'...And A Good Relationship With India'

Remarks by the US Secretary of Sate Colin L. Powell En Route to Kuwait

Question: Your meeting with President Musharraf.

Colin Powell:  We had a good meeting and then followed it up with lunch and we covered a full agenda. We talked about Dr. A.Q.Khan’s activities and I reinforced to President Musharraf that we wanted to have full access to all theinformation that they are gathering. And he assured us, assured me that he would. And also we had a discussionabout, on suggestions about whether or not former members of the government knew about what was going on. Wetalked about that but I don’t have anything to say about that publicly. We talked about the action along theAfghan-Pak border. He gave me a pretty detailed description, kind of almost soldier to soldier, of the battlethat’s taking place there today, as we were sitting in his office, a continuation of the tactical actionthat started the other night. That has continued and more troops have been put in.

We talked about that. We also covered the India-Pak dialogue. He’s committed to it, and of course,Kashmir is uppermost in his mind. And I told him how pleased we were that it is a full agenda of items,though-eight different baskets of items. And they’re approaching it in a rational way.

We talked a lot about economic issues in our meeting and at lunch. I don’t want to get too deeply intothis because I don’t think you’d find it all that terribly interesting. But when you look at what’shappening in that part of the world, and it went to something President Karzai said when we were chattingyesterday. You put a Ring Road in Afghanistan and you make Afghanistan accessible to the south and to thenorth and trucks can now start traveling at high speed. And you look at how that can connect them to the otherCentral Asian nations if roads are put in. And if you look at what Pakistan is doing to improve itsinfrastructure capacity. And you look out 10 or 15 years or so, and if you can get peace in the region betweenIndia and Pakistan and [Afghanistan] living in peace with its neighbors. And start to imagine the kinds oftransmission capability you might have for petroleum products and natural gas. It fundamentally reshapes theeconomy of that whole part of Central Asia and the subcontinent. They’re developing port facilities to startto take advantage of these opportunities. And so, it really shows how it is in everybody’s interest in thatpart of the world to achieve peace between countries that have been in conflict for too long, and there reallyis tremendous promise. And it should always come about. You’ll see an economic shift take place to that partof the world because of infrastructure development, because of open trading systems.

And we went from there to a discussion of how you have to educate young people, which you guys have heardme go on on this many times: how you have to educate young people to have the skills to participate in such aworld. And that’s why you have to work with the madrases and to educate youngsters for skills, not just forfaith-and, frankly, a distortion of faith.

So, really most of lunch was in that vein, since we really didn’t have to talk about the potential forconflict and war or things of that nature. But, it was a good, solid, very very expansive conversationcovering a lot of issues.

Question: Still on Dr. Khan, Mr. Secretary, you say that you can’t share details in public about the conversation, butdo you had some questions about potential involvement by former or current officials. Did you receive ananswer? Did that answer satisfy you? And did President Musharraf, who was Chief of Staff after ’98 and Headof State after ’99, talk to you about that report that’s been reported in the United States that the mostof the activity took place between ’98 and 2002?

Colin Powell:  Most of what activity took place between ’98 and 2002?

Question: North Korean uranium.

Colin Powell:  Oh. No, we didn’t get into that detail. He gave me a summary of the relationship that A.Q. Khan had withthose who were in authority over that period of time. But what I want to do is reflect on what he said to meand discuss it with some of my other colleagues back in Washington before I comment on specifics of it.

Question: Quickly, in what he said, was there anything you didn’t know?

Colin Powell:  Yes.

Question: All right. One more on A.Q. Khan, does…

Colin Powell:  Not that he was necessarily giving me something that others in mygovernment don’t know, but some of the things he said to me were new to me.

Question: Is the U.S. getting direct access at all to A.Q. Khan or are we basically just getting a readout from whatthe Pakistanis are getting? And on these meetings that you are having with young people and civil societyfolks, you’ve done it before but it seems like there’s been an acceleration of it, you’re doing more ofit. Is that true, and if so, why? Has there been some decision made in Washington about that? Thanks.

Colin Powell:  I think I’ve just been trying to, as I travel around, see if I cangenerate more opportunities like this. I very much enjoy talking to young people. They usually go right to theheart of an issue. They usually have more candor than adults will. So, I’ve just been trying to squeeze outmore time. It’s something I’ve done before. You may remember my great MTV appearance of some years ago,but that was in the United States. And I’ll try to do more of those as I go around. But it isn’t anythingthat’s new or different, just when time presents itself, I’ll do things like that.

Question: And do we have direct access to A.Q. Khan or are we just getting a fill from the Pakistanis.

Colin Powell:  We’re getting a fill at the moment. I don’t think there’s beenany direct access, at least not that I know of. But we’re getting information.

Question: Can you talk a little bit about the significance of the designation of Pakistan as a Major Non-NATO Ally? Howthat came about? And why it did?

Colin Powell:  There are a number of countries that we give that status to and itgives them greater access to excess defense…EDA…excess defense [articles] and property that we might have.In some instances it is more symbolic than practical. I don’t know if Pakistan, whether they’ll be able totake great advantage of it. But it is just a sign of the strength of the relationship and there are a limitednumber of countries in the world who enjoy major non-NATO access, as it is called: MNNA.

We’ve been working on it for some time. It was approved within the Administration and we’ll have tomake a notification to Congress, so this seemed like a good time to make note of it publicly.

Question: Mr. Secretary, you said he gave you a good detailed soldier to soldier description of what’s going on insouth and north Waziristan right now. And it’s been controversial in Pakistan, there was a pretty viciouseditorial cartoon today in one of the papers, dealing with your arrival and the fighting there. First, can yougive us any new details of further movements about troop movements? You said there were more troops. And, canyou tell us if he told you whether they feel like they’re getting any closer to Osama Bin Laden or al Qaedaleaders?

Colin Powell:  On the second question, I don’t have any information and I don’tlike to speculate on whether we’re closer, not closer, when we’re going to get him or we’re not going toget him, is he alive or is he dead. I just don’t know. I don’t think anybody really does know.

I saw the cartoon. But the people they are going after are terrorists. They are people who mean no good toAfghanistan and, if left alone, they will try to destabilize Afghanistan again and that is not in Pakistan’sinterest. And they essentially are trying to impose their kind of sovereignty over sections of Pakistan. So,this is a direct challenge to the leadership of Pakistan and they’re going after these guys. And the actionthe other day triggered a larger action and now they are piling on today. What the results of the battle willbe, we’ll just have to wait and see. But he is serious about going after these individuals. He understandsthe threat they pose to his country and also to Afghanistan, which will affect his country.

Question: Just one more on A.Q. Kahn. I know you have answered a lot of this. But, while you were standing next toForeign Minister Kasuri today, he said A.Q. Khan enjoyed what he described as total autonomy which I took tomean autonomy from Pakistan’s government officials at the time. Can you just respond to that specifically,since he said it in public?

Colin Powell:  I’d prefer that he were here to explain what he meant by autonomy.Obviously, A.Q. Khan was working with other agencies of the government to produce a nuclear weapon in thefirst place, and that had to be money that was passing through the governmental system to support all of that.And so he was not acting alone with respect to the development of the Pakistan nuclear weapon.

What he was doing with respect to proliferation activities, which is the issue at hand, I think that iswhat the minister was referring to: that nobody had given him any authority or participated in any way in whathe was doing with North Korea and Libya and the others. I think that was the context of autonomy. What I havediscussed with the President this afternoon was, One: the nature of the original arrangement with A.Q. Khanand what they do about this post-Pakistan weapon development period, when he was essentially pedaling thisstuff around the world. And we’ll continue to study this, we want to make sure we understand everything wecan about it, get it all ripped up and pulled up.

My impression is that President Musharraf is serious about this. They are all taken aback by the fact thatA.Q. Khan, a revered figure in Pakistan, now has clearly been identified, self-acknowledged that he had beenusing what he knew and what he learned and what he had developed in helping his own nation, to help nationsthat shouldn’t have been helped. And no responsible government of Pakistan should have tolerated such thingand I hope they did not. I hope it was something that he was doing on his own. But we got to get all thefacts.

Question: Can you shed any light on the nature of the agreement that Foreign Minister Kasuri talked about regardingPakistani prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan? What exactly did you agree to on that?

Colin Powell:  As you know, we have released a group and I think I’m going to notanswer that one because I’m going to let Richard get whatever statement was issued in Washington by thePentagon, or whoever was making the release since I've been on the road. And there’s some very nuancedpoints with respect to who’s been released and what we expect to have happen as some individuals will bereleased. Some will be released entirely with no further surveillance and charges. Others are in differentcategories and I’d rather not answer off the top of my head.

Question: Did Musharraf bring up F-16s and the possible purchase of those?

Colin Powell:  The subject did not come up.

Question: What do you say to people that say Pakistan has dealt with A.Q. Khan with kid gloves? The United States dealswith Pakistan with kid gloves. There’s a lot of skepticism that none of this will really come out and thatthe network - when you say "pulled up by the root, by the branches"- it will just get covered up. Noone else will get punished. And you come here and you give them non-NATO, major NATO, whatever status.

Colin Powell:  Thank you for that editorial comment in the form of a question. But, Ijust don’t agree with you. We know a lot about this network. I can tell you A.Q. Khan is not giving anythingto anybody anymore. We also know who was working with him. We know the channels that we being used. We know agreat deal about it. We know a lot about what was going on at the facilities in Malaysia before the Malaysiansacknowledged it all, and they found it. So A.Q. Khan, whatever the Pakistanis end up doing with him, isessentially secluded in his home and he is not going to be running this network anymore. And so, what we arereally interested in is getting the network stopped and pulled up. We’ve done that and now we’re going tolook for all parts of it.

But the one thing I know is there are no more centrifuges or designs or other components of nuclear weaponsflowing out of the A.Q. Khan network. Now I think that is a major achievement. And it was accomplished bysolid intelligence work on the part of our intelligence community and other intelligence communities and usletting the Pakistanis know more than they knew about what was going on and then working with PresidentMusharraf and said "it’s time to turn over the cards on this one" and having President Musharrafsay "yes, you’re right" and stand up and face the public…the Pakistani public with respect toDr. Khan. They consider him a national hero. And they worked it out. Dr Khan acknowledged what he had done andis now in seclusion, he got a conditional amnesty. And the word conditional, they keep repeating that word,now whether it actually means anything or not, I don’t know. Now, I don’t know whether he will ever besubject to any charges or punishment and I’ll let the Pakistanis worry about that, and you all write aboutit. All I know is A.Q. Khan is not doing what A.Q. Khan was doing last year. And that is a major, majorachievement.

Question: What about the reward?

Colin Powell:  What reward?

Question: Major Non-NATO Ally.

Colin Powell: It’s part of a normal relationship we have with countries that we havemilitary to military relationships with and we think it is sensible to do. It is not as if we areputting…you know, we have been doing a lot with Pakistan. Over the last three years, we have helped themwith debt relief, we have helped them with development assistance and economic aid, one of the largestprograms that we have. We have helped them with their military needs. We have helped them with theireducational needs with respect to trying to reform the madrasas. We are doing a lot with them because we wantto have a good relationship with Pakistan and a good relationship with India.

So, Major Non-NATO Ally status was something we have been working on for months and months and months andmonths. We were getting ready to send the notification up to the Congress and so I took this opportunity tomake brief mention of it. It’s not a reward for A.Q. Khan, it’s part of a continuing relationship and wehave been doing things to demonstrate to the Pakistanis that we are good, solid, long term partners. The samerelationship we want to have with India.