Joint Press Conference by the External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh and USSecretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice: Good afternoon. I am very pleased to welcometo the United States and to the State Department Foreign MinisterNatwar Singh. We met not too long ago when I was in India. We have beenable to continue our strategic dialogue on a number of issues.
India and the United States share much in common. We share, of course,common values as democracies, as multiethnic democracies that arecommitted to not just tolerance but to fully appreciating the greatvalue of the diversity of our societies. We share a goal for peace,stability and prosperity in Asia, as well as in the rest of the world.As I said when I was in India and have reiterated here, it is veryimportant that the U.S.-India relationship continues to grow as werecognize the growing importance of India as a global factor. This is adevelopment that we very much welcome.
We had an opportunity to talk about how to push our relationship to anew level, to improve our cooperation in a number of areas, toaccelerate our work in our next steps in Strategic PartnershipInitiative, to launch an energy dialogue that will be led on our sideby our Energy Secretary and on India's side by the head of its PlanningCommission.
We had an opportunity to talk about Iraq and Afghanistan and the MiddleEast, befitting the fact that our relationship is a broad one, and wealso recognized the importance of continuing our economic dialogue.
The United States and India have demonstrated great cooperation in anumber of areas. We talked about the way that we demonstrated thatcooperation in the tsunami relief effort. It is a relationship that isgrowing, getting more important. We look forward to the visit of thePrime Minister to the United States in July for an official visit andwe look forward to our continued discussion and cooperation as we moveforward.
Welcome, Natwar, and now your comments.
Natwar Singh: Thank you, Condi.
The Secretary of State and I have had very wide-ranging and veryfruitful talks this morning and this is a continuation of our talks inDelhi, at what time we had agreed to meet again, and so I am delightedto be here at this time.
And our discussions, as the Secretary said, have been verywide-ranging, looking at long-term relationship across the board. Thismorning I had the privilege to be received by President Bush at theWhite House and we deeply appreciate his personal commitment todeveloping Indo-U.S. relations and are confident that in the secondterm this relationship will reach newer heights.
The President was strongly supportive of the initiative of theSecretary of State Condoleezza Rice to which she has made a referencein her remarks. We welcome the interest the President expressed intogether working with India on the range of global issues.
We spoke about the global energy situation and the importance of ourcooperation in this regard, including on civil nuclear energy. And mycolleague, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, is staying back to havediscussions on economic matters and matters related to the peacefuluses, civil uses of nuclear energy, and also other scientific matters.
You have, if I may say so, eloquently summarized what we discussedtoday and the discussions and the decisions we have arrived at. Thestrategic dialogue that we will co-chair will provide the politicaldirection to our rapidly expanding bilateral ties (inaudible) therealization of the rich and diverse agenda that we have before us. Thedialogue is key to our global partnership.
As I said earlier, the energy dialogue that the Deputy Chairman of thePlanning Commission, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, and Secretary Bodmanwill lead together recognizes the importance of addressing growingenergy demands while taking into account their environmentalimplications. The three main components are: civil nuclear energy,hydrocarbons and cleaner technologies.
I am particularly happy to compliment our American friends for thefresh approach they have brought to bear on a subject that is of suchvital importance for us.
Our cooperation in space highlights the technology bond that is aspecial characteristic of our ties. As Secretary Rice indicated, wehave established a joint working group and have agreed on its terms ofreference. Our goal is to promote synergies in all aspects of spacecollaboration, including satellite fabrication and launch. The NSSPprocess, as the Secretary said, will be accelerated. It has been auseful and productive engagement but we are now looking at even widerhorizons.
My colleague, the Defense Minister of India, is expected to visitWashington very soon and he will remark on the deeper defenserelationship. This again reflects the enhanced level of our trust andunderstanding between us. Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia's presence alsounderlines the importance we attach to the economic dialogue that hechairs with Allan Hubbard. I fully share, Madame, your expectations ofwhat this dialogue can and, I take it, will assume.
I am happy to say that our deliberations also focused on how we caneffectively address global challenges. India's ability and willingnessto shoulder global responsibilities has been demonstrated.
I was encouraged to hear Dr. Rice declare that the United Statesunderstands India's aspirations. This will be underlined by thedialogue that we expect to sustain on the reform of the United Nations,including the Security Council. We also agreed that India should have amore active association with the G-8.
And in conclusion, may I thank you very much for your hospitality andfor your friendship and for your understanding of our problems and foryour goodwill and friendship.
Question: Madame Secretary, is it getting to be time totake your concerns about Iran to the United Nations? And is itaccurately being reported the Middle East has suddenly vaulted to thetop of the list of U.S. concerns over North Korea, Iran and whatever?
Condoleezza Rice: Well, I don't think that one has to choosebetween policy issues, Barry. On the Iranian issue, we are engaged inan international effort to try and deal with the Iranian nuclearprogram, or the Iranian nuclear aspirations. For instance, the Russianshave been telling us a good deal about what they are doing withBushehr. We are obviously trying to support the EU-3 in theirnegotiations with the Iranians and, of course, we also have the IAEABoard of Governors approach.
At some point in time, yes, if this does not work then, of course, theSecurity Council remains an option. And we have made clear with ourEuropean friends that that is, in fact, the case. We believe that thediplomatic path that we are on is the appropriate path and we aredetermined to have a united front with the international community toconvince the Iranians that they have to live up to their internationalobligations not to seek nuclear weapons under the cover of civiliannuclear power development.
As to the Middle East, I think it was perfectly obvious from thePresident's address -- State of the Union address -- that we attachenormous historic importance to the changes in the Middle East that arenow beginning to unfold, to securing and helping the Iraqi people tosecure a free and democratic and prosperous Iraq, helping thePalestinians and the Israelis to find a way forward from the historicdisengagement that is about to take place there, and then to hopefullyaccelerated progress on the roadmap, that reform in the greater MiddleEast is of great concern to us because the generational challenge thatwe face is to replace the ideologies of hatred that literally leadpeople to fly airplanes into buildings with a belief in the hope thatcan be provided by freedom and democracy.
Question: Dr. Rice, I have a question. Does the UnitedStates support India's bid for a permanent seat in the UN SecurityCouncil? And a related question: One of the senior administrationofficials said on March 25th that the goal of the U.S. policy is tomake India a global power. There's a school of thought in India thatsays that it's a lot of words. How do you explain that and what is yourreaction to that?
Condoleezza Rice: The first point that I would make is thatIndia is becoming a global power not because the United States ismaking it one but because India is a democracy that is emerging to takeon global responsibilities. It has the population, the reach, theincreasing economic clout to do that. But the United States wants to besupportive of what we see as a positive trend in India's global rolebecause India is a democracy and that matters to us in the global rolethat it is beginning to play.
We are demonstrating that we support that aspiration by the breadth ofthe relationship that we have with India. I think U.S.-Indian relationsare at a high point. They have certainly come a very long way over areasonably short period of time. President Bush came to office devotedto an expanded and deepened U.S.-Indian relationship and we have triedto make good on that. But we have an energy dialogue, an economicdialogue, a defense cooperation relationship. We are doing thingstogether around the world. This is clearly a relationship that hasbreadth and global dimensions. And so that is how this is beingdemonstrated.
Now, in terms of the UN Security Council, the United States has saidthat we believe UN Security Council reform needs to take place in thecontext of broader UN reform, that it is important, of course, toreform the Secretariat, the institutions of the UN, the organizationsof the UN, it needs management reform and, of course, we should alsolook at Security Council reform. I said when I was in India thatinternational organizations in general will have to take into accountIndia's growing role in the world in order to be updated and to beeffective.
We are in broad discussions with a number of partners about how to moveforward on UN reform and Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli, who is myassistant or my advisor for UN reform, will be going to a number ofplaces, including to India, to continue those discussions.
Question: Secretary Rice, the German Foreign Minister saidtoday that the European Union will not proceed with plans to lift itsarms embargo against China unless it sees concrete steps from Beijingon Taiwan and human rights. What is your reaction to that?
Condoleezza Rice: Well, I can't help but think that it is apositive statement because, as you know, we have been very concernedabout the lifting of an embargo that would send the wrong message onhuman rights, given that it was imposed in response to the TiananmenSquare situation, but also that would send the wrong message andpossibly create a reality in which technologies are available to amilitary -- increased military modernization in China that could,indeed, threaten U.S. security interest in Asia, not to mention thesecurity interest of other allies in the region.
We have had broad discussions with the Europeans on this. We have beenpleased at the openness of the Europeans in discussing this. But whenit comes right down to it, as I said when I was in Asia, the Pacific isa region that particularly the United States has borne the greatestresponsibility for the defense of that region. Yes, the concerns overTaiwan are there and the anti-secession law did nothing to reducetensions in the Taiwan Strait; in fact, it enhanced – it increasedtensions in the Taiwan Strait.
So this is perhaps recognition of that, those facts, and it will be theEuropean Union's decision but we are quite clear that we think thelifting of the embargo would be a mistake.
Question: You had no difficulty in Japan to say that Japanshould be a member of the Security Council. Can you equally stronglysay that India ought to be a member of Security Council?
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Secondly, when you were in India you mentioned the problems we have --it so happens that oil and gas in countries that are either notdemocratic or because the United States has got problems. What do youthink is going to happen to the vast investment India has made in Iran?Does it create problems for you and what can be done about it?
Condoleezza Rice: Well, on the second issue, one reason that wehave an energy dialogue is that we recognize that there are a number ofcountries -- by the way, the United States among them -- that havegrowing needs for energy and for reliable sources and supplies ofenergy to meet the demands of growing economies. And we have to look atthe broad range of possibilities for meeting those energy demands.
We have made clear our concerns about the Iranian development. We havemade clear that at a time when Iran has clearly not yet made astrategic choice to demonstrate to the world that it is prepared tolive up to its international obligations, that we would hope that thiswould be taken into account. But these are the kinds of discussionsthat we continue to have.
And we -- on the Security Council reform, we have to do this in thebroader context of UN reform. Yes, we have supported Japan for somevery particular reasons having, for instance, to do with the fact thatJapan really is the second largest contributor to the United Nations interms of support for the United Nations. It is really not very farbehind the United States in providing that support and that needs to berecognized.
But we are going to have now -- we have said even to the Japanese thatthat, too, has to be on the context of broader UN reform. So we aregoing to continue our discussions with our friends. We will sendAmbassador Tahir-Kheli to India to have these discussions and to otherplaces. It is my hope that we can do this in a way that buildsconsensus in the international community about UN reforms ought toproceed because what we do not need is acrimony as we try to moveforward to reform this extremely important organization so that it canbe relevant for the 21st century.
Question: What is your response to Dr. Rice's statement on the Security Council?
Natwar Singh: Well, we have made our views on India'scandidature and credentials for being a permanent member of theSecurity Council. We are working together with Brazil, Germany andJapan and with also very many other countries. We have sent somespecial envoys to various parts of the world to promote our cause. Ourcredentials are impeccable. We are a founding member of the UnitedNations by the virtue of having been a member of the League of Nations,even though we were a British colony.
Our peacekeeping record in the UN, our role in decolonization, our rolein the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa, our efforts atdisarmament, nuclear and conventional. Take any aspect of UN life,India has played a leading role, and by any criteria that you applyIndia qualifies for a seat in the expanded Council as permanent member.And it is quite obvious that the structure created in 1945 doesn'trepresent what's happening in 2005. It's as simple as that.
Condoleezza Rice: Let me just add that I wouldagree completely that we are going to need to take a look at thestructures because they are from 1945, and not just the SecurityCouncil but all of the structures of the United Nations needrevitalizing and reform. But India is a growing influence ininternational politics and in international organizations more broadly.That's going to have to be accommodated.
Question: One last question. Why aren't you going to the ball game tonight? I thought you were a fan.
Condoleezza Rice: I am. I plan fully to watch it on television,along with the rest of you. But I have very few evenings at home. Idecided to take one of them.
(Laughter.)
Question: (Off mike) on Kashmir. But, and we said that the peaceprocess is (inaudible) irreversible but he's still looking forout-of-box solutions. What would you say to that?
Natwar Singh: Well, I am rushing back to receive PresidentMusharraf in Delhi and we'll continue with the very friendlydiscussions we had with him in Islamabad some days ago. And, Madame,you may miss this afternoon's game; I'm not going to miss a cricketmatch on the 17th.
