Middle East Digest: February 27, 2008

Bureau of Public Affairs
February 27, 2008

The Middle East Digest provides text and audio from the Daily Press Briefing. For the full briefings, please visit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/.

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From the Daily Briefing of February 27, 2008:

QUESTION: Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Turkish Government should finish their operation in northern Iraq in couple of weeks time. Are you urging Turkish Government to finish within that time limit?

MR. CASEY: Sounds like the Secretary of Defense was speaking on behalf of the Administration. You know, I wholeheartedly concur with his comments.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Follow-up?

MR. CASEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Gates (inaudible) arrived in Turkey, but before going to Turkey in New Delhi, he also reiterated U.S. calls for Turkey to seek political and economic initiatives in addition to military measures to tackle the PKK problem. Now, what I’m wondering is that in terms of these economic and political complementary measures, what should be the elements of the political components? Would you want Turkey to talk to the PKK proxies or just announce an amnesty or anything like that? Political measures inside Turkey -- what should they be?

MR. CASEY: I’m having a really bad case of déjà vu both from the gaggle this morning and the briefing yesterday. Look, I think as we’ve always said, the PKK is a terrorist organization: it shouldn’t be negotiated with; it needs to be put out of business. That’s the common position of the United States, of Turkey, and of Iraq as well.

That said, I think everyone recognizes -- and the Turkish Government has talked about the need for economic development and other kinds of measures, as well as has already taken a variety of steps on the domestic political front in terms of managing issues in the south -- but no, we are not trying to be proscriptive in terms of anything the Turkish Government should or shouldn’t do. That is for the Turkish people to decide. I think all Secretary Gates’ remarks reflect is, I think, everyone’s understanding that there isn’t any unique military solution in the long term to this issue and that there needs to be things like political dialogue between Turkey and Iraq over how to confront this problem, as well as working with us and others.

QUESTION: But other than that, you are not insisting on specific political measures inside Turkey?

MR. CASEY: Turkey is a good friend and ally. It is an independent, democratic country, and we have full confidence in Turkey’s leaders to be able to devise whatever means or measures would be appropriate to be able to fully address this issue.

QUESTION: One more follow-up.

MR. CASEY: You can keep trying, yeah. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Something – on something related. Under arrangements from the 1990s, Turkey still has some small bases inside northern Iraq with a small number of troops, probably 1,000 or slightly more. And Iraqi Kurdistan’s parliament yesterday urged Turkey to close those bases. Now, what’s the U.S. position on this and what’s the legal status of those bases?

MR. CASEY: What the legal status of those bases is something you’d have to ask the Iraqi Government. I don’t think the United States has a particular view on them, since we weren’t part of the agreement in the first place. Look, this is a very simple issue. Turkey and Iraq are going to be neighbors for an awful long time. They live in the same neighborhood. They are going to have to work out a political accommodation on a whole variety of bilateral issues. And we are very happy to see that on many issues, such as promoting cooperation among Iraq’s neighbors, Turkey has been playing a very positive and very important role hosting one of the sessions of the neighbors conference, working on cross-border economic development.

So these are the kinds of issues, though, that need to be addressed between Turkey and Iraq directly. We certainly will help encourage that – those discussions and dialogue, just as we have on the broader PKK issue. But frankly, it’s for the Turkish Government and the Iraqi Government to determine the status of those facilities and to work out a mutually agreeable arrangement over how they should be handled.

QUESTION: One final thing.

MR. CASEY: Okay.

QUESTION: I’m sorry I’m taking your time.

MR. CASEY: It’s okay.

QUESTION: A couple of weeks ago, we saw Defense Commander and Lieutenant General Henry Obering say that in addition to the plant capabilities in the Czech Republic and Poland, there was a plan to – plan for additional components for an X-radar in Turkey in the Caucasus or the Caspian. Now, are you holding talks with the Turks on this? And if yes –

MR. CASEY: I’m not aware of any conversations with the Turkish Government about that. But you might want to check with the Pentagon. I’m not sure what the general is referring to.

QUESTION: This pending civil litigation involving victims of Palestinian terror attacks, a deadline coming up on Friday; a federal judge in New York has set this deadline for the State Department to file a statement of interest. Can you tell me if any decision has been made or has the statement been filed yet?

MR. CASEY: No decision’s been made.

QUESTION: Can you – are the families involved being notified about this formally?

MR. CASEY: Well, first of all, the way this works is that a federal – a federal judge, in any particular case, will ask not the State Department, but the U.S. Government if they have a statement of interest that they wish to file in it. That is something that is done through Department of Justice and obviously is part of the court proceedings and will be accessible to all parties to it, just as any other court document would.

Look, I want to make it clear that regardless of what happens with this case, the position of the Administration is one of great sympathy for anyone who has suffered at the hands of terrorists. And we certainly believe and, as you know, we’ve been working with Congress on legislation that would provide a uniform standard for compensation for those who have been victims of terrorist attacks. So, you know, we certainly have been and will be in contact with members – family members of those who have been victims. We certainly talk on a regular basis, for example, with those who were affected by the Pan Am 103 bombing and other cases. And, you know, we’ve worked extensively with the Libyan Government on compensation for those cases as well as a number of other areas.

But again, whether or not any statement of interest is done in this particular civil action that’s pending, let me make it clear that we do support the interests of those who have been affected by terrorism.

QUESTION: Well, why is there such deliberation in this particular case? Is it because it’s Palestinians that are involved? Can you elaborate further on that?

MR. CASEY: Well, you know, I am – I’m certainly not a lawyer and I’m certainly not privy to the multi-agency discussions that are involved in something like this. Obviously, when a case like this comes up, there needs to be a clear and common understanding on the part of all the relevant U.S. Government agencies as to whether anything in this specific case, in this specific instance touches on the interests of the U.S. Government. So there are always very complicated legal matters; I don’t think that this one is necessarily more or less complicated than other kinds of cases where we’ve been asked to see if there’s a statement of interest involved, but, you know, I’d actually have to leave it to the lawyers to tell you whether this one has any particular additional twists and turns to it.

QUESTION: But can you just clarify, is no decision going to be made before Friday or are you just going to leave it hanging or how is that --

MR. CASEY: I can tell you-- I know that there’s ongoing discussions about it. All I can tell you is my understanding is a decision has yet to be reached. When a decision will be reached is a factor of how those interagency discussions go.

QUESTION: What’s your reaction to the reports today of the rocket attacks in Gaza and the retaliatory attacks in Israel? And do you have any details to give us on Secretary Rice’s next trip to the region?

MR. CASEY: Yeah, I did promise you something. I am late with my homework, guys, and I apologize. I don’t have a formal written statement to give you a dramatic reading of right now, but let me just do this. I can confirm for you that next week, from March 3^rd to the 7^th, Secretary Rice will be traveling to Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as continuing on to attend the NATO ministerial that we just talked a little bit about. In Israel and in the Palestinian territories, she’ll meet with officials from both sides. And obviously, this is part of the follow-up to the Annapolis process and I’m sure she’ll get a good sense there from the parties as to the state of play of their discussions and negotiations and cover a variety of other bilateral issues as well. NATO ministerial, and certainly, there will be a number of topics under discussion there, including, I am sure, the situation in Kosovo as well as NATO’s mission in Afghanistan and the desire on our part and on everyone’s part to meet the criteria and meet the demand for additional forces there. Of course, this ministerial is also a preliminary meeting, or something of a set-up meeting, for the upcoming summit that President Bush will be attending. And so I’m sure they will also be doing some work in preparation for the leaders discussions there. I am sure that will also touch on the subject of potential NATO enlargement. In terms of – so --

QUESTION: So you’re confirming Rice’s visit for the – for – to the 7^th of March?

MR. CASEY: Yeah, in those three locations. In terms of the attack – the attacks that have occurred, I have seen reports that a Qassam rocket did, in fact, result in the death of an Israeli citizen today. We condemn, as we always do, these kinds of unprovoked attacks on innocent civilians. There is no excuse for it and one of the things that we hope will happen is a cessation of that – of those provocations and of those attacks. In terms of Israeli response, as you know, our longstanding view is that Israel has a right to defend itself. However, we always ask that in doing so, they consider the consequences of those actions and the potential effect it might have and we remain, certainly, concerned about the civilian population in Gaza that continues to suffer as a result of Hamas’ misrule and of Hamas’, not only toleration, but active support and promotion of these kinds of attacks on Israel.

QUESTION: And how do you think it bodes for the Annapolis peace process?

MR. CASEY: Well, you’ve heard from the Secretary and from others about the fact that there always are going to be things that will happen that will try and distract or sideline parts of these discussions. But the important thing is that in President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert, we have two leaders who are committed to moving forward on what is a very difficult set of negotiations: to resolve this longstanding problem and bring about a two-state solution. They have made a commitment to conclude an agreement by the end of this year. That is an ambitious timetable, but it’s one that they continue to hold to and we continue to support their efforts to do so.

Yeah.

QUESTION: One last on Turkey. If Turkish forces stay longer than the, you know, time that Robert Gates mentioned, is there any risk that U.S. could halt the intelligence sharing?

MR. CASEY: Now look, if sounds like a hypothetical to me. I think we’ve made clear our views that this military operation should be concluded as quickly as possible. Secretary Gates, as you mentioned, put a timetable on that and I think we’ll just see what happens. Certainly, I’m not prepared to talk about anything beyond that at this point.

QUESTION: On the same subject?

MR. CASEY: Oh, okay, Mr. Lambros.

QUESTION: Okay. According to reports, the Turkish army is trying to create an area under its control in Iraq. The aim is to target PKK but it also has political (inaudible) mainly in Kirkuk. Are you concerned, Mr. Casey, since you have forces in Iraq?

MR. CASEY: Mr. Lambros, we support the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Iraq. As far as I know, that is the Turkish Government position as well. We would expect that everyone would hold to that.