Interview With German Press

Assistant Secretary Fried: What we’re working on with Germany [inaudible] requires much comment. President Bush and Chancellor Merkel – you’ve heard they get along very well, and that is the truth. They do get along very well. Her substantive background is something that obviously appeals very widely to Americans, to the President, because she understands the nature of freedom, that it is not simply a birthright that one is given. Sometimes it has to be fought for and worked for and it can be achieved.

I’m not telling you anything new, but it’s an important piece of her biography. I think it counts for some of the ease with which the two leaders work.

I was in Germany before the G8 so I saw this up close and that was very good. It means that we’re able to work – of course, Americans were always working well with our German counterparts. It’s especially easy to do so now. I’m on the phone all the time with Michael Schaeffer, for example, or Christoph Heusgen in the Chancellor’s office, and we work together very closely whether it’s Kosovo or Georgia or Central Asia or Ukraine or NATO, or whether it’s my colleague and friend Nick Burns working on Iranian issues, a very tough question. We are able to work together. We’re able to work together very well.

That’s just part of the background.

Germany is the largest country in the European Union and we want Germany to be a leader in Europe, in a Europe which is outward looking, not inward looking. By this I mean that the trans-Atlantic challenges are really not about Europe so much. They’re a little bit about Europe’s periphery, that is, the Balkans and South Caucuses and Ukraine and really the issues of the frontiers of freedom, so to speak; and historically how far the wave of democracy which began in 1989 can extend. How far, how deep? I don’t know the answer, but it is something that we in Germany and we in Europe can work together on. Of course the other sets of issues are those of the broader Middle East. If you remember the President’s speech, it was structured around the concept of freedom, the challenges of freedom in the broader Middle East, and in each constituent problem, whether it’s Iran or Afghanistan or Iraq or Lebanon. The realization of a freedom agenda is different. But in each case we need to work, Americans and Europeans need to work together. In each case we need to be clear about what we’re trying to achieve in the long run, but very patient, very realistic, in what we can achieve in the short run.

And here we need a Europe. I’ll make one more point and then I will stop and we can get into questions.

Today there was a NATO Ministerial held. There was, after 2001, after 9/11, there was a vigorous debate between Europeans and Americans about NATO and remember, a lot of Europeans said you Americans just want to use NATO as a tool box to support coalitions of the willing, but we believe in NATO as an institution, an effective multilateral institution. And it is often the case that debates go on for years and years and there’s never a resolution. In this case there was a resolution.

We all agree now that multilateralism can work. We all agree that NATO is important as an institution, not as a coalition of the willing, but NATO as an institution is important, it is an asset for both of us, we want to use it and we want to use it together. When Chancellor Merkel says that NATO needs to be a forum for strategic consultations between the United States and Europe she is absolutely right. And we want to strengthen the alliance.

That also means that Europeans should do more and are doing more to strengthen NATO. Look what’s happened in Afghanistan. The Dutch, the Canadians, the British have been doing a lot of fighting. I’ve been to the German PRT in the north. This is NATO, this is multilateral, and this is an alliance in action. So much for the theory that Europeans don’t fight and Americans do. Europeans are doing a lot of the fighting and we’re there too.

And I point this out because amidst all of the debates that newspapers -- yours and ours -- write about, it’s easy to lose sight of how much we have accomplished in readying our institutions to work on the problems of the 21^st Century. That’s something that the United States and Europe need to do in the period ahead.

I will stop there with that very general overview to sort of set the scene, and I’m ready for any questions you have.

Question: To what extent does that which you’ve described as [inaudible], particularly fluid and working relationship with the Germans and the Americans. To what extent does that represent change of mind in the US administration, if at all?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I would put it this way, and that’s an interesting question. There was a difficult debate about Iraq which had a particularly difficult German-American dimension, and we all know what happened starting with the German election campaign of 2002. To say this was unfortunate is to sound bureaucratic. It was dreadful. I just hated it because you had the great democracies quarreling when you should have been working together.

Now this is not to re-fight that debate. My point is not that Germany should have said yes or no or done something different. My point is a larger one in that the debate started to take on a dimension it should not have taken on, which was not to debate the issue of Iraq, but there started to be a debate about whether the trans-Atlantic alliance was functioning well or whether Europe and the United States were experiencing some kind of values-based divorce. That was terrible. It was terrible for the United States, terrible for Europe, I think.

When President Bush was reelected he made the decision immediately after his reelection to reach out to Europe, which culminated in his trip to Europe in February 2005 where he said repeatedly and with conviction he wanted a strong European Union, a strong Europe as a partner. This was really his way of reaching out to Europe after this divisive debate and saying, in effect, for God’s sakes, we have work to do, we are the great democracies of the world. We have the resources and therefore the responsibility to work together.

So that’s my answer. We made an effort and then we found that Europeans were reaching back.

Now the last time I was in Berlin it was for the rollout of this latest German Marshall Fund poll where it shows how much skepticism there is in Europe about the Bush administration. So I’m not running away from that. But I noticed that in that poll there was, alongside the skepticism, there was also a high degree of agreement about the nature of the threats in the world and agreement about a common US-European effort to support democracy. In fact Europeans and Americans agreed as a whole about democracy and the importance of supporting it more than Republicans and Democrats in America, and this, I suppose, will bring discomfort to many Democrats, many Republicans and many Europeans. European opinion resembled opinion of Republicans. [Laughter].

I know, it’s not what many people would have expected, and there are reasons for it, but the fact is there is an underlying strategic consensus on which we can build and it’s important not to lose sight of what we’re trying to do together.

Joshka Fischer said once, not a man who’s a neo-conservative or any kind of conservative at all, Joshka Fischer said he believed in the West, he believed in democracy. So do I. Not in the sense of the West versus anybody, but the great democratic centers have an obligation to work together.

It’s a long answer to an interesting question, and I’ve thought about this.

Question: One topic you mentioned, Kosovo. I was wondering if you could give us the administration’s view on how Kosovo is progressing.

Assistant Secretary Fried: This is an issue which is upon us and where European-American solidarity will be critical.

We can’t go back and we can’t stay where we are. The status quo is unsustainable. We have to go forward. I’m not going to say here what exactly going forward means, but there has to be a solution which is sustainable, which is acceptable to the people of Kosovo, and as we work toward a solution for Kosovo we have to reach out to Serbia. Serbia deserves a European future. What we don’t want is a Serbia which is [inaudible] and embittered and feels isolated. Serbia deserves a European future.

Also whatever the solution in Kosovo, it cannot be a mono-ethnic solution. The historic Serbian character of Kosovo meaning the monasteries and the protections for the Serbian community and Kosovo have to be part of whatever final status agreement there is. [Martti Ahtisaari] is UN Special Representative who is leading the discussions. There was a Contact Group meeting yesterday with the foreign ministers supporting him. We decided we will try and reach a negotiated solution this year. They also decided that no one party can unilaterally block moving forward. That’s where we are.

Question: Do you think it was wise to set sort of a deadline?

Assistant Secretary Fried: Well, if you could convince me that delay would bring anything I would be willing to hear it, but I’ve heard no argument what delay brings us. It isn’t very quick.

NATO intervened in 1999. It has been seven years. Kosovo as a UN protectorate has been, let us say, not a roaring success. It hasn’t been a catastrophe, but it is nothing that we would hold up and say yes, this can go on for another 20 years.

We have got to decide; the decisions are not going to be made easier, they’re not going to be easier in five years, they’re not going to be easier in six months. We have got to make these decisions.

Question: But always there are [inaudible] that the Kosovar Albanians have now just to sit and wait and then it will [inaudible].

Assistant Secretary Fried: In fact this was Ahtisaari; actually the UN Representative in Kosovo reported to the group yesterday that the expectation of movement has resulted in an improvement in conditions on the ground and a decrease in inter-ethnic violence as the Kosovar Albanians basically clean up their act and do things.

I’m familiar with the theory that oh, we’ve got it in the bag, we don’t have to do anything. In fact reality suggests that they’re doing a great deal. The trick is to use this momentum not simply to buy time but to achieve something.

The leaders of Kosovo have been in Washington recently, and our message to them is: you say you want independence, well, boys, you’ve got to earn it. Try to show the world you’re worth it, which means you’ve got to reach out to the Serb community, you’ve got to negotiate fairly with Ahtisaari about generous terms, and in fact if you read the contact group statement it’s quite clear that they have been more forthcoming than the Serbs.

Whatever the merits of your argument in theory, it hasn’t been true in practice.

Question: How serious is the resistance of Russia? Do you think that Kosovo is going to be one topic where there could be a split between the West and Russia?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I hope not. The Russians have often said that they are concerned the Serbs get a very good deal, and that is perfectly legitimate. A good deal meaning protections and arrangements which will guarantee that rights given to Serbs cannot be taken away by some majority vote. That’s a very fair point. Other things the Russians have said are not very helpful. The business about Kosovo being a precedent for other separatist conflicts is simply not accurate and not helpful. Kosovo is not a precedent for anything.

There are lots of separatist movements around the world, but Kosovo is different. It’s different because NATO fought a war there and the UN stepped in and the United Nations has run Kosovo as a protectorate for seven years. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 says more or less that there will be a further decision about status. None of those issues pertain to Abkhazia or Transnistria or Chechnya. None of them pertain. It’s not helpful. But Russia signed on to the contact group statement, they are a full member of the contact group and I hope that they work with us to the end.

Question: There’s a meeting by Germany, France and Russia on Saturday. Those kind of summit meetings were usually not greeted warmly by [inaudible] in the last year. Does it make a difference if [Merkel] is one of the participants, and [inaudible]?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I’d put it this way. It makes a difference when we see Europeans working with us and working with Russia in a way that is intended to solve problems. It’s another thing when Europeans started talking about the purpose of Europe being a counterweight to the United States. I never liked that. I always thought that was a kind of balance of power approach which made no strategic sense.

Value free balance of power was very popular before 1914. It sort of went out of fashion after that and for good reason. It’s lousy policy.

This doesn’t mean that I expect Europe has to agree with the United States all the time. It doesn’t, it won’t, it shouldn’t have to. That’s not the point. But the point is that Europe and the United States, those two great centers of democracy, have to work together and not figure out how to check each other. I mean let Boeing and Airbus compete. That’s a competitive relationship that is probably going to produce better planes for everybody. Do you think the 787 would have been developed without the competition from Airbus? It’s a great plane. Boeing’s made a great plane, Boeing should be proud of it. But competition drives companies to produce better products. I’m sure that Airbus will be the better for the competition also. Leave the competition where it belongs. Strategically we shouldn’t compete. That’s my answer.

Question: The early model for the renewed Euro-American relationship had been the Iran conflict, [inaudible]. Do you think they have sort of an alarm sign or a sign that this new-built partnership is fragile to some extent still?

Assistant Secretary Fried: President Chirac and President Bush met Tuesday morning and it was a very good meeting. President Chirac and President Bush said to the cameras afterwards that they were fully in sync. We all want a diplomatic solution. We all put a fair offer on the table. The Iranians know what they have to do. President Bush has said it’s important to be patient. It’s important to work diplomatically.

Sanctions are something we’ve agreed we may have to go to and it’s important that when we do, if we do, that Europeans and Americans see that we did everything possible to reach out to Iran and avoid this, and if we have to it will be only because Iranian behavior, Iran’s decision to turn down good offers gave us no choice. So I think patience is a good thing. And of course I think in the end we all run out of patience.

But I also think that it is important that Iran and the Iranian people understand that Europeans and Americans are very sincere in wanting to work with them if at all possible, and that the sanctions we may have to impose, if we impose them, we do so because their leadership has given us no choice. That must be properly understood by the Iranian people. You heard President Bush reach out to them in his speech. And I’ve noticed the European media has been, given the general skepticism, has been pretty supportive of this process, even a little impatient. Saying well, you know, you’ve got to move to sanctions sooner or later. It’s not a bad place to be, the European media telling us to get tough. That’s not often the case.

Question: I think we were encouraged by Nick Burns who was in Germany just 14 days ago, and he promised a draft resolution being on the table at this general assembly meeting.

Assistant Secretary Fried: You know, as Nick Burns said the other day, it’s a baseball metaphor, so my apologies, we’re in "extra innings", I suppose that’s overtime for football. And Nick Burns is absolutely right. We’re bending over backwards to reach out to the Iranians and give them a chance to respond to very generous and fair offers.

We’ve all heard Ahmadinejad and President Bush has made the point that the Iranian people deserve better than that.

Question: [Inaudible] that once you [inaudible], that you just now cannot imagine what you do once you ran out of patience?

Assistant Secretary Fried: No, no. We can imagine quite well. We have a series of options on Iran. If someone says to you, I don’t care what you do, I’m completely indifferent, if they say that often enough and loudly enough, maybe they care very greatly.

We do have some options and I think they might have an impact on Iran.

Question: But who is "we" in this case?

Assistant Secretary Fried: The Europeans, the Americans.

Question: The Russians?

Assistant Secretary Fried: The international community. I think in the end the group of six, the three plus three, having worked this issue, will do the right thing and move to sanctions.

Question: A few days ago Tony Blair warned Europeans that there is a danger of a new isolationism with the US and that Europeans shouldn’t be happy about that. Do you see this danger coming? Change of mood?

Assistant Secretary Fried: Isolationism has always been a political undercurrent in the United States; sometimes stronger, sometime weaker. It has led to very bad results. It brings nothing, it doesn’t bring much good.

There is a debate in the United States about whether as a result of the difficulties in Iraq, whether or not the United States is better served by being more inward looking. That is not a new debate in American history. I don’t think this will prevail. President Bush is staunchly opposed to isolationism and protectionism, which is sort of the economic counterpart; not exactly, but he’s opposed to both. There is a debate, and I suppose American politics is not my province, but there is a debate really in both political parties about this, but I think, I certainly hope, that internationalism prevails. I think it’s important for the world that the United States be outward looking. President Bush certainly will lead in that direction. I think that there are, I think as we are seen to be cooperating with Europe that will strengthen international-looking internationalist forces on both sides of the Atlantic.

Okay.

Question: Thank you very much.