This is a Text Only version of a webpage on the US Embassy, Ottawa, Canada Website. Please Visit http://ottawa.usembassy.gov for a full version. Joint Press Availability With Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre PettigrewSecretary Condoleezza Rice (11:25 a.m. EDT) FOREIGN MINISTER PETTIGREW: Secretary Rice, ladies and gentlemen, (inaudible) in Canada Secretary Rice's visit. It's a great pleasure to welcome you to Canada. I must say that I pride myself as having developed a very good working relationship, a strong collaboration between us at the numerous multilateral forums. We always manage to meet on the margins of those forums so we can certainly say that we have certainly sustained a very substantial dialogue since her appointment as Secretary of State. We’ve begun with our hemispheric issues. We have the Mar del Plata summit in Argentina. Both of us are working for a strong statement that will be reflective of our values and our interests, and we want a work plan that will allow our hemisphere to build the appropriate level of human rights, justice, democracy and prosperity that we believe in. We, of course, discussed Haiti quite substantially, where we are pleased that there is less violence than there has been, but we believe it is imperative that the elections take place in a very respectful manner and that we can have a legitimate government as of February 7th that will be able to take the hard decisions that need to be taken by any government, but certainly particularly in a situation as challenging as the one we have in Haiti. 
We obviously talked about Syria and the Mehlis report, where the international community is now seized with a situation that is going to be challenging for us. We have to react after the revelations of that report and we certainly want Syria to collaborate with the United Nations on this. We need to know what really took place in this situation. Of course, we talked about nonproliferation -- pleased with the progress in North Korea but we continue the six-party talks, further progress. We talked, of course, on Iran, about Iran. And let me just say that, of course, we have talked on some bilateral issues as well. We are building on a most positive agenda. We are very pleased with the Security and Prosperity Partnership that we three countries have signed -- Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. And let me confirm to you the Secretary has the same view that NORAD renewal, the negotiations for NORAD renewal, are really going very, very well. As you know, NORAD has to be renewed by the spring 2006 and we are both very pleased with the state of the negotiations at this time. SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much. Well, I'd like to thank Minister Pettigrew -- Pierre, thank you very much -- and Prime Minister Martin for a wonderful dinner last night. We've had extensive discussions of our bilateral agenda but also of the many, many issues that the United States and Canada are cooperating on across the world. And the Minister has given you a list of that. Let me just add that we, of course, had an opportunity to talk about the events in Iraq with the now final passage of the referendum as announced by the Election Commission. Iraq is about to enter a new phase and we vow our support to the elections there. Let me just say that Canada has been a stalwart in supporting the UN elections work there as well as in training policemen and in granting reconstruction aid to Iraq. And so we did have an opportunity to talk about that. We also had a very good briefing on avian flu because, as you know, there is a ministers meeting here and a few people came in to talk to us about that and we vowed that we will do everything that we can to support a program that gets governments to take this issue very seriously and to work both internally and externally on what could be a very damaging pandemic. We also had a very good discussion -- I just want to return to Iran for one moment because Canada has been strong on nonproliferation but also a strong supporter of the other parts of the agenda with Iran -- that is, on terrorism, on human rights -- and we had a little discussion of that. So it was a very good and wide-ranging discussion. We have a really good friend in Canada. Our relationship is based on common values. We have many problems that we solve on a day-to-day basis. Our citizens are interacting on a day-to-day basis. We are each other's largest trading partners. And so there is always a great deal to talk about when I'm with the Canadians and I'm delighted that I've had the chance to be here. If I could just close on one other note. Of course, we learned this morning of the death of Rosa Parks, the pioneer in the Civil Rights Movement who one day was just sick and tired of being sick and tired and refused to give up her seat and inspired a whole generation of people to fight for freedom. And Mrs. Parks, who was 92 years old and lived a life that was long and inspirational, well beyond that single act. I think for all of us her inspiration will live on and I just wanted to acknowledge that. FOREIGN MINISTER PETTIGREW: Absolutely. QUESTION: Bruce Cheadle with the Canadian Press. Secretary Rice, it has taken some months for you to get here to Ottawa, and in the meantime the tone of comments coming from cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister has changed rather dramatically. I'm just wondering what impact this has had in Washington and did you bring a check for $3.5 billion? (Laughter.) SECRETARY RICE: I don't travel with that kind of money. (Laughter.) Look, we and Canada are first and foremost, friends. And secondly, we are large trading partners. And this is a relationship that is deep and broad and good. And we can always talk about whatever it is that divides us because those divisions are matters of policy difference. Now, we have seen the softwood issue differently, that's clear. It is a trade dispute. We are working to try and resolve that trade dispute. We have mechanisms to do that. We believe that there is still room for negotiation. Of course I will go back to Washington and tell the President and Secretary Gutierrez and others what I've heard here. But be assured, the United States would like to resolve this dispute through negotiation. That said, we need to keep it in perspective. This is a very big, important and deep relationship. Not only is the -- I know that the softwood lumber issue is extremely important to Canada and extremely important to, particularly to parts of Canada. It is a small percentage of our overall trade, and most of the time, as a matter of fact, the great majority of the time, our trade simply goes on. When we have disputes, we resolve them. I remember that the first issue that I dealt with was the potato wart problem -- FOREIGN MINISTER PETTIGREW: Yes. SECRETARY RICE: Yes -- (laughter) and I remember that then-Prime Minister Chrétien actually served us the potatoes when we were there. FOREIGN MINISTER PETTIGREW: Every meal of the course. (Laughter.) SECRETARY RICE: Every meal we had the potatoes, but we resolved it; we resolved it. And we resolved it because we had a desire to resolve it and because we know that, as trading partners, we cannot let trade disputes between us get out of hand. We have to keep them in perspective. This relationship is too important to both our peoples to let it be overwhelmed by a single issue. QUESTION: (Inaudible) gun crimes an American responsibility? SECRETARY RICE: Is that a second question? QUESTION: Sort of. SECRETARY RICE: Look, I'll take it. I'll take the question. The problem of border control and smuggling is a shared problem. There are problems on both sides of the border that can cause the smuggling of guns. Now I don't know what to make of the numbers. I'm not going to vouch for numbers that assign a certain percentage to guns brought in the United States because I've not seen an independent verification of those numbers, so I'm not going to vouch for numbers. But obviously we want to help resolve the issues concerning gun violence, and we have been very involved with Canadian law enforcement in trying to do exactly that. We have 40 joint investigations. We have a hub for the sharing of information and training in Toronto. We've been doing training. We've been making available our technology in terms of firearms tracing and the like to Canadian authorities. And we'll continue to work on the problem. Clearly, we would like to be as helpful as we can and we need to recognize that for both of us our border is one that we want to be as secure as possible, as secure as possible from smuggling, as secure as possible from terrorism, as secure as possible from the drug trade. We want our people to believe and to know that they live in safe and secure borders. That's why in our work through the Partnership for Prosperity, in our work through Safe and Secure Borders that our Homeland Security directors work on, we work every day on better technology on the border, better procedures on the borders, and dealing with the fact that we share a very long border on which many, many good things happen, including trade, but many bad things happen as well. QUESTION: Peter Mackler, Agence France Presse. Madame Secretary, as we know, the Iraqi constitution was approved this morning. Could you give us your reaction to that? And more specifically, there was still a very high opposition among the Sunnis, particularly in Anbar Province, which is the heart of the insurgency. Do you think such a high opposition is going to fuel dissatisfaction with the political process there and perhaps further encourage the insurgency? SECRETARY RICE: The first point I would make, Peter, is that we owe our congratulations to the Iraqi people for having achieved yet another step on their march toward democracy. Every time they have faced a challenge, they've met it, whether it was in the transfer of sovereignty and the creation of an interim government or elections in January or the writing of a constitution, now a referendum on a constitution, and they're getting ready for elections in December. This is a remarkable story. They continue on their political path despite the fact that there are violent people who would like to throw them off that path. So the first thing I'd like to say is to congratulate the Iraqi people. Secondly, it is not against the exercise of democracy to vote no. It is the exercise of democracy to vote. And the Sunnis have exercised their right to vote. Now, at the latter stages of the negotiations on the draft constitution, a number of key important decisions about how federalism would actually be -- what laws would actually govern the development of federal units other than in the Kurdish territories, a number of questions like that, about resources, were left for the next parliament to decide. And they were left deliberately for the next parliament to decide because it is the belief that that parliament, of course, will have full Sunni participation because Sunnis are now really involved in the process and I think we should acknowledge that Kurds and Shia did not, in that sense, press their advantage. They recognize that some of these decisions needed to be left 'til later. They also agreed to a mechanism by which the constitution can be amended so that Sunnis still have a chance to shape this very important document. So it's my hope now that -- now that the referendum is over, all leaders of Iraq whatever their affiliation, Sunni and Shia and Kurds and other groups, will work now to improve the constitution, but also to really now go to the elections and exercise again the democratic franchise for the election of the people whose responsible it will be to be the first free and permanent government of a free Iraq. QUESTION: Can I just follow up just on one thing on that? SECRETARY RICE: Yeah. QUESTION: But it still remains that 96 percent of people in Anbar Province, I believe is the figure, voted "no." Does that bode ill for the political process in that area? QUESTION: The people in Anbar Province voted. I hope that it's understood in Anbar Province that there is now a process by which, if there are differences about the constitution, it can still -- there's still time to amend it. But also there are very important decisions about how certain principles enshrined in the constitution are actually going to be carried out, what laws are going to govern the implementation of those principles. That's going to be the work of the coming assembly and therefore, I would hope that the leadership of those folks would encourage them now to go and vote for the people who will have the pen, so to speak, in writing the laws that will be most import to the implementation of the constitution. QUESTION: Thank you. QUESTION: Oui. Bon jour de la vois? With regards to Iraq, you want it in French? Well, let's go in English. SECRETARY RICE: All right. QUESTION: With regards to Iraq reconstruction, I'd like to know if you had specific demands to voice to Mr. Pettigrew and Mr. Martin towards reconstruction. Do you have specific demands in terms of our participation? SECRETARY RICE: Well, to this point, Canada has been one of the more generous donors on Iraqi reconstruction. And I know that there have been some problems in actually disbursement because of the security situation, but we are hopeful that now with a new government coming that that disbursement can take place on a rather rapid scale and timeframe. But also we are all hopeful that the international community, having pledged at Brussels to support the Iraqi people's move to democracy, will look again at what can be done to support the reconstruction in Iraq. The new Iraqi Government, once it's elected, will have plans. It will have reconstruction plans. The United States has carried a lot of the reconstruction load to now. But I hope that others in the international community -- and by the way, especially the neighbors, who have a real stake in a stable Iraq, the neighbors need to step up even more to help in the reconstruction. And so this is a conversation that we will have but I think that Canada, which has been generous, will I hope and I believe, look at what more can be done to support the Iraqi Government once there's a new government in place. QUESTION: And on Syria, have you asked Canada to take some measures towards them as well? SECRETARY RICE: Well, in fact, we did talk about what the international community could do to support the work of the Security Council in sending a very strong message to Syria, first of all, that they should not as they have so far be dismissive of this Mehlis report. The attitude of the Syrian Government toward the Mehlis report should be one that they recognize that the international community expects them to take it seriously and cooperate. Secondly, that the Syrians need to understand that no one will tolerate efforts at or means of intimidation of the Lebanese people in response to this report; and finally, that this is a serious matter for the international community when you have these kinds of charges, and as we move through the next several weeks I know that Minister Pettigrew and the Canadian Government will be supportive of the goals that I just outlined. FOREIGN MINISTER PETTIGREW: Absolutely. QUESTION: Nicholas Kralev with the Washington Times. I'll set a precedent and ask only one question. The report of James Wolfensohn is out now and one has to make a really big effort not to notice the criticism of Israel in that report. I wonder what your assessment is of it. Do you agree with its findings and are you talking to the Israelis to make sure that the situation actually improves on the ground? SECRETARY RICE: Yes. And I think that Jim Wolfensohn has had discussions with both parties about what they need to do and it is very clear that the crossings issue needs to get resolved, not just the Rafah crossings but the issues of freedom of movement within the West Bank and issues about other crossings that need to be freed up so that the kind of economic program that we all want to see in the Palestinian territories, that indeed the G-8 signed on to the Wolfensohn plan. And I took what Jim is saying as simply asking the parties to do everything that they can now that the Israelis are out of the Gaza to make sure that the Gaza is going to be a place that Palestinians can see a different kind of life and therefore start to build the foundations for a Palestinian state. I know in having talked with Jim many, many times that he believes there are many things that the Palestinians also need to do, and you will note that they are there. And I know that he agrees with us, with the G-8 and with the Quartet, that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza was an historic step of enormous proportions, that it said something about the commitment of the Israeli people and Prime Minister Sharon to the prospects for peace between the Israeli people and the Palestinian people. That is now -- that is our starting point. We now need to work to make sure that the benefits of that withdrawal are actually realized so that it becomes a step that can accelerate our movement along the roadmap and then ultimately to the establishment of two states. QUESTION: A question for Madame Rice and perhaps a response by Minister Pettigrew en français s'il vous plait. Madame Rice, the U.S. enters into -- has thousands of agreements and treaties with all kinds of other countries around the world, but if you don't live up to an agreement on trade with your closest neighbor and abide with a NAFTA decision in a trade dispute, how are other countries around the world going to be able to trust the word of the United States on anything? SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and in its agreements. Again, we have a trade dispute on a particular issue. We would like to see a negotiation of this issue succeed. But I think it's extremely important not to speak in apocalyptic language about this issue. It is an important issue, but it is a trade dispute. The many, many, many trade agreements that we have, the many, many, many times that we've had disputes in NAFTA, minor or major, we have been able to resolve them. We've been able to resolve them within mechanisms and I do not think that that has changed. We have a dispute on this issue and I'm quite certain that with goodwill and with effort, we can resolve this dispute. But again, I think it's extremely important to keep it in perspective. The United States and Canada are each other's largest trading partners. We're going to have disputes. It is not the only issue in the U.S.-Canada relationship and it certainly should not be an issue that somehow is allowed to undermine our very good working relationship on a whole host of issues. And I frankly think that we'll get through it. FOREIGN MINISTER PETTIGREW: (Via Interpreter) Do you want me to answer in French? In that case, I can say it both in French and in English. It is clear that the relationship that we do have between the U.S. and Canada is an extremely constructive relationship, extremely important for both of us. In my view NAFTA is at the heart of our productivity capacity in North America. So we certainly are committed to make sure that North America lives up to the challenges of India and China and the others. We want North America to succeed. I think NAFTA has served our three countries very well -- Mexico, the United States and Canada -- and I must say that the United States have always respected the word on NAFTA decisions. Now, on this one there is a particularly difficult lobby there and I know what it is to live with that lobby. I've spent four years of my life, spending a lot of time on the lumber lobby in the United States. You have all my sympathy, Condi. (Laughter.) It is a very tough lobby and I hope very much that we will resolve that issue. Not only "I hope," I know we will resolve that issue very much -- I mean, it is imperative -- we need NAFTA to be vibrant, to be strong and to allow North America to be as productive as we can with the challenges. And we are one another's best client, you know, people always refer to the Canadian numbers of how much we export to the United States. Yes. We export a great deal but you know that 25 percent of all U.S. exports in the world come to Canada. That is not insignificant that a big country like this -- 25 percent of its exports -- so we're great clients of them as well. And it is a two-way street and my view is that NAFTA is a very solid agreement and has served us very well. Americans have always respected their words, Canadians as well. And on this softwood lumber, there is a problem. We, the diplomats, will help our trade colleagues to resolve it. Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup. SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. [end] |
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