Remarks After Meeting With King Abdallah of Jordan

2003/1232

(5:00 p.m. EST)

SECRETARY POWELL: Good evening. I just had a good meeting with His Majesty, King Abdallah. As you might expect, we talked about our bilateral relationship. We talked about the issues of the day, the developments in Iraq. I expressed my appreciation to His Majesty for all the support that he has been providing to our efforts and I'll take one or two questions if there are any, otherwise I'll --

QUESTION: What's your read on the meeting with the Israeli and Palestinians?

SECRETARY POWELL: We -- it was a -- I thought it was a very good meeting. I had a chance to convey to them the primacy of the roadmap as the way forward… (pause for traffic noise) I had a chance to describe to them the primacy of the roadmap as the document that the sides agree upon at this moment. And it is still there, and I think it still is a basis to go forward.

But we welcome other ideas, and they had a chance to share with me the reason for the work that they had been doing and how they believe it can contribute to the process toward peace and how it is complementary to the roadmap. So it was a good discussion.

QUESTION: Is anything active on the Syrian front? An emissary there, perhaps, an American official or former official, because they have expressed some interest in getting in on the --

SECRETARY POWELL: We’re in touch with the Syrians. We have representation in Damascus, but nothing else on that at the moment.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, could you tell us the -- give us some readout of your conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister this morning, please? Did he propose any final joint statement on the Chinese constant problems?

SECRETARY POWELL: Minister Li and I had a good discussion. We discussed the Taiwan Straits issue, as you might expect, and we had a discussion about the progress we were making toward the next six-party meeting, which we hope will be in the not too distant future. And that was the extent of that conversation.

Thank you.

QUESTION: No firm date then, still, right?

SECRETARY POWELL: Not yet.

QUESTION: How alarmed are you about the talk between China and Taiwan over this idea of the referendum?

SECRETARY POWELL: I beg your pardon?

QUESTION: Is the rhetoric between Taiwan and China over the referendum getting alarming to you at all?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, not alarming. We hope that both sides will realize where their interests lie and be careful about what they say. And we reaffirmed to the Chinese again today, and we will when Premier Wen is here next week, that we remain totally committed to our One China policy, founded on the Three Communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, and we do not support an independent -- we do not support independence for Taiwan.

Thank you.