09 August 2004
Excerpts: State Department Briefing August 9: OSCE, Azerbaijan
OSCE/observance of U.S. elections; U.S. view of local elections in
Nagorno-Karabakh region
State Department Deputy Spokesman Adam Ereli briefed the press August 9.
Following are excerpts from the transcript of the State Department briefing:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 2004
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
(1:05 p.m. EDT)
BRIEFER: Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman
[….]
QUESTION: I guess people come — election people have come to the State
Department and asked the OSCE to send monitors to the presidential election
on November 2nd. Why here? Why to the State Department?
MR. ERELI: This is — I think a lot is being made out of this, which isn’t
necessarily warranted. The fact of the matter is that, in 1990, all member
states of OSCE agreed that they would allow OSC — representatives of OSCE
member states to observe their elections. So this is a practice that was
started in 1990. I think there have been OSCE observers in the United States
for U.S. elections before and, most recently, in the 2003 gubernatorial
election in California, and the 2002 gubernatorial elections in Florida. So
wouldn’t see this as news, per se, but rather continuation of standing
practice.
QUESTION: Well, but Adam, were OSCE monitors here in the 2000 election?
MR. ERELI: I don’t believe so. I’ll have to check, but I don’t think so.
QUESTION: Well, the State Department invited them, yes?
MR. ERELI: I would say, that’s — this is something — it’s not a question
of State Department inviting. This is something that all countries, all
participating states in the OSCE agreed to in 1990, so it is a standing
agreement between the United States and other countries of the OSCE. It’s
not a question of State Department inviting now. It is a question of U.S.
commitments internationally.
QUESTION: Well, then why did it take 12 years for the first observer team to
show up from the OSCE?
MR. ERELI: Let me make sure that that was actually the first team. It’s the
latest that I’m aware of.
QUESTION: So, I mean, if I get you correctly, are you saying that this has
nothing to do with the contested 2000 election?
MR. ERELI: I would say that this is something that has been on the books for
some time and is done not just of the United States, but is done for all
states in the OSCE.
QUESTION: Right, but there are states in the OSCE, where there — there’s
not a question of whether there will be a free and fair election, and so the
OSCE doesn’t, you know —
MR. ERELI: This is not a question of whether there’s a free and fair
election in the United States. This is a question of an agreement among all
states of the OSCE, that it is right and appropriate in the interest of
transparency and equity for all of us at various times to look at each
other’s elections.
QUESTION: If I may, one more on this — did this have anything to do with
some members of the House of Representatives calling for monitors, whether
it be the UN or OSCE?
MR. ERELI: I don’t know.
QUESTION: Will the OSCE have any particular enforcement type of function,
and/or if they make a legal challenge or some type of challenge to what’s
happening, is there any —
MR. ERELI: I don’t think either of those questions pose themselves.
There’s —
Yes.
QUESTION: Same subject. I’m sorry. I’m still not clear. If this has been
basically something that’s been happening automatically since 1990, why this
would be the first U.S. election in which they’d be present? And is there
more you can tell us in terms of the size of the delegation, their likely
activities, which countries they’ll be from?
MR. ERELI: We don’t yet have details on the size or composition of the
observer mission, nor where the observer missions will meet. As I said
before, I’ll have to — we’ll have to look back and see when they’ve been
here before. This is a practice that has been, as we’ve said, been in
existence since 1990, that different OSCE countries have done with it,
different OSCE countries since then. But let me check and see when the last
time they were here, besides the 2002 and 2003 gubernatorial elections.
QUESTION: It’s not the last time they were here, it’s the first time they
were here, that we want to know.
MR. ERELI: I’ll have to check and see.
QUESTION: Change the subject?
MR. ERELI: Yes.
QUESTION: Russia is expressing concern about the deal that Secretary Powell
signed last week in Greenland, believe it or not, and they’ve put out, the
Foreign Ministry’s put out a statement that says that — it questions that
although the U.S. is assuring them that missile defense will not target
them, that they are making sure that they take appropriate measures to
maintain its own security.
Besides the Foreign Ministry statement, has the Foreign Ministry raised this
with anyone in the U.S. Government?
MR. ERELI: No, this is the first I’ve heard of it, actually, so.
QUESTION: Yeah, check Reuters.
QUESTION: The Armenian authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh held elections over
the weekend, obviously without the consent of the Azerbaijan Government. And
I wondered what — anything you might have to say about that.
MR. ERELI: The first point to make is obviously that we don’t recognize
Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent country. The future status of
Nagorno-Karabakh is a matter of negotiations in the Minsk process. Our
position is to support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and we don’t
believe that these elections will have an impact on the peace process or the
Minsk process.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: )