Remarks With Swiss Federal Councilor Micheline Calmy-Rey After Their Meeting

And perhaps you know in May of 2006 Switzerland and the USA signed a “Memorandum of Understanding Establishing a Framework for Intensified Cooperation.” This MOU covers a full range of bilateral cooperation, including foreign policy, economic, security issues. And it stands for -- as a symbol for the importance and quality and the wide range of Swiss-American relations.

The main subject we talked about in our discussion today was Kosovo. We share the same conviction and commitment that a peaceful solution towards the status of Kosovo is the only way to resolve the issue. And Madame Secretary suggested that she would welcome a stronger cooperation with Switzerland on this issue. And I replied that Switzerland is interested to strengthen this cooperation. Switzerland, you know -- ten percent of the population of Kosovo is living in Switzerland, and Switzerland has a vital interest in this because of our important presence in Kosovo with our troops, with development cooperation, with these programs. And we also agreed together to coordinate our views with regard to further steps.

Near East: Both sides underlined I will support you -- support the Annapolis process. And Switzerland is part of -- a big part of -- in the international efforts and in the occupied Palestinian territories. We were in the conference -- donor conference in Paris.

Afghanistan: You know Switzerland is working there with a civil presence and we intend to increase our civil presence in Afghanistan.

And let me conclude that we had a very friendly and productive meeting, and I am therefore confident that on this basis we are able to further intensify our bilateral cooperation. And I wish you the very best stay in Switzerland and in Davos.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. Thank you very much, Minister Calmy-Rey. As a matter of fact, we have had the opportunity to meet on a couple of occasions in the United States, but this is the first time that we have had the opportunity to meet here in Switzerland. And I thank you very much for making the effort to meet me and to have an opportunity to talk about the wide range of issues that the United States and Switzerland have been able to cooperate on and that we share common concerns about.

We did, in fact, have an extensive discussion of the importance of our Memorandum of Understanding, which lays the foundation for continued cooperation between the United States and Switzerland, the kind of program for intensified cooperation.

We did discuss in some detail issues concerning Kosovo. I’ve just come, of course, from Berlin where I had been in some discussions with members of the European Union and we had an opportunity then to reflect on the course ahead, where the United States and Switzerland have agreed to intensify our dialogue and our coordination of next steps there.

We believe strongly in the United States that the status of Kosovo must be resolved and that the Ahtisaari plan, the Ahtisaari effort, has given us a way ahead that will make that resolution as smooth and as peaceful as possible. And we want all countries to engage constructively. Serbia certainly has a future in Europe, it is our belief, and it is a future that should be made very clear to the Serbian people. But it is also time to look to the establishment of a way forward so that this last remaining piece of the Balkans can be resolved.

We had a discussion of the Middle East. I want to thank you very much for what Switzerland did at the donor conference in Paris on the heels of the Annapolis conference. We also discussed the situation in Gaza and our concerns about the humanitarian conditions there. I should note that both the security of Israel and the humanitarian concerns of the people of Gaza need to be kept in mind. Of course, we believe that Hamas has acted in a way in Gaza that has made it very difficult for the Palestinians, the innocent Palestinians who are unfortunate enough to be in Gaza. We are very concerned that there be stability in that region, but most importantly that both the security concerns of Israel and the humanitarian concerns of the Gazans be met.

Finally, we have talked about some other matters, including Afghanistan. But I want to just say that the work that you did personally on the Geneva Third Convention was extremely important and we hope that the adoption of a third symbol will allow the terrific work that is done on a humanitarian basis to go forward and to go forward in a more intensive and effective way.

Thank you very much.

2007/T2-2