Key Issues at the NATO Ministerial

MR. VOLKER: Thanks very much, glad to be here. We have a NATO ministerial meeting coming up on Thursday in Oslo. Secretary Rice will be there and I thought it would be a good chance to mention a couple of the issues that are coming up there and what we hope to accomplish.

First off, this is an informal NATO ministerial, so don't look for the communiqué. There won't be one. It'll be an informal opportunity for the ministers to get together and discuss the issues. There will be the traditional bilateral meeting between the Secretary General and Secretary Rice on Thursday. That'll be followed by a meeting of the North Atlantic Council. The principal topics that we would expect to cover there are Afghanistan and missile defense. They'll be followed by a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council and Foreign Minister Lavrov from Russia is planning to attend that. That would be on Thursday, late afternoon.

Then we have the transatlantic dinner, which has become something of a tradition now about every three or four months. When there's an occasion when a preponderance of European foreign ministers are getting together and the U.S. is present, we schedule a meeting of the foreign ministers -- or rather, a dinner or a lunch of all the foreign ministers of the NATO and the EU countries; just ministers, no note-takers, no agenda, and a real opportunity for some strategic consultation and discussion. That'll be on Thursday evening.

At that point, Secretary Rice will need to return to Washington to join the meetings with the Japanese Prime Minister here in Washington on Friday and Ambassador Nuland and Assistant Secretary Fried will be in Oslo for the second day of the ministerial, which will have further discussion in the NATO format about Kosovo and then it will also include a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission and the new Ukrainian Foreign Minister is planning to be there for that. So that's the shape of the meetings.

If I could say a couple things on the key points of substance that I think will be coming up at the meetings. First is Afghanistan. Afghanistan is NATO's largest and most important operation. It is critically important to the security of all the allies that Afghanistan succeed in building security and development and democracy. We are all committing substantially to this. There is more that we all need to do and it is important that the NATO leaders, the NATO ministers get together periodically to assess how we are doing and talk about what further steps may be needed. And that is what we would expect to see there.

A second major issue is, of course, missile defense and Secretary Gates was in Moscow earlier this week. He's in Warsaw after that. The NATO-Russia Council and the NATO meeting, I think, would be both venues where we would talk about missile defense. Our interest is to demonstrate quite clearly that this is a limited system that we are proposing for deployment, that it is not a threat to anyone in Europe, not a threat to Russia and not a threat to their strategic nuclear deterrents, and that we are very interested in working together, cooperating with Russia, cooperating with other NATO allies so that we build security for all of us in the face of a limited number of missile threats that come from Iran or that region of the broader Middle East.

A third issue that I think will get attention in Oslo is Kosovo, because we are in the process now of the UN Special Envoy having proposed a final status for Kosovo. We are in consultations among the parties, among members of the Security Council. We hope to see a UN Security Council resolution brought up in the next several weeks and it's an important opportunity for the foreign ministers of NATO to discuss the situation on the ground and also NATO's continuing responsibility in Kosovo. Because even under the proposal for supervised independence that Special Envoy Ahtisaari has put forward, there is a continuing requirement for a security presence in Kosovo and NATO would continue to lead that through the K4 operation.

So those are the three, I think, substantive issues that I would expect to get discussed there. I would also add that the transatlantic dinner is a format that really allows the ministers to talk about whatever is on their minds and I wouldn't want to predict with certainty what that would be, but given the events in the Middle East and in Lebanon and Iran, Iraq, I would expect those to be the kinds of topics that would be brought up for a general discussion among the foreign ministers of Europe and the U.S. and Canada.

So with that as an introduction, let me pause there and I'd be very happy to take any questions that you might have about the upcoming ministerial.

MODERATOR: Let me just remind you to state your name and your organization, and please wait for the microphone.

Questions?

QUESTION: Jedrzej Bielecki from Rzeczpospolita. It's a Polish daily newspaper. I just wondered if the United States, if Secretary Rice, is going to propose something new to Russians on the missile defense project, some new kind of cooperation. And is there any red line the United States is not going to cross in this cooperation? I mean, how far -- what is the limit of this cooperation with Russia?

MR. VOLKER: Well, on the first point I don't believe that Secretary Rice will be proposing something new per se because we have already proposed some new things to Russia in the past few weeks -- or in the past week -- and we are hoping to hear more of Russia's thinking as we go through that.

Assistant Secretary of State John Rood and an interagency team were in Moscow on the 17th of April and put forward proposals for cooperation with Russia in a variety of areas. I don't have all the details to go into, but things such as system development and components and sharing of information and mutual visits and so forth.

The Secretary of Defense was present in Moscow earlier this week and reemphasized and reiterated our genuine desire to work together cooperatively with Russia on these programs. Secretary Rice will, of course, reinforce that and we hope to have Russia respond positively to those offers of genuine cooperation on our part.

In terms of red lines for the U.S. or others, the way I would put it is this, is that the United States has a requirement for missile defense. Many nations have determined that they have their own missile defense requirements. That's why NATO countries have systems such as a Patriot missile system or a PAC-3 system or others. For the U.S., when we're talking about the strategic distances involved, we need different types of systems and we've determined that we need such a system. So we want to proceed together with our partners in Europe to develop that.

At the same time, we believe that if we are proceeding with such a system, that can make a contribution to security of NATO as a whole, security of the allies, and can even contribute more broadly than that, particularly if we do work together with Russia on missile defense issues.

So the way I would answer your question is that we see this as a U.S. missile defense program, so there are certain -- that creates a certain dimension about the program. It's a U.S. program. At the same time, we want to develop this cooperatively and contribute to broader efforts at security in Europe as a whole.

QUESTION: Gerhard Helskog, TV2, Norway. Norwegian -- the Norwegian Government have been told that if Tehran is launching a rocket from Iran, it would take 22 minutes to reach Norway and you could probably help us with that shield, but they don't -- the Norwegian Government doesn't think that is really a threat, a real problem. What do you think? Could that be the case?

MR. VOLKER: Well, first off, in terms of a threat, we have, within NATO, developed a threat assessment and a feasibility study on missile defense going back over several years. This has led to individual NATO allies making decisions to develop or procure certain missile defense systems and I mention the Patriot System or PAC-3 or THAAD or MEADS in Germany. Those are already in development. What we're talking about is a strategic layer that goes along with that, dealing with longer-range missiles.

The question today is not whether there is already a long-range missile threat from Iran potentially with weapons of mass destruction warheads. The question is, is Iran in possession of missile technology and actively developing longer-range missiles, which it is; and is Iran pursuing a nuclear enrichment program that gives us concern about the possible development of nuclear weapons, which it is.

So rather than waiting until we see a fully-developed threat emerge of long-range missiles and warheads, it seems a prudent measure for us to be taking the steps to develop missile defense plans as well, which will also take time to develop and deploy.

QUESTION: If I may, on the other hand, do the Russians feel threatened? Could this Oslo meeting be the starting point of a second Cold War?

MR. VOLKER: I don't think so. I think, in fact, quite the opposite. We are not in the situation of the Cold War. We're not in a strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. We are not building an offensive system. We are not threatening Russia. And the type of system that we're developing is so small and the physics of it, the way the system works make it such that it's not a threat to Russia's nuclear deterrents in any way.

I think it's incumbent upon us to be very transparent about that, to make that clear to the Russians and to the allies and European publics. We are taking great steps to do so, having had a number of briefings, including the head of our missile defense agency and the Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary Edelman and many others discussing this in Europe over a period of time. We have also made clear that we seek to work together with Russia, with our allies so that no one, whether Russia or anyone else in Europe, should view this as a threat to them in any way, but rather a very limited defensive system against the potential of an Iranian or other missile threat from further away.

MODERATOR: Christian.

QUESTION: Christian Wernicke, Suddeutsche Zeitung, hello. I understand you'll also take questions on the EU-U.S. summit, which is, of course, of special German and European concern. Two -- or should we do --

MR. VOLKER: Well, I'd say that on -- the White House, I think, is planning a briefing later this week to address questions on the U.S.-EU summit, but in terms of the general issues, the summit is really a White House thing. In terms of the general issues that are out there, I could --

QUESTION: Could you elaborate -- I mean, of course, we are all preparing and I understand that in Brussels the briefings are pretty active already. Could you elaborate a little bit on the U.S. position concerning the European urge for -- that the U.S. would sign up to any kind of commitment to draw on an international framework for -- on climate change policy after 2012, especially any kind of cap-and-trade system? And I hesitate to use this term because I know it's not a popular one here, but the Europeans call this post-Kyoto or Kyoto-2. Could you elaborate a little bit on this topic, please?

MR. VOLKER: Sure. Let me take the general issue there. It may be a little bit broader than the context of the summit here and leave the summit discussions to the White House. But on the general issue that you've raised, I think what's important to focus on is that we and Europe share a common objective, which is to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, to slow, stop and ultimately reverse the growth in greenhouse gas emissions globally, and that we, like Europe, are taking substantial steps to do so.

And the U.S. has invested $35 billion since 2001 in climate science, alternative energy research and development, helping bring things to the marketplace. We've used a combination of mandates and incentives to encourage the development and deployment of cleaner technology in the marketplace.

When you think about reducing emissions, you start from the notion that economic activity produces greenhouse gas emissions; and if you want to reduce your emissions, you essentially then have three options. You can reduce your economic activity, which means growth, jobs, so forth, push that down. None of us want to do that, but that would have the effect of reducing emissions. Another option is to move part of that economic activity out of your country somewhere else in the world so it doesn't show up on your books. That doesn't change global emissions, although it does change a nation's performance. Or the third way is to change the way the economy works so that the same level of economic activity, or even an increase, produces fewer emissions per unit of economic activity. That's what we refer to when we talk about greenhouse gas intensity.

And when you look at all the economies, it's important to have growth, jobs, education, health, welfare -- all the things that modern countries care about and our populations care about. It is especially important in the developing world to have economic growth and human development, and at the same time we share a goal of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that result from that.

So that is where I think the U.S. and the European Union have real common ground, and we should be focusing on that being a common objectives and projects that we can undertake or things we can do together that will help develop and introduce cleaner energy technologies, cleaner technologies into our own economies and into developing world economies.

Now, it has become part of the European debate also to set a grand target of a reduction in emissions of 20 percent or not allowing the global temperature to rise by more 2 degrees Celsius. And we look at that and these are, or for that matter, to focus on the means and say, well, one particular means that Europe feels is important is a global treaty. And we look at these things, whether it is the grand targets or that particular means, and we have differences with those and concerns about some of those approaches but not concerns about the overall goal and not concerns about our commitment to work toward the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

And so that is what we want to focus on very much and work together with Europe and shape an international debate or an international commitment so that we are working together with the wider community, including India, including China, including other countries that may not be part of the Kyoto Protocol process and may not want to be part of a future global treaty, but nonetheless whose commitment given the size of their economies and the size of their emissions whose commitment is important to achieving a global objective or reducing the overall level of emissions in the atmosphere.

QUESTION: Daniel Anyz from Czech daily Hospodarke Noviny. I have question concerning the mechanism of negotiation between you and Russia, and then you and Czech Republic and Poland. When you go to negotiate with Russia and you make them proposal, are those proposals or agreed in the negotiation with Poland and Czech Republic? Do they -- are they aware what are you proposing to Russia? Because it could be something that, for example, visit of Russian generals in Czech Republic could cause an issue.

MR. VOLKER: Well, let me give you an example of a visit, one that Secretary Gates proposed when he was in Moscow. We have a radar facility in California that is similar to the type of radar facility that is in discussion with Czech Republic, and I would add that we have not reached final agreements with Czech Republic or Poland on anything. These are all matters to be discussed and negotiated between our governments. But that said, if it were reassuring to the Russians in some way to see the type of facility we have in mind, we did make that offer to visit a facility in California.

When it comes to discussions with Russia, we certainly felt a great deal of encouragement from all of the countries in Europe, including Czech Republic and Poland, to be transparent and to work cooperatively with other allies, with Russia, in part to defuse what has become a much bigger political issue than I think anyone expected and to clarify that there are no hostile intentions there, this is not leading to another arms race, this is not aimed at Russia or threatening Russia in any way. And so both for our own reasons because we believe it's important to do so and with the encourage of our allies, we have engaged and intensified our consultations with Russia, and we'll continue to do that and do so very transparently.

I would just give an example of the meetings on Thursday as well, where we have a NATO meeting among the 26 allies which is followed by a meeting with Russia, and I expect missile defense will be discussed in both formats, an opportunity for allies to consult among themselves and at the same time to consult at 27 together with Russia about missile defense.

QUESTION: Going back to the global -- sorry, Desmond Butler with the AP. Going back to the global warming issue, European officials have said that they are likely to push for a commitment on carbon caps at every forum they can with the U.S. Are they tilting against windmills or is there any flexibility on that issue?

MR. VOLKER: Yeah, I would say that our approach is very open and flexible, as what we want to do is work together with the international community as a whole. We want to reach out to countries like India and China. We developed the Asia Pacific Partnership which pairs the U.S. with countries in Asia that now account for half the world's population, half the world's emissions, half the world's GDP, in order to have an approach that welcomes everyone's efforts.

I understand the argument that some of the developing world makes, which is that the West or Europe, you know, we filled up the atmosphere with our own emissions through dirty economic growth and now we're telling them they can't do the same thing, yet they need the economic growth and the wealth to alleviate poverty, to build stronger societies, to provide better opportunities for their people.

All understand that argument and so we don't want to be in the position of saying they can't grow the same way we did because we're concerned about their new level of emissions. I want us to be in a position instead of saying we favor economic growth, we support their development and we want to help them to do this with the minimum emissions impact from doing so. And to do that requires working with them cooperatively, developing new technologies, sharing that with them, helping them develop that in their own economies. That is an approach that is sort of reaching out and welcoming all efforts.

We do not agree with an approach of a global treaty and a global cap on trade system, which we think has a number of flaws. And rather than being railroaded into one route or one way of addressing the problem, which then creates divisions within the international community -- who favors it, who's against it -- we favor a much more open approach of welcoming all efforts. And again, getting back to the three ways you can deal with your emissions -- reduce your economy, move your economy or change your economy -- we want to focus on how to change the economy for ourselves and contribute to that kind of technological development to the world so you can see that combination of growth and lower emissions, break the linkage between economic activity and greenhouse gas emissions that we live through today.

QUESTION: Daniel Anyz, Hospodarske Noviny. I have one more question, hopefully concerning the European Union-U.S. summit. Will you there discuss as well the issue of visa waiver enlargement, because as you certainly know there was some interesting development recently with the old so-called European countries expressing some doubts about the security features which was perceived in the new European countries as a kind of ball game. So will be this on the agenda?

MR. VOLKER: Again, I don't want to comment specifically about the U.S.-EU summit, but just to address the issue of visa waiver, we're very well aware that this is an important issue for Central and East European countries and others that are not part of the Visa Waiver Program already. And it's important issue for the European Union and that they have raised with us over a long period of time -- raised that issue with us over a long period of time.

The Administration has addressed this issue and President Bush personally addressed this issue when he was in Tallinn last fall. And we have now proposed legislation on Capitol Hill that would amend the Visa Waiver Program and it would do two things. It would address the issue of security and it would address the immigration requirements related to visa waiver. And we are still working with the Congress on how to see legislation along those lines implemented. It has not moved forward yet, but we remain committed to that.

QUESTION: Yeah, this is a follow-up. Yeah, but how would you comment that probably the so-called old European countries are not really ready to fulfill or are unhappy with the new security criteria?

MR. VOLKER: Well, I would say this. I would say that all of our countries -- the United States, Western Europe, Central Europe -- we share a common interest in security of travel, that we want to know who is entering and leaving our countries, we want to have information about what's happening, we want to have mechanisms in place so that we can make our own borders and our own populations as secure as possible.

We've seen the European Union, for example, move to implement biometric passports, not just because the U.S. says it's a good idea but because Europe believes it's a good idea. And so I think as we share a concern about security of travel and also share an interest in facilitating travel among our countries, we should be able to come to agreements on these kinds of issues.

QUESTION: Lambros Papantonious, Greek correspondent, Eleftheros Typos Greek daily. Mr. Volker, do you know what will be the role of NATO in the Kosovo issue since the fight between the two sides still going on as far as for the --

MR. VOLKER: I'm sorry? The question was the role of NATO in the Kosovo issue?

QUESTION: Yes, yes.

MR. VOLKER: The proposal put forward by the UN Special Envoy is one for a supervised independence of Kosovo, and that supervised part of the independence means a continuing role for the international community in many areas of life within Kosovo. And particularly on the area of security, NATO would continue to play the lead and the KFOR operation would continue to be there. In addition to that, the European Union has said that it would intend to put in an ESDP mission dealing with police forces there and this would be another component, another part of international supervision following a final status settlement. So we see for the foreseeable future a continuation of NATO's role in Kosovo as the KFOR operation, very much as we've seen it until now.

QUESTION: A follow-up. Under Secretary Nicholas Burns testified the other day that Congress said that it will be under international supervision for a limited period of time. Could you explain to us what does he mean exactly with this?

MR. VOLKER: I think he means what he said with that. It would be under international supervision for a limited period of time. The exact length of time and the nature of how you would assess the continuation or the non-continuation of that international supervision is something that is part of the discussions that are going on diplomatically right now, so I can't really give you a more precise answer to that. But the concept is one that has been developed and is in the diplomatic discussions of a supervised independence for a limited period of time in order to assure ourselves and assure everyone in the region that the principles on which a settlement is based are being implemented.

MODERATOR: Two more, please. Christian.

QUESTION: Just a follow-up on the Visa Waiver Program and data protection and passenger data. Is the impression correct that this summit will not come to a conclusion of this delicate issue?

MR. VOLKER: I'm sorry, can you repeat that again. Visa waiver and --

QUESTION: The visa waiver and the new agreement between the EU and U.S. on exchange of passenger data. What I hear from the non-American side, to put it this way, is that there will be not an agreement this time on the coming Monday, which originally was planned to -- as a target date.

MR. VOLKER: Right. Let me again leave specifically the questions about the summit to the White House and future briefers to address on what's happening at the summit exactly. On the two issues that you raise, visa waiver is one -- and I addressed a question here on visa waiver -- it's important to the Administration as well as being important to the European Union and Central and Eastern Europe and some others like Greece, for example. And we are committed to continuing to work with the Congress on the visa waiver issue.

On the second issue that you raise, passenger name recognition -- or passenger name records, rather, I know that we have been in extensive negotiations with the EU on the issue for some time. I expect that, you know, we will continue that engagement and I don't want to venture any further about what will be concluded or not at the summit.

MODERATOR: Last one.

QUESTION: Yes. Tove Bjoergaas, Norwegian Broadcasting. One question, ahead of the ministerial in Oslo: Will the Norwegian recognition of the new Palestinian government be a topic there and what kind of discussions has gone on in the State Department since Norway actually was the first country to approve of this free cabinet?

MR. VOLKER: Right. Well, we are aware of the Norwegian decision and statements and certainly if the Norwegian Foreign Minister intends to raise the issue we will - of course - talk about it. And I think he said publicly that he intends to raise the issue. We have been working very closely within the Quartet to the U.S., European Union, Russia, United Nations. And we developed an approach on this issue which we believe is very important which is that the Palestinian Authority needs to renounce violence, it needs to recognize Israel's right to exist, it needs to adhere to the existing agreements and commitments of the Palestinian Authority that have already been made. And we believe that that approach had an important effect already within the Palestinian territories. It has sent a clear signal to Hamas of what the expectations are. It has, I think, helped position the President of the Palestinian Authority in addressing these issues within his own public, which is important if it is actually to change. There's a very strong commitment to these principles within the Quartet and we'd be very prepared to discuss and explain why we believe this is important.

QUESTION: It is a problem for you what Norway has done?

MR. VOLKER: As I said, we very much subscribe to the Quartet principles. We think it is an important way forward. We would be prepared to discuss that with Norway and others in the context of the NATO meeting or around the margins. We believe that in order to get to the outcome that we all seek, which is a two-state solution and an Israeli state and a Palestinian state that lives side by side, that are peaceful, that recognize each other's rights and borders and things. That has to be based on a renunciation of violence and a willingness to work toward that goal from the Palestinian Authority. In the absence of a commitment from the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel's right to exist, to negotiate toward a two-state solution, we believe it's very important that the international community make clear what its expectations are.

MODERATOR: Thank you all for coming.

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