Press Conference with Czech Foreign Ministry First Deputy Minister Jan Winkler

Released by U.S. Embassy Prague

DEPUTY FOR DEFENSE AND SECURITY WINKLER: I am the Deputy for Defense and Security and let me introduce U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. As you know, the meeting between Mr. Armitage and Czech Foreign Minister Cyril Svoboda has just ended. At the meeting, we discussed all relevant bilateral issues, and if I may summarize them, they dealt with the stability of the NATO alliance. The bonds in the alliance have to have some tangible, concrete outcomes on both sides. We also discussed so-called anti-Americanism and whether people perceive America as such or through what President Bush does – if it’s a debate about style or principles. Furthermore, we talked about the role of the U.S., which currently is the only global power. Naturally, we also discussed Russia, the role of Turkey, the neighbor of Iraq and at the same time a candidate country to the EU. Finally, going back to the tangible outcomes – Mr. Armitage made an announcement about the form of cooperation and the improvement of the visa practice between the U.S. and the Czech Republic.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: President Bush had asked me to come to Prague to make sure that all our friends here in the government and in the public know the great appreciation that the U.S. holds for the Czech Republic, and particularly for their activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also wanted me to make sure and made it very clear that we take the Czech Republic very seriously and that we do not take anything for granted. I’m here to find ways to put tangible benefits into the relationship for both of us, and in that regard, as I said earlier at the Defense Ministry, we have determined that we will try to be helpful in the question of the VERA, and of course the U.S. has already signed a contract for one of these passive surveillance systems. Additionally, I know the question of visas has been a very troublesome one and we are asking our Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs to travel to Prague on the 24^th to establish a Working Group with our Czech friends to determine way in which we can ease some of the restrictions and difficulties regarding visas because for our part we certainly hope that citizens of the Czech Republic will enjoy traveling to the U.S. We will benefit from it and we certainly hope that Czech citizens will as well. Thank you very much for your hospitality and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.

QUESTION: Mr. Deputy Secretary are you satisfied with the Czech presence in Iraq and would you like to see more; and second question did you talk about settling the U.S. claim on the 80,000 dollars in fines for wrong parking of Czech diplomats at the UN in New York?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: I did not talk about the latter at all, but we are most gratified by the courageous effort of Czech soldiers – both the Special Forces in Afghanistan and the military police in southern Iraq in Basra. I expressed great appreciation, and I did not ask for more.

QUESTION: Mr. Deputy Minister, what do you think about the new security situation in Russia, and especially about the new measures of President Putin concerning the fight against terrorism? What is the main difference in the Russian strategy in fighting terrorism and the American strategy?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: First of all, all citizens of the U.S., and I’m sure for that matter, all citizens of the Czech Republic were absolutely horrified by what happened in Beslan and our prayers and thoughts go out to every single family member who suffered in that tragedy. The war on terrorism, in which the Russian Federation has been a partner of the U.S., is fought on many fronts: sometimes it’s fought with soldiers and sometimes it’s fought through financial movements; sometimes it’s fought with special services and intelligence, and many things happen out of the sight of ordinary citizens of my country or yours. The Russian Federation has to determine how it will proceed. Terrorism, from my point of view, and I think from the Russian Federation’s point of view, is that – you cannot pick and choose – a terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist. We will try to support the Russian Federation, we understand their policies and we understand their strategy. We are a little disappointed that recently it seems that the Russian Federation has gotten a bit more secretive about their strategy and restricted the media somewhat, so we do not have full access to this information. As we go forward, I hope the Russian Federation will clarify all of this, just how she intents to prosecute this war on terror; if we are all in agreement we hope to be of assistance.

QUESTION: Can you tell me, does the U.S. have any objections to the Czech Republic selling Semtex or other military equipment to Iraq, and can you comment on what influence the U.S. now has over the Iraqi government over acquiring weapons? Apparently, the [Iraqi] government feels it does not have sufficient military hardware for their soldiers. As I understand it, the U.S. concern is that they are in a kind of Catch 22, because you gave them powerful weapons and you are not sure who’s going to stay with you and who’s going to cross the line to the other side.

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: The question of sales to Iraq of explosives in this case did not come up and has not come up to me. The task in Iraq is big enough to accommodate many sources of supply. We want, however, to be sure that we don’t develop an Iraqi Army in the long run that has seven or eight logistics tails, so there has to be some consistency about who provides what systems to whom. We would be open to discussions with our Czech friends on any of these items and I’m sure we would find a way forward. The Iraqi government is free to buy what they want, using their own national funds, absolutely. I think that they would seek our views and other coalition members views, including the Czech Republic. We have no veto [over this matter].

DEPUTY FOR DEFENSE AND SECURITY WINKLER: The Czech Republic has a normal European system of licensing and we have quite strict rules regarding exports of weapons to Iraq. Of course, this process includes consultations with allies, exactly according to the Code of Conduct of the EU, which says we cannot export arms to places where they can harm the interests of allies; I have never heard any complaints about that.

QUESTION: You mentioned this morning that you expect increased violence in Iraq, so will there be any change in the strategy and do you think it is wrong for the countries to be concerned about their people dying there. Secondly you also mentioned visas and that people in this country are not happy about the U.S. restrictions and that it is much easier for them to go to the U.K. and Ireland. Don’t you think that America is missing out on skilled workers and that other economies will benefit?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: About the strategy in Iraq – we have said publicly that we expect increasing violence as we get towards the January election, and frankly I would not be surprised if some of that violence was directed against our own election on November 2^nd. This has been expected and was predicted for some time and it appears that the last couple of days bear witness to that. We, and the strategy of the government in Iraq is quite clear, that we are going to go after these insurgents one town after another. Najaf was a very good example, where the Iraqi national forces did the bulk of the fighting, supported by the coalition, and as soon as success was brought to Najaf the government and Prime Minister Allawi put in reconstruction funds to capture the hearts and minds of the people; and as far as I am informed in the sixteen days now since in Najaf we haven’t had one security incident. And that will be the strategy of the government. I mentioned earlier at the Defense Ministry that we are working simultaneously with the Syrians in a trilateral fashion – U.S., Iraq and Syria – to bring closure to that border. This should be enormously helpful in bringing down security incidents. On the question of visas. I do understand there is unhappiness here with the visa policy…. The CR has to make its own decision regarding its participation in the coalition. We would hope that the citizens would support the government and the government would support the concept of staying with the coalition and seeing things through successfully. But this is a decision which rests entirely with the Czech Republic.

DEPUTY FOR DEFENSE AND SECURITY WINKLER: We did not discuss this in detail because the government is just today supposed to make the decision over some arrangements, which will reflect the development of the security situation in Iraq.

QUESTION: Another question concerning visas. You mentioned that there are some tangible results, that there will be some expert group that will start working hopefully pretty soon. When do you think these tangible results will be seen? And as far as I understand, it is a question of the percentage of the refused applications and the percentage is quite high in the Czech Republic. Is there any possibility that the percentage could still be higher, I think there is the limit of 3%?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: I think the visa waiver would be far, far into the future, and as you suggest there is a problem to some degree overstaying in the U.S., but we want to encourage people from the Czech Republic to travel to our country and that’s why we have our Assistant Secretary coming on the 24th of this month to establish a working group. We will go after this problem, tackle one obstacle at a time and try to remove them, to make it easier for people to apply, make it more understandable to people what they need to do to apply, what to do if there is a refusal. What options do they have, those kind of things. We are going to do this in a very workmanlike, systematic way and try to remove one obstacle after another. It’s beginning on the 24th, we’ll let them start their discussions on two sides, but we have our top consular person coming here on the 24th.

QUESTION: Did you discuss the possibility that Czech citizens would not be obliged to pay such a huge amount of money to get a visa to the U.S.?

DEPUTY SECRETARY ARMITAGE: Well no, we discussed the fact of visa refusals more than the amount of the fee – those required 100 dollars – is generally the fee everywhere. And we did not discuss that specifically. The government made a strong presentation about the visa restrictions, the unhappiness here, and as I say, I accept this and we are trying to move forward in a proper spirit to resolve as many of these conditions as possible.

Thank you.