaza. That has consisted of
food and food supplies, medical supplies, plastic sheeting, blankets `
the kinds of things one would associate with a ` with the immediate
needs of a ` well, a situation like we find ourselves in, in Gaza.

We’ve also moved a considerable amount of assistance through the World
Food Program, food aid, and they have set up feeding programs that
reach about 160,000 people. We’ve done a limited amount of
humanitarian-related reconstruction, and we’ve done this over the
years. I mean, we just, for example, recently in the fall, worked on
some major sewage activities in Gaza because of the very immediate
impact it was having on the lives of the local people. And we expect
that there will be more of this kind of activity at a higher level
when the ` when we operationalize the pledges that will be made in
Gaza ` in Sharm.

And we could just continue to ` we look forward to continuing to work
with the people. We’ve found it ` it’s been a very effective program
to date, and we hope to continue.

[1] USAID’s Acting Assistant Administrator for the Middle East George
Laudato

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