Press Conference

Assistant Secretary Jones: Thank you, Mr. Minister [Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja of Finland]. I’m extremely happy to be back in Helsinki, to be back in Finland. This is a conversation that I very much valued. I will be reporting back to Secretary Powell, who will be very interested in the Minister’s views, very interested in his understanding, his analysis of situations that we see around the world and the tasks ahead of us as we try to address each of these challenges.

In particular, I wanted to pass on the gratitude of the United States to the Minister for Finland’s very strong participation in so many of the challenges that we have in the world: in Afghanistan, in particular; providing substantial reconstruction money for Iraq; supporting the UN protection force in Iraq; the work that we’re doing together in Darfur; and a wide variety of other areas, such as trafficking in persons, such as the various transatlantic law enforcement and counter terrorism work that we do with Finland through the European Union.

As the Minister said, we went through quite a number of issues, and I look forward very much to addressing any of your questions.

Question: It’s almost three months till elections in Iraq, and your troops are closing in on the rebels in Fallujah. Is there enough time to plan elections?

Assistant Secretary Jones: It is of course very important for Iraq’s democratic future for these elections to take place. I can’t be the judge of whether there is enough time. Certainly those who know a lot more about the situation than I do, such as the IIG, Secretary Powell, the UN and others, believe that it is possible. There’s a tremendous amount of work that is underway already with the UN in the lead to try to prepare for those elections. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, Finland’s support for the UN protection force is very important to get the process underway so that elections will be possible at the end of January. We’re very hopeful that that’s what will happen.

Question: Has the U.S. been briefed on the agreement of the three main European partners with Iran on suspending nuclear enrichment processing activities, and does the USG welcome this?

Assistant Secretary Jones: I apologize, I’m not able to address that question. This all happened as I was leaving Washington, and I don’t have a separate brief on it.

Question: Iraq was actually the reason for worsening transatlantic relations. In the second Bush administration, how will its policy toward Europe change?

Assistant Secretary Jones: The President, in his very first address after he had won the election, included in his remarks several references to the importance that he attaches to improving the transatlantic relationship, to working in a collaborative way with partners in Europe. I’m not able to give you specifics at this point as to how exactly one might do this, but certainly there is a very intense schedule ahead of us that Secretary Powell will pursue with NATO meetings, we have a USEU meeting in December, many of us will be at the OSCE ministerial. I don’t know yet exactly if Secretary Powell will be able to go. Each of those meetings provides a really excellent opportunity to address the questions that are the most important in the transatlantic relationship, and Secretary Powell intends to do that either with the organizations themselves, in NATO, with the EU, or with his various colleagues on the margins of all of those meetings.

Question: Will it be possible to have fair, free and democratic elections in Iraq when the elections are preceded by a state of emergency?

Assistant Secretary Jones: That’s certainly the intention. That is what the UN is working toward; that is what all of us are working toward, to make sure that the Iraqi people feel that they can go to the polls, feel that the elections are organized in a way that allows them to exercise their democratic right to choose a leadership. I can’t tell you how it’s going to play out exactly, but that’s certainly that’s the intention, to have a free and fair election in Iraq.