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On-the-Record Briefing on Afghanistan Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth Washington, DC December 15, 2000

MR. HUNTER: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the State Department briefing room. It is my pleasure this afternoon to introduce our Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth, who is joined this afternoon by Len Hawley, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary from the Bureau of International Organizations; Edmund Hull, the Deputy in the Office of the Coordinator for Counter-Terrorism; and Alan Kreczko from the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Assistant Secretary Inderfurth will give a statement on the record, and it is now my pleasure to call on the Assistant Secretary.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY INDERFURTH: Good afternoon. As you can see, we've got a full team here. Initially, we thought we might have had more of us than of you. I'm glad a few more people arrived. But with terrorism and humanitarian affairs and Len doing the resolution, I'm not sure what I have to add to this briefing, but I do have an opening statement and I would like to read that for the record.

We are here today to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, and specifically the deliberations underway in New York on a new UN Security Council resolution regarding the terrorism in that country. Afghanistan has suffered over the past 20 years from the effects of war and natural disaster. More recently, as the press has aptly reported and I and my colleagues have testified before Congress, Afghanistan has earned the extremely dubious distinction of both the largest producer of heroin in the world, as well as the leading global safe haven for violent extremists and terrorists.

Last year, in an effort to persuade Afghanistan's Taliban authorities to address the problem of terrorists in that country, the Security Council adopted UN Resolution 1267, which calls on the Taliban to hand over indicted terrorist Usama bin Laden to a country where he can be brought to justice and to deal with the issue of terrorism. That resolution imposed certain sanctions on the Taliban.

Let me be blunt about this. Because of their support for terrorist organizations and the fact that they allow terrorist training camps in Afghan territory, the Taliban are a threat to the international community. This has forced the international community to actively consider further measures to bring the Taliban into compliance, as the Security Council has said for over a year it would do, if the Taliban did not comply with Security Council Resolution 1267. That time has now arrived. A new resolution is now being considered in the Security Council.

I want to make absolutely clear that these proposed UN sanctions are targeted only at the Taliban leadership. They are designed specifically to avoid harming the Afghan people. We and other countries are deeply concerned about the desperate conditions under which most Afghans live; and, in designing the sanctions being considered in New York, we were very careful to include provisions which mitigate their impact on ordinary Afghans.

The sanctions contain broad exemptions to allow humanitarian assistance for Afghans to continue unabated. These sanctions also do not cut off trade with Afghanistan. Trade and food and medicine will not be affected. The sanctions regime will allow for pre-approved flights for humanitarian need and to fulfill religious obligations. Again, these sanctions are targeted against the leadership of the Taliban, not the Afghan people. If the resolution is adopted, the Security Council will lift these measures once the Taliban comply with the requirements of the resolution.

The Afghan people have suffered through two decades of war and now the worst drought in a generation. We will not add to that suffering. The United States and the international community will continue to help the people of Afghanistan. Indeed, the United States has been and remains now the single largest foreign donor of humanitarian aid to the Afghan people. In fact, we have just increased our level of assistance; it will exceed $100 million this year. This assistance must continue.

We call upon the Taliban to take no action that will disrupt or impede the delivery of desperately needed food and medicine from the international community to the people of Afghanistan. We also expect the Taliban to provide the security necessary for humanitarian aid workers in Afghanistan.

Finally, let me add that humanitarian assistance is only an interim measure. The Afghan people deserve peace, and not a war that continues into its third decade in their country. They deserve a chance to rebuild their lives under a broad-based representative government that respects their culture, traditions and freedoms. We hope this day will come soon for the people of Afghanistan. However, the Taliban policy of harboring terrorists on Afghan territory is an impediment to achieving that goal.

Let me just add one final point here. This Administration is now in transition. A new team will be arriving on January 20. The Bush Administration will have many urgent problems to face and, unfortunately, Afghanistan will be one of those -- because of terrorism and bin Laden, because of the trafficking and narcotics, because of the Taliban's abysmal record on human rights, especially its treatment of women and girls, and because of the continuing civil war. Those problems are getting worse, and the international community and the United States must continue to search for ways to deal with them.

That's the end of the formal statement

Q Thank you, Mr. Inderfurth.

MR. HUNTER: We'll reconvene in a couple of minutes on background. In the meantime, we have some fact sheets that we'd like to pass out that I hope will provide some information that will be useful.