FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
March 22, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The UN Security Council met today to discuss how we can support the resumption of a peaceful, inclusive, and consensus-driven political transition under the leadership of the legitimate President of Yemen, Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi. All parties must re-commit to a transition through peaceful participation in talks mediated by UN Special Advisor Jamal Benomar. On March 21, President Hadi called for dialogue on the basis of the Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative and National Dialogue outcomes, and we urge all Yemenis to heed this call to prevent further violence and destabilization.
Unfortunately, the Houthis’ actions – taken in close collaboration with former President Ali Abdullah Salih – have consistently undermined Yemen’s transition. In recent days, forces loyal to the Houthis and Salih carried out airstrikes against the Presidential Palace in Aden – attacking the government’s democratically elected leader. Earlier today, Houthi forces launched destabilizing attacks on the city of Taiz. These attacks are but the latest in a series of violent actions perpetrated by the Houthis since they chose to overrun Sana’a, take over government institutions, and attempt to govern by unilateral decree. To preserve Yemen’s security, stability, and unity, all parties must refrain from any further unilateral and offensive military actions.
The human costs of instability in Yemen grow every day. On Friday March 20, we were shocked and outraged by the horrific terrorist attacks on mosques in Sana’a and Saada that killed more than 130 and injured hundreds more. The United States reiterates again our condemnation of these attacks, which were cowardly attempts to divide the Yemeni people.
And it is the Yemeni people who will continue to feel the consequences if all parties do not immediately cease military actions and return to Yemen’s political transition. Nearly 16 million people – 61 percent of the population in Yemen – are in grave need of humanitarian assistance.
Today, the Security Council spoke with one voice, reaffirming its support for President Hadi as Yemen’s legitimate president, deploring the Houthis’ failure to withdraw their forces from government institutions, and reiterating the Security Council's condemnation of Houthi unilateral actions that undermine the political transition process.
Yemen’s crisis can still be solved peacefully through the full implementation of the GCC Initiative and National Dialogue outcomes, which provide for a Yemeni-led democratic transition. All Yemenis have a right to peacefully participate in the process of determining Yemen’s future. Having worked bravely and tirelessly to bring about a political transition, the Yemeni people should see this process resume with meaningful public timelines for finishing a new Yemeni constitution, holding a referendum on this constitution, and launching national elections.
The United States remains firmly committed to supporting all of Yemen’s diverse communities in this endeavor. Since the Yemeni people took to the streets to demand change in 2011, Yemen’s transition has succeeded when its communities have come together to support a transition by consensus, as opposed to by unilateral decree. We remain firmly convinced that the peaceful future Yemenis deserve will only come through a return to an inclusive transition led by President Hadi with the full support of all Yemenis.
Showing posts with label STABILITY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STABILITY. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Saturday, February 22, 2014
SEC COMMISSIONER STEIN'S COMMENTS AT "SEC SPEAKS"
FROM: SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Remarks at the “SEC Speaks” Conference
Commissioner Kara M. Stein
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Washington, D.C.
Feb. 21, 2014
I am pleased to join you today as Commissioner for my first SEC Speaks. Before I begin my remarks, I would like to remind you that the views I am expressing today are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Commission, my fellow Commissioners, or the staff of the Commission.
This summer will mark the 80th anniversary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is a testament not only to the mission of the Agency, but also to the dedication of the thousands of people who have worked for it over the decades. Since joining the Commission, I’ve been impressed by the incredible amount of work that the SEC staff-members do each and every day.
In my office, I have copies of the original securities laws and a picture of the first Commission, with Chairman Joseph Kennedy and Commissioners Ferdinand Pecora and James Landis. These men were extraordinary public figures. Ferdinand Pecora led the investigation into the causes of the Great Depression, and used that knowledge to help shape the new Commission. James Landis helped draft the Securities Act and was instrumental in developing the modern securities regulatory regime. And Joe Kennedy, who was a leading investor, businessman, and statesman, worked as a powerful chairman driving the new agency. That Commission was well-informed by the causes of the Great Depression. And they acted boldly—even during a struggling economy—to help bring stability and fairness to the financial markets.
Those first Commissioners would likely be surprised to see how much the Commission has evolved over these past eight decades. We’ve grown quite a bit. We oversee whole industries that didn’t even exist back then. And we also now have a little division that I think you might have heard of—the Division of Enforcement.
One of the greatest surprises for me when I joined the Commission was coming to grips with the vast scope of our enforcement efforts. As many of you know, each week Commissioners are asked to review hundreds of pages of documents, and pass judgment on as many as two dozen cases covering any number of complex legal issues.
Chair White and Enforcement Director Ceresney have set a fantastic tone for the Commission’s enforcement efforts. They have made it clear that the SEC will use its tools to vigorously protect the public interest and investors. Under their guidance, the Commission is seeking admissions of culpability. And we are now focusing more than ever before on firms’ internal controls. That holds true whether at a trading desk, in an accountant’s office, or in the executive suite.
I am also strongly interested in seeking greater individual accountability for gatekeepers, including executives, compliance officers, accountants, and attorneys. Just within the last few months, we’ve brought a case against a small auditor for entirely failed audits of shell public companies, a case against a large accounting firm for violating auditor independence rules, a case against a compliance officer of an investment adviser for egregious violations of custody and compliance rules, and a financial fraud case against the CFO of a large public company. I applaud our Enforcement Staff for bringing these kinds of tough and important cases.
Gatekeepers fulfill a critical role in allowing participants to access the capital markets. As the Commission is being tasked with overseeing more, with fewer resources, the focus on gatekeepers is both an efficient and effective approach to policing the securities marketplace.
This focus on gatekeepers will empower securities professionals, compliance officers, accountants, and lawyers to actively look for red flags, ask the tough questions, and demand answers. Actions will be brought when professionals fail to fulfill their responsibilities.
I also think we should look at some of the other tools we have in our toolbox to see if they can enhance our ability to protect the public interest and investors. For example, I think we should review our policies for waiving automatic disqualification provisions, sometimes called “bad actor” provisions.
Currently, there are over a half-dozen bad actor provisions. If a firm violates the law or hits some other defined trigger, then it is precluded from obtaining certain privileges, engaging in some types of offerings, or even conducting a certain type of business. These bad actor provisions exist to protect the public interest and investors, and so we should be very careful in granting waivers from them. We should consider the initial purpose for the disqualification provision, and we should consider how that policy is impacted by a decision to waive it.
We must ensure that we have a fair, sound and consistent basis for granting or denying a waiver request. Firms and investors both deserve to know what factors we, or our staff, will use to evaluate waiver requests, and we must be able to support our decisions to grant or deny waiver requests with documented policies and facts.
I am pleased to be working with my colleagues to ensure that we have clear waiver policies that I think will buttress our efforts to promote the public interest and protect investors.
As important as enforcement is, of course, that is not all that we do. We also write rules. Like the first Commission, we all come to our work informed by a financial crisis. In fact, like Ferdinand Pecora, both Commissioner Piwowar and I came to the Commission, shaped by our time as Senate Banking aides.
Also like that first Commission, this Commission has received strong direction from Congress on how to help address the underlying causes of the crisis. Following years of investigations and dozens of hearings detailing the causes of the crisis by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the Senate Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, the Senate Agriculture Committee, and the House Agriculture Committee, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
That ground-breaking law built upon the lessons from the collapse of AIG, and created a new regulatory regime for derivatives. It built upon the lessons from the collapse of the housing and securitizations markets, and established new rules to make mortgages and securitizations safer. And it built upon the explosive losses at many of the largest banks and placed new limits on banks’ risky trading.
These are only a few parts of the Act that were designed to make our financial system safer, more transparent, and more fair. The Dodd-Frank Act directed the Commission to write or modify over 90 rules, and authorized the Commission to write dozens more. Over three years later, the Commission’s work to implement those rules is not complete. We need to finalize, this year, our derivatives reforms, including the cross-border application of our rules and our business conduct rules.
We also need to finalize rules about executive compensation, including provisions requiring issuers to have policies in place to claw back compensation. We should be empowering shareholders to take money back from executives who put their own personal gain ahead of the interests of shareholders and the firm. And we should be working with the banking regulators to finalize a rule that would help ensure that our largest financial firms don’t have executive compensation structures that encourage risky and potentially disastrous behavior.
We also need to finally and firmly address the conflicts of interest in asset-backed securitizations and the provision of credit ratings.
We should move carefully but quickly to finish these rules. And if a rule is rejected by a Court, we should dust ourselves off, make the rule better, and finish it. We should not be intimidated into backing off our obligation to implement the law. We should not be leaving any of our statutorily required rulemakings behind —even those that some of us may not like.
Our lessons from the financial crisis are not exclusively addressed by the Dodd-Frank Act. We must also think proactively of ways to mitigate threats to our financial system. During the depths of the financial crisis, the true fragility of our financial system was revealed as financial tidal waves washed over the global economy. I was working in the Senate as the crisis unfolded, and I can assure you that I will forever remember those frightening times in 2008 and 2009.
Our government took extraordinary measures to save the world economy, pouring trillions of dollars into the markets and financial firms. Many of us remember the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which provided billions of dollars in capital to banks. But that was just one small part of the picture.
As financial institutions struggled for funding amidst the sharp pullback of the short term lending markets, the Federal Reserve eased the rules, and expanded the ability of firms to tap the discount window. It created several unprecedented programs out of thin air with technical-sounding names, such as the Term Auction Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, and the Term Securities Lending Facility.
To help provide liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets, the Federal Reserve also created the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility.
Some of these programs worked, and others didn’t. But collectively, these and other efforts helped stem the tide of the credit crisis. I also note that most of these markets, and those who participate in them, are regulated by the Commission.
Now, several years removed, some seem determined to forget what happened, arguing that we should ignore the inter-relationships that nearly caused global economic collapse. I cannot forget. I will not ignore the relationships between banks, broker-dealers, funds, and investors. Nor will I forget how those relationships nearly unwound our financial system.
For example, the short term funding market is a complex ecosystem in which investors, including money market funds, interact with broker-dealers, banks, and non-bank issuers. Behavior by one sector in the market will have repercussions for the rest. For example, if the demand provided by money market funds for short term paper dries up, even if there isn’t a so-called “run,” what happens? Similarly, if lenders refuse to accept even high-quality, stable-value collateral, to support their short term loans, what happens?
We learned that supposedly well-capitalized firms could quickly fall victim to liquidity crises. And we learned that highly leveraged, affiliated broker-dealers can threaten even some of the largest banks.
Since the crisis, regulators around the world have been working to improve capital, leverage, liquidity, and margin rules. There is a reason why Congress and regulators have been working to tighten the definition of what constitutes “capital” in the years since the crisis. There is a reason why our fellow regulators care deeply about the risks posed by securities lending and the tri-party repo markets.[1] And there is a reason why the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) has been working with the Commission to address risks posed by money market funds. Our government put trillions of dollars on the line to bail out, directly and indirectly, our entire financial system, and each of these areas played a key role in the crisis.
We, at the Commission, are working on rules to prevent runs on money market funds. Those are valuable efforts, but they do not go far enough to address systemic risks. Our regulations shape the role that money market funds play in providing short-term funding for issuers, particularly the largest financial firms. We must consider whether regulations need to be updated. We should consider whether enhanced capital, leverage, liquidity, and margin rules would help mitigate risks at the firms, and in the markets, we regulate.
And we should also empower market participants to help prevent systemic risks. One way may be to improve disclosures regarding issuers’ reliance on short term funding. Investors should be aware of a firm’s susceptibility to a liquidity crunch, and be able to demand higher interest rates or other concessions. That is how the capital markets should work when these risks are understood.
Our efforts to avoid another financial crisis also should not be confined to simply attempting to prevent the last one. Since the financial crisis, we have also seen new issues emerge in how stocks, options, futures, and increasingly other products, are traded. In recent years, the plumbing of our markets has evolved dramatically. Today, there are 16 registered securities exchanges, dozens of so-called “dark pools,” and hundreds of so-called “internalizers.” Markets and traders are connected at near-light speeds. Telephone lines have given way to fiber optic cables, microwave towers, and now, laser beams.[2]
When this system works well, futures, options, and equities trade nearly seamlessly around the world. Yet when something goes wrong, the results can be severe for the businesses and investors who rely on our capital markets.
As we all know, on May 6, 2010, an investment adviser selling E-mini futures, on a day filled with fears about the European debt crisis, helped trigger collapses in futures, options and equities. Futures, options, and equities are inextricably linked, and our oversight of them must be too. While this task may be made somewhat more complex because it involves two primary regulators, it is not impossible. We simply must work together to oversee these markets. For example, rules for systems and testing should be coordinated, as should safety measures.
We also must have a comprehensive vision and understanding of the markets. The Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT, is desperately needed and long overdue. But we should not stop with what we have proposed already. To be most useful, the CAT should be comprehensive, including data from all of the inter-related markets, not just those principally overseen by the Commission.
Critical market infrastructure should be both reliable and resilient. It is not good enough to say that the system is operational 99 percent of the time. It also must not be catastrophic if something unexpected or unknown occurs. Traders, exchanges, dark pools, clearing firms and others need to anticipate, and plan for, the unexpected.
All market participants need to have the appropriate systems and controls in place to ensure that they don’t trigger market failures. We, as a Commission, need to be working on improving expectations and standards for those systems and controls.
Our Enforcement staff has been doing great work in bringing some of these hyper-technical, often difficult cases against traders and execution venues. These types of cases help send strong messages that good systems and good people are vital, not only to the health of one market participant, but to all of them.
Efforts to address all of these risks, and prevent the next financial crisis, should not fall victim to agency turf wars. The FSOC was created to help break down some of the silos and end some of the jurisdictional divides that exacerbated the last crisis. The Commission needs to be a helpful contributor to the FSOC. As a Commissioner, my responsibility is to the American public, to investors, and to the businesses who rely on our capital markets every day. While I work at the SEC, I work for the American people. In that regard, I have the same goals as our fellow regulators.
We should embrace our fellow regulators’ efforts and work to improve them. We do not lose power as an agency by working with other regulators, we leverage it. We gain knowledge and expertise in new areas. And other regulators gain knowledge and expertise by working collaboratively with us. If we are to be successful in protecting American families and businesses from the damage of another financial crisis, we must work together. And we must be bold.
Eighty years from now, I hope history will show that our Commission lived up to the high standard set by our very first Commission. I hope history will show that we had the expertise and the courage to think boldly, and act carefully, to reduce risks in our financial system, promote the public interest, facilitate capital formation, and protect investors.
We have come a long way since 1934, and we have a long way to go. I know those of us on stage today will be working hard to keep us moving, and ahead of the curve. I hope you will help us.
[1] See, e.g., Adam Copeland, Antoine Martin, and Michael Walker, Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y., The Tri-Party Repo Market before 2010 Reforms, (Staff Rep. No. 477, 2010).
[2] Scott Patterson, Race to Zero: Traders With Need for Speed Turn to Laser Beams, Wall St. J., Feb. 12, 2014.
Remarks at the “SEC Speaks” Conference
Commissioner Kara M. Stein
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
Washington, D.C.
Feb. 21, 2014
I am pleased to join you today as Commissioner for my first SEC Speaks. Before I begin my remarks, I would like to remind you that the views I am expressing today are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Commission, my fellow Commissioners, or the staff of the Commission.
This summer will mark the 80th anniversary of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is a testament not only to the mission of the Agency, but also to the dedication of the thousands of people who have worked for it over the decades. Since joining the Commission, I’ve been impressed by the incredible amount of work that the SEC staff-members do each and every day.
In my office, I have copies of the original securities laws and a picture of the first Commission, with Chairman Joseph Kennedy and Commissioners Ferdinand Pecora and James Landis. These men were extraordinary public figures. Ferdinand Pecora led the investigation into the causes of the Great Depression, and used that knowledge to help shape the new Commission. James Landis helped draft the Securities Act and was instrumental in developing the modern securities regulatory regime. And Joe Kennedy, who was a leading investor, businessman, and statesman, worked as a powerful chairman driving the new agency. That Commission was well-informed by the causes of the Great Depression. And they acted boldly—even during a struggling economy—to help bring stability and fairness to the financial markets.
Those first Commissioners would likely be surprised to see how much the Commission has evolved over these past eight decades. We’ve grown quite a bit. We oversee whole industries that didn’t even exist back then. And we also now have a little division that I think you might have heard of—the Division of Enforcement.
One of the greatest surprises for me when I joined the Commission was coming to grips with the vast scope of our enforcement efforts. As many of you know, each week Commissioners are asked to review hundreds of pages of documents, and pass judgment on as many as two dozen cases covering any number of complex legal issues.
Chair White and Enforcement Director Ceresney have set a fantastic tone for the Commission’s enforcement efforts. They have made it clear that the SEC will use its tools to vigorously protect the public interest and investors. Under their guidance, the Commission is seeking admissions of culpability. And we are now focusing more than ever before on firms’ internal controls. That holds true whether at a trading desk, in an accountant’s office, or in the executive suite.
I am also strongly interested in seeking greater individual accountability for gatekeepers, including executives, compliance officers, accountants, and attorneys. Just within the last few months, we’ve brought a case against a small auditor for entirely failed audits of shell public companies, a case against a large accounting firm for violating auditor independence rules, a case against a compliance officer of an investment adviser for egregious violations of custody and compliance rules, and a financial fraud case against the CFO of a large public company. I applaud our Enforcement Staff for bringing these kinds of tough and important cases.
Gatekeepers fulfill a critical role in allowing participants to access the capital markets. As the Commission is being tasked with overseeing more, with fewer resources, the focus on gatekeepers is both an efficient and effective approach to policing the securities marketplace.
This focus on gatekeepers will empower securities professionals, compliance officers, accountants, and lawyers to actively look for red flags, ask the tough questions, and demand answers. Actions will be brought when professionals fail to fulfill their responsibilities.
I also think we should look at some of the other tools we have in our toolbox to see if they can enhance our ability to protect the public interest and investors. For example, I think we should review our policies for waiving automatic disqualification provisions, sometimes called “bad actor” provisions.
Currently, there are over a half-dozen bad actor provisions. If a firm violates the law or hits some other defined trigger, then it is precluded from obtaining certain privileges, engaging in some types of offerings, or even conducting a certain type of business. These bad actor provisions exist to protect the public interest and investors, and so we should be very careful in granting waivers from them. We should consider the initial purpose for the disqualification provision, and we should consider how that policy is impacted by a decision to waive it.
We must ensure that we have a fair, sound and consistent basis for granting or denying a waiver request. Firms and investors both deserve to know what factors we, or our staff, will use to evaluate waiver requests, and we must be able to support our decisions to grant or deny waiver requests with documented policies and facts.
I am pleased to be working with my colleagues to ensure that we have clear waiver policies that I think will buttress our efforts to promote the public interest and protect investors.
As important as enforcement is, of course, that is not all that we do. We also write rules. Like the first Commission, we all come to our work informed by a financial crisis. In fact, like Ferdinand Pecora, both Commissioner Piwowar and I came to the Commission, shaped by our time as Senate Banking aides.
Also like that first Commission, this Commission has received strong direction from Congress on how to help address the underlying causes of the crisis. Following years of investigations and dozens of hearings detailing the causes of the crisis by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the Senate Banking Committee, the House Financial Services Committee, the Senate Agriculture Committee, and the House Agriculture Committee, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
That ground-breaking law built upon the lessons from the collapse of AIG, and created a new regulatory regime for derivatives. It built upon the lessons from the collapse of the housing and securitizations markets, and established new rules to make mortgages and securitizations safer. And it built upon the explosive losses at many of the largest banks and placed new limits on banks’ risky trading.
These are only a few parts of the Act that were designed to make our financial system safer, more transparent, and more fair. The Dodd-Frank Act directed the Commission to write or modify over 90 rules, and authorized the Commission to write dozens more. Over three years later, the Commission’s work to implement those rules is not complete. We need to finalize, this year, our derivatives reforms, including the cross-border application of our rules and our business conduct rules.
We also need to finalize rules about executive compensation, including provisions requiring issuers to have policies in place to claw back compensation. We should be empowering shareholders to take money back from executives who put their own personal gain ahead of the interests of shareholders and the firm. And we should be working with the banking regulators to finalize a rule that would help ensure that our largest financial firms don’t have executive compensation structures that encourage risky and potentially disastrous behavior.
We also need to finally and firmly address the conflicts of interest in asset-backed securitizations and the provision of credit ratings.
We should move carefully but quickly to finish these rules. And if a rule is rejected by a Court, we should dust ourselves off, make the rule better, and finish it. We should not be intimidated into backing off our obligation to implement the law. We should not be leaving any of our statutorily required rulemakings behind —even those that some of us may not like.
Our lessons from the financial crisis are not exclusively addressed by the Dodd-Frank Act. We must also think proactively of ways to mitigate threats to our financial system. During the depths of the financial crisis, the true fragility of our financial system was revealed as financial tidal waves washed over the global economy. I was working in the Senate as the crisis unfolded, and I can assure you that I will forever remember those frightening times in 2008 and 2009.
Our government took extraordinary measures to save the world economy, pouring trillions of dollars into the markets and financial firms. Many of us remember the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which provided billions of dollars in capital to banks. But that was just one small part of the picture.
As financial institutions struggled for funding amidst the sharp pullback of the short term lending markets, the Federal Reserve eased the rules, and expanded the ability of firms to tap the discount window. It created several unprecedented programs out of thin air with technical-sounding names, such as the Term Auction Facility, the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, and the Term Securities Lending Facility.
To help provide liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets, the Federal Reserve also created the Commercial Paper Funding Facility, the Asset-Backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility, the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, and the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility.
Some of these programs worked, and others didn’t. But collectively, these and other efforts helped stem the tide of the credit crisis. I also note that most of these markets, and those who participate in them, are regulated by the Commission.
Now, several years removed, some seem determined to forget what happened, arguing that we should ignore the inter-relationships that nearly caused global economic collapse. I cannot forget. I will not ignore the relationships between banks, broker-dealers, funds, and investors. Nor will I forget how those relationships nearly unwound our financial system.
For example, the short term funding market is a complex ecosystem in which investors, including money market funds, interact with broker-dealers, banks, and non-bank issuers. Behavior by one sector in the market will have repercussions for the rest. For example, if the demand provided by money market funds for short term paper dries up, even if there isn’t a so-called “run,” what happens? Similarly, if lenders refuse to accept even high-quality, stable-value collateral, to support their short term loans, what happens?
We learned that supposedly well-capitalized firms could quickly fall victim to liquidity crises. And we learned that highly leveraged, affiliated broker-dealers can threaten even some of the largest banks.
Since the crisis, regulators around the world have been working to improve capital, leverage, liquidity, and margin rules. There is a reason why Congress and regulators have been working to tighten the definition of what constitutes “capital” in the years since the crisis. There is a reason why our fellow regulators care deeply about the risks posed by securities lending and the tri-party repo markets.[1] And there is a reason why the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) has been working with the Commission to address risks posed by money market funds. Our government put trillions of dollars on the line to bail out, directly and indirectly, our entire financial system, and each of these areas played a key role in the crisis.
We, at the Commission, are working on rules to prevent runs on money market funds. Those are valuable efforts, but they do not go far enough to address systemic risks. Our regulations shape the role that money market funds play in providing short-term funding for issuers, particularly the largest financial firms. We must consider whether regulations need to be updated. We should consider whether enhanced capital, leverage, liquidity, and margin rules would help mitigate risks at the firms, and in the markets, we regulate.
And we should also empower market participants to help prevent systemic risks. One way may be to improve disclosures regarding issuers’ reliance on short term funding. Investors should be aware of a firm’s susceptibility to a liquidity crunch, and be able to demand higher interest rates or other concessions. That is how the capital markets should work when these risks are understood.
Our efforts to avoid another financial crisis also should not be confined to simply attempting to prevent the last one. Since the financial crisis, we have also seen new issues emerge in how stocks, options, futures, and increasingly other products, are traded. In recent years, the plumbing of our markets has evolved dramatically. Today, there are 16 registered securities exchanges, dozens of so-called “dark pools,” and hundreds of so-called “internalizers.” Markets and traders are connected at near-light speeds. Telephone lines have given way to fiber optic cables, microwave towers, and now, laser beams.[2]
When this system works well, futures, options, and equities trade nearly seamlessly around the world. Yet when something goes wrong, the results can be severe for the businesses and investors who rely on our capital markets.
As we all know, on May 6, 2010, an investment adviser selling E-mini futures, on a day filled with fears about the European debt crisis, helped trigger collapses in futures, options and equities. Futures, options, and equities are inextricably linked, and our oversight of them must be too. While this task may be made somewhat more complex because it involves two primary regulators, it is not impossible. We simply must work together to oversee these markets. For example, rules for systems and testing should be coordinated, as should safety measures.
We also must have a comprehensive vision and understanding of the markets. The Consolidated Audit Trail, or CAT, is desperately needed and long overdue. But we should not stop with what we have proposed already. To be most useful, the CAT should be comprehensive, including data from all of the inter-related markets, not just those principally overseen by the Commission.
Critical market infrastructure should be both reliable and resilient. It is not good enough to say that the system is operational 99 percent of the time. It also must not be catastrophic if something unexpected or unknown occurs. Traders, exchanges, dark pools, clearing firms and others need to anticipate, and plan for, the unexpected.
All market participants need to have the appropriate systems and controls in place to ensure that they don’t trigger market failures. We, as a Commission, need to be working on improving expectations and standards for those systems and controls.
Our Enforcement staff has been doing great work in bringing some of these hyper-technical, often difficult cases against traders and execution venues. These types of cases help send strong messages that good systems and good people are vital, not only to the health of one market participant, but to all of them.
Efforts to address all of these risks, and prevent the next financial crisis, should not fall victim to agency turf wars. The FSOC was created to help break down some of the silos and end some of the jurisdictional divides that exacerbated the last crisis. The Commission needs to be a helpful contributor to the FSOC. As a Commissioner, my responsibility is to the American public, to investors, and to the businesses who rely on our capital markets every day. While I work at the SEC, I work for the American people. In that regard, I have the same goals as our fellow regulators.
We should embrace our fellow regulators’ efforts and work to improve them. We do not lose power as an agency by working with other regulators, we leverage it. We gain knowledge and expertise in new areas. And other regulators gain knowledge and expertise by working collaboratively with us. If we are to be successful in protecting American families and businesses from the damage of another financial crisis, we must work together. And we must be bold.
Eighty years from now, I hope history will show that our Commission lived up to the high standard set by our very first Commission. I hope history will show that we had the expertise and the courage to think boldly, and act carefully, to reduce risks in our financial system, promote the public interest, facilitate capital formation, and protect investors.
We have come a long way since 1934, and we have a long way to go. I know those of us on stage today will be working hard to keep us moving, and ahead of the curve. I hope you will help us.
[1] See, e.g., Adam Copeland, Antoine Martin, and Michael Walker, Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y., The Tri-Party Repo Market before 2010 Reforms, (Staff Rep. No. 477, 2010).
[2] Scott Patterson, Race to Zero: Traders With Need for Speed Turn to Laser Beams, Wall St. J., Feb. 12, 2014.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AT AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTEE 100TH ANNIVERSARY
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's 100th Anniversary Celebration
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
National Women in the Arts Museum
Washington, DC
December 9, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you. Thank you very, very much. I much appreciate your welcome. I will inform you that Winston Churchill once said the only reason people give a standing ovation is they desperately need an excuse to shift their underwear. (Laughter.) But I will believe that you had a much more noble goal. (Laughter.)
Stuart, thank you. Stu, you are a marvel. And I tell you, I’m honored to be introduced by Stu Eizenstat. He is a great, really one of our sort of unsung heroes and treasures in our country for the remarkable work that he has always done and – (applause). Absolutely. I got to know him pretty well. His pro bono work that he’s done for years to help Holocaust victims and their families be able to recover the assets that were taken from them during the horrors of World War II is one mark. But I’ve seen him in his roles at the White House with the Carter Administration, the Clinton Administration.
And I will never forget when I was in Kyoto working on the global climate change treaty, Stu came flying in, literally, I think from Switzerland, where he’d been negotiating to pick up the negotiation responsibilities, which had, frankly, not been thoroughly and properly prepared in an appropriate way. And he kind of picked up this negotiation at half capacity, and I was stunned by his negotiating skill, his ability, and he put together an agreement – it’s now a matter of history that we had a difficult Senate that never did what it should have done, but this guy did what he was supposed to do and he did it brilliantly. And we are lucky to have public servants like him, so I thank him again for his great work. (Applause.)
President Penny Blumenstein, thank you very much. She was telling me back there that nobody gets her name right. I told her I will. (Laughter.) But she says she’s called Bloomberg and Blumenthal and a whole bunch of things whenever she gets introduced. Alan Gill, thank you for your great stewardship as CEO. And to every single one of you, thank you for an extraordinary job as civic-minded, good citizens of our nation who recognize a global responsibility. It’s an honor for me to be to be here to help you mark 100 years of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. And I said to Penny when I came in here, I said, “You don’t look 100 years old.” She said, “I feel it some days.” (Laughter.) So we thank her for her commitment to this effort. I know what it takes to do this.
Some of you may know that the bond between the State Department – and Stuart referred to this a little bit in his introduction of me. The bond between the State Department and the JDC has been a longtime association and it runs deep. Stu described to you how Henry Morgenthau had a profound impact on the startup and what happened, and it responded to the needs of Jews at that time who were locked in the struggle of the Ottoman Palestine and Eastern Europe. And ever since then, it has performed – you have performed – brilliantly.
Today, you work alongside the State Department, USAID, and Congress, and embassies on a worldwide basis – the 70 nations that Stuart mentioned a minute ago – is really quite extraordinary. We collaborate superbly on infrastructure programs that foster economic development and growth in communities in Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America. We work side by side and provide humanitarian relief. And again, Stu talked for a moment about what happened. I am heading to the Philippines the day after tomorrow and to Vietnam, where we are engaged. But obviously, Typhoon Haiyan has left just stunning devastation across the Philippines, and your relief effort – JDC effort – in a short span of time has already contributed $1.4 million in aid to that effort.
We, the United States – I speak for President Obama, who as you all know has gone off to Nelson Mandela’s funeral – I gather tomorrow you will hear from the Vice President and then later from Jack Lew, Secretary Lew. But all of us are deeply, deeply grateful for the incredible sense of responsibility that is manifested in your generosity and in your commitment in order to make a difference around the world. You have provided relief to millions of people from every corner of the globe, all of whom are in desperate need of a helping hand. And part of the mission – and I should thank, actually, Chair Andrew Tisch, who – where did Andrew go? He’s sitting somewhere. Andrew, thank you for your great friendship to me and many years of involvement in this kind of thing.
But the ways in which all of you in the doing of this also support Jewish life around the world. Throughout history, of course, but particularly right now you are involved in ways that connect young Jewish men and women to their communities and that inspire them to address social challenges. The job training programs that you’re creating to address unemployment, the steps that you’re taking to alleviate hunger and poverty among the neediest Jews in the world, including in Israel, where despite the stunning growth and amazing prosperity that has been reached by so many, still sees about 25 percent of the country living under the poverty line. And the contributions that you continue to make to the Jewish community are changing lives everywhere.
I want to say a few words to you about another way in which hopefully we in the government are trying to also preserve and nurture Jewish life. And I’m talking about Jewish life in the state of Israel. I know this is not a political group in any way, but it would be a shameful omission if I didn’t honor the fact that everybody here obviously comes here with a passion for the preservation of life in Israel, and more importantly for the long term, the possibility of peace and of stability.
We are deeply committed to the security of Israel and of the well-being of the Jewish people by virtue of that. (Applause.) From the support that we’ve provided as a nation before I was in government, shortly after I’d come back from Vietnam, from the support we provided during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, to the hundreds of millions that we have contributed to help develop weapons systems like the Iron Dome as well as the military technology that we provide the Israelis with today, the United States has long viewed Israel’s security as absolutely fundamental to our own.
So when it comes to the range of issues that face the region today, there can be, in my judgment, no doubt – there should be no doubt – about where the United States stands. We stand squarely beside our Israeli friends and allies, and that bond is ironclad; it will never be broken. (Applause.)
This morning, I talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Bibi and I know each other really well now. We’ve known each other for about 25 years, maybe even 30. I knew him when he was in Cambridge, Massachusetts on an interval in politics that some of us have had occasionally. And I have visited with him many, many times, both when he was in office and out of office, and likewise for me. I just got back from what I think was my eighth trip to Israel since becoming Secretary of State, and I leave the day after tomorrow and I will be having dinner with Bibi again on Thursday night. So this is a commute, folks, nowadays. (Laughter.)
I want you to know that every single time that big blue and white plane that lugs me over there comes in for a landing at Ben Gurion Airport, I truly feel in my gut, for reasons of friendship as well as affiliation that Stu mentioned, how precious and how vulnerable and how real the security challenge of Israel is. It’s an extraordinary nation which, when you fly over it and you see what has been blooming out of a desert and built in this short span of time, is absolutely stunning. And when you compare GDPs and per capita incomes and other things to other nations that were in the same place in 1948 and 1950 and ’52 and see the differential today, it tells you a remarkable story of accomplishment and capacity.
I want to make it clear today that we are deeply committed going forward to honoring the bond and honoring those security needs. And I want to reiterate something that President Obama and I have said many times, and I underscored last week when I was in Israel and I underscored again two days ago when I spoke to the Saban Forum here in Washington. And that is: We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon – not now, not ever. And I promise you that. (Applause.)
Now, I know that some people are apprehensive and wonder sort of have we somehow stumbled into something or created something where in fact the Iranians have pulled the wool over our eyes and we’re going to not know what they’re doing. Let me just say to you very simply: I’ve spent, as Stu said, almost 30 years in the Senate. I chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. I understand military and security issues. And I understand the fundamental basics of – as does the President and most of the people around us – what is necessary for a nation to prove it has a peaceful nuclear program. And I can’t stand here today and tell you that the Iranians are going to do what they need to do. But I do know that Israel is actually safer today than it was the day before we made the deal, because in this deal they have to destroy all of their 20 percent enriched uranium; they have to hold their 3.5 percent low enriched at the current level; they are not allowed to install any new centrifuges; they have to allow us daily inspection inside that secret mountaintop, Fordow; they have to allow us daily inspection in Natanz in the nuclear plant; they have to allow us regular inspection in the heavy water reactor that has the potential of plutonium; they are not allowed to install any further nuclear components into that construction site; they cannot test additional fuel; and we are allowed to go into the storage sites and manufacturing facilities of all of their centrifuge production facilities – all things we couldn’t do before we made this first step agreement.
Because of what we’ve done while we negotiate the final comprehensive agreement, which is what Bibi wanted in the first place, we will actually be setting their program backwards, expanding the amount of time that it might take if they were to try to break out. That means we have more time to respond, more time to know what is going on. That is why I can say to you in good conscience I believe Israel is safer today than it was before. Now, does that mean this will be successful in the long run? I don’t know. But here’s what else I do know: If we aren’t successful, if we get to the end of these six months and they don’t do the simple things you need to do to prove your program is peaceful, then we will have kept united the P5+1, we will have shown the global community our bona fides to attempt to give them an opportunity through diplomacy to do what they need to do, and we will not have taken any sanction off the table. We can ratchet them up when we want. We will go back to Congress, we will ratchet them up, we will ask for additional sanctions. And if needs be, if we cannot get this done on time, we will take no other option, military or otherwise, off the table. So I am confident that we are going to approach this with a view to making Israel more secure.
Let me also say to all of you there are other issues that go to Israel’s existential security, and none more so than the ticking time bomb of demographics in the region and the realities of the de-legitimization campaign that has been taking place for some period of time. I believe, as President Obama does, that Israel will be far more secure if we can also put to test the possibilities of the two-state solution. And so we will continue to attempt to do that despite the skepticism, despite the cynicism in some quarters, that that day can never come where you would actually achieve a two-state solution with two peoples living side by side in peace and security.
I believe, though, that it remains a possibility. And it seems to me that for all of you, for anyone who cares about the security of Israel – and all of you do – for anyone who cares about the future, as I know all of you do, and engaged in the activities you are here at the JDC, you must also believe that peace is possible. And as these tough but very critical negotiations continue, I hope that you will understand we will continue to consult, we will continue to work closely, we will do everything in our power to make sure that our friends in Israel are comfortable with the direction we’re moving in and are part of it.
And I talk to Bibi at least two or three times a week. We are hand in hand and mind in mind trying to figure out how to do this in a way that protects the security of Israel, that establishes the sovereignty and dignity of an independent and viable Palestinian state. If it was easy, it would’ve done a long time ago. It isn’t. But I think the effort is worth it.
And I know why it’s worth it. I spent a lot of time – when I first went to Israel in 1986, I spent an entire week, and I traveled everywhere. And this wonderful fellow by the name of Yadin Roman, who’s the publisher of Eretz Israel magazine, was my guide and took me around. And he was brilliant, and he knew the history of everything and told me all the details of everything I was seeing. And I went up to Kiryat Shmona, and I went down into a bomb shelter where kids had to run and side from the Katyusha rockets. And I visited all the different religious sites – Christian and Muslim and Jewish, obviously. Went to the Wailing Wall, left my note, which I’m still working on. And visited – tried to swim in the Dead Sea, cloaked in black mud, everything else. And climbed Masada, which is one of the most stirring things I’ve ever done in my life, because we had this huge debate on top of Masada. And Yadin provoked us, purposefully. And he gave us the whole history of Josephus Flavius and told us all the writings in this great contentious debate about had these Jews really died there, had they in fact been there at this moment, or did they escape because they didn’t find a whole lot of skeletons, and people were wondering what happened.
Well, we had this long debate. And I’ll tell you, even before that, I had this marvelous experience of flying a jet out of (inaudible) air base. I’m a pilot. I love to fly. And I persuaded this ace colonel from the war to take me up in a jet, and he got it cleared in Tel Aviv. Somehow they let me do it. And they won’t let me do it now, but it was fun then. And I remember taking off, and he said, “Okay, it’s your airplane the minute you get up in the air.” I went up above the air, and I remember he – I was turning, and he said, “Senator, you better turn faster; you’re going over Egypt.” And so I turned the airplane and came back. And we did some aerobatics, and I was doing a loop, and I went up – way up high and came down. And as you look, you put your head back and catch the horizon underneath you. And I looked, and I looked out and I could see all the way out in the Sinai, all the way down in the Gulf of Aqaba. I could see all the way over into Jordan. And I said to myself, “This is perfect. I’m looking at the Middle East the right way, upside down – (laughter) – and I can understand it now.”
But after the debate on Masada, we took a vote, and we all voted unanimously that it happened exactly the way it is recorded, that they had fought and died. And at the end, Yadin took us to the edge of the precipice. And there, where a lot of the air force, I understand, and other military are sworn in and take the oath, we yelled across the chasm, “Am Yisrael chai.” (Applause.) And the echo came back. And I will tell you, it was stunning to hear that echo. You sort of felt like you were listening to the souls of the past tell you Israel is going to survive. And that’s why, my friends, you have a Secretary of State who gets it, who understands this mission. And with your help and your support, we’ll get it done the right way.
Thank you. (Applause.)
Remarks at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee's 100th Anniversary Celebration
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
National Women in the Arts Museum
Washington, DC
December 9, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you. Thank you very, very much. I much appreciate your welcome. I will inform you that Winston Churchill once said the only reason people give a standing ovation is they desperately need an excuse to shift their underwear. (Laughter.) But I will believe that you had a much more noble goal. (Laughter.)
Stuart, thank you. Stu, you are a marvel. And I tell you, I’m honored to be introduced by Stu Eizenstat. He is a great, really one of our sort of unsung heroes and treasures in our country for the remarkable work that he has always done and – (applause). Absolutely. I got to know him pretty well. His pro bono work that he’s done for years to help Holocaust victims and their families be able to recover the assets that were taken from them during the horrors of World War II is one mark. But I’ve seen him in his roles at the White House with the Carter Administration, the Clinton Administration.
And I will never forget when I was in Kyoto working on the global climate change treaty, Stu came flying in, literally, I think from Switzerland, where he’d been negotiating to pick up the negotiation responsibilities, which had, frankly, not been thoroughly and properly prepared in an appropriate way. And he kind of picked up this negotiation at half capacity, and I was stunned by his negotiating skill, his ability, and he put together an agreement – it’s now a matter of history that we had a difficult Senate that never did what it should have done, but this guy did what he was supposed to do and he did it brilliantly. And we are lucky to have public servants like him, so I thank him again for his great work. (Applause.)
President Penny Blumenstein, thank you very much. She was telling me back there that nobody gets her name right. I told her I will. (Laughter.) But she says she’s called Bloomberg and Blumenthal and a whole bunch of things whenever she gets introduced. Alan Gill, thank you for your great stewardship as CEO. And to every single one of you, thank you for an extraordinary job as civic-minded, good citizens of our nation who recognize a global responsibility. It’s an honor for me to be to be here to help you mark 100 years of the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. And I said to Penny when I came in here, I said, “You don’t look 100 years old.” She said, “I feel it some days.” (Laughter.) So we thank her for her commitment to this effort. I know what it takes to do this.
Some of you may know that the bond between the State Department – and Stuart referred to this a little bit in his introduction of me. The bond between the State Department and the JDC has been a longtime association and it runs deep. Stu described to you how Henry Morgenthau had a profound impact on the startup and what happened, and it responded to the needs of Jews at that time who were locked in the struggle of the Ottoman Palestine and Eastern Europe. And ever since then, it has performed – you have performed – brilliantly.
Today, you work alongside the State Department, USAID, and Congress, and embassies on a worldwide basis – the 70 nations that Stuart mentioned a minute ago – is really quite extraordinary. We collaborate superbly on infrastructure programs that foster economic development and growth in communities in Africa, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America. We work side by side and provide humanitarian relief. And again, Stu talked for a moment about what happened. I am heading to the Philippines the day after tomorrow and to Vietnam, where we are engaged. But obviously, Typhoon Haiyan has left just stunning devastation across the Philippines, and your relief effort – JDC effort – in a short span of time has already contributed $1.4 million in aid to that effort.
We, the United States – I speak for President Obama, who as you all know has gone off to Nelson Mandela’s funeral – I gather tomorrow you will hear from the Vice President and then later from Jack Lew, Secretary Lew. But all of us are deeply, deeply grateful for the incredible sense of responsibility that is manifested in your generosity and in your commitment in order to make a difference around the world. You have provided relief to millions of people from every corner of the globe, all of whom are in desperate need of a helping hand. And part of the mission – and I should thank, actually, Chair Andrew Tisch, who – where did Andrew go? He’s sitting somewhere. Andrew, thank you for your great friendship to me and many years of involvement in this kind of thing.
But the ways in which all of you in the doing of this also support Jewish life around the world. Throughout history, of course, but particularly right now you are involved in ways that connect young Jewish men and women to their communities and that inspire them to address social challenges. The job training programs that you’re creating to address unemployment, the steps that you’re taking to alleviate hunger and poverty among the neediest Jews in the world, including in Israel, where despite the stunning growth and amazing prosperity that has been reached by so many, still sees about 25 percent of the country living under the poverty line. And the contributions that you continue to make to the Jewish community are changing lives everywhere.
I want to say a few words to you about another way in which hopefully we in the government are trying to also preserve and nurture Jewish life. And I’m talking about Jewish life in the state of Israel. I know this is not a political group in any way, but it would be a shameful omission if I didn’t honor the fact that everybody here obviously comes here with a passion for the preservation of life in Israel, and more importantly for the long term, the possibility of peace and of stability.
We are deeply committed to the security of Israel and of the well-being of the Jewish people by virtue of that. (Applause.) From the support that we’ve provided as a nation before I was in government, shortly after I’d come back from Vietnam, from the support we provided during the Yom Kippur War in 1973, to the hundreds of millions that we have contributed to help develop weapons systems like the Iron Dome as well as the military technology that we provide the Israelis with today, the United States has long viewed Israel’s security as absolutely fundamental to our own.
So when it comes to the range of issues that face the region today, there can be, in my judgment, no doubt – there should be no doubt – about where the United States stands. We stand squarely beside our Israeli friends and allies, and that bond is ironclad; it will never be broken. (Applause.)
This morning, I talked to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Bibi and I know each other really well now. We’ve known each other for about 25 years, maybe even 30. I knew him when he was in Cambridge, Massachusetts on an interval in politics that some of us have had occasionally. And I have visited with him many, many times, both when he was in office and out of office, and likewise for me. I just got back from what I think was my eighth trip to Israel since becoming Secretary of State, and I leave the day after tomorrow and I will be having dinner with Bibi again on Thursday night. So this is a commute, folks, nowadays. (Laughter.)
I want you to know that every single time that big blue and white plane that lugs me over there comes in for a landing at Ben Gurion Airport, I truly feel in my gut, for reasons of friendship as well as affiliation that Stu mentioned, how precious and how vulnerable and how real the security challenge of Israel is. It’s an extraordinary nation which, when you fly over it and you see what has been blooming out of a desert and built in this short span of time, is absolutely stunning. And when you compare GDPs and per capita incomes and other things to other nations that were in the same place in 1948 and 1950 and ’52 and see the differential today, it tells you a remarkable story of accomplishment and capacity.
I want to make it clear today that we are deeply committed going forward to honoring the bond and honoring those security needs. And I want to reiterate something that President Obama and I have said many times, and I underscored last week when I was in Israel and I underscored again two days ago when I spoke to the Saban Forum here in Washington. And that is: We will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon – not now, not ever. And I promise you that. (Applause.)
Now, I know that some people are apprehensive and wonder sort of have we somehow stumbled into something or created something where in fact the Iranians have pulled the wool over our eyes and we’re going to not know what they’re doing. Let me just say to you very simply: I’ve spent, as Stu said, almost 30 years in the Senate. I chaired the Foreign Relations Committee. I understand military and security issues. And I understand the fundamental basics of – as does the President and most of the people around us – what is necessary for a nation to prove it has a peaceful nuclear program. And I can’t stand here today and tell you that the Iranians are going to do what they need to do. But I do know that Israel is actually safer today than it was the day before we made the deal, because in this deal they have to destroy all of their 20 percent enriched uranium; they have to hold their 3.5 percent low enriched at the current level; they are not allowed to install any new centrifuges; they have to allow us daily inspection inside that secret mountaintop, Fordow; they have to allow us daily inspection in Natanz in the nuclear plant; they have to allow us regular inspection in the heavy water reactor that has the potential of plutonium; they are not allowed to install any further nuclear components into that construction site; they cannot test additional fuel; and we are allowed to go into the storage sites and manufacturing facilities of all of their centrifuge production facilities – all things we couldn’t do before we made this first step agreement.
Because of what we’ve done while we negotiate the final comprehensive agreement, which is what Bibi wanted in the first place, we will actually be setting their program backwards, expanding the amount of time that it might take if they were to try to break out. That means we have more time to respond, more time to know what is going on. That is why I can say to you in good conscience I believe Israel is safer today than it was before. Now, does that mean this will be successful in the long run? I don’t know. But here’s what else I do know: If we aren’t successful, if we get to the end of these six months and they don’t do the simple things you need to do to prove your program is peaceful, then we will have kept united the P5+1, we will have shown the global community our bona fides to attempt to give them an opportunity through diplomacy to do what they need to do, and we will not have taken any sanction off the table. We can ratchet them up when we want. We will go back to Congress, we will ratchet them up, we will ask for additional sanctions. And if needs be, if we cannot get this done on time, we will take no other option, military or otherwise, off the table. So I am confident that we are going to approach this with a view to making Israel more secure.
Let me also say to all of you there are other issues that go to Israel’s existential security, and none more so than the ticking time bomb of demographics in the region and the realities of the de-legitimization campaign that has been taking place for some period of time. I believe, as President Obama does, that Israel will be far more secure if we can also put to test the possibilities of the two-state solution. And so we will continue to attempt to do that despite the skepticism, despite the cynicism in some quarters, that that day can never come where you would actually achieve a two-state solution with two peoples living side by side in peace and security.
I believe, though, that it remains a possibility. And it seems to me that for all of you, for anyone who cares about the security of Israel – and all of you do – for anyone who cares about the future, as I know all of you do, and engaged in the activities you are here at the JDC, you must also believe that peace is possible. And as these tough but very critical negotiations continue, I hope that you will understand we will continue to consult, we will continue to work closely, we will do everything in our power to make sure that our friends in Israel are comfortable with the direction we’re moving in and are part of it.
And I talk to Bibi at least two or three times a week. We are hand in hand and mind in mind trying to figure out how to do this in a way that protects the security of Israel, that establishes the sovereignty and dignity of an independent and viable Palestinian state. If it was easy, it would’ve done a long time ago. It isn’t. But I think the effort is worth it.
And I know why it’s worth it. I spent a lot of time – when I first went to Israel in 1986, I spent an entire week, and I traveled everywhere. And this wonderful fellow by the name of Yadin Roman, who’s the publisher of Eretz Israel magazine, was my guide and took me around. And he was brilliant, and he knew the history of everything and told me all the details of everything I was seeing. And I went up to Kiryat Shmona, and I went down into a bomb shelter where kids had to run and side from the Katyusha rockets. And I visited all the different religious sites – Christian and Muslim and Jewish, obviously. Went to the Wailing Wall, left my note, which I’m still working on. And visited – tried to swim in the Dead Sea, cloaked in black mud, everything else. And climbed Masada, which is one of the most stirring things I’ve ever done in my life, because we had this huge debate on top of Masada. And Yadin provoked us, purposefully. And he gave us the whole history of Josephus Flavius and told us all the writings in this great contentious debate about had these Jews really died there, had they in fact been there at this moment, or did they escape because they didn’t find a whole lot of skeletons, and people were wondering what happened.
Well, we had this long debate. And I’ll tell you, even before that, I had this marvelous experience of flying a jet out of (inaudible) air base. I’m a pilot. I love to fly. And I persuaded this ace colonel from the war to take me up in a jet, and he got it cleared in Tel Aviv. Somehow they let me do it. And they won’t let me do it now, but it was fun then. And I remember taking off, and he said, “Okay, it’s your airplane the minute you get up in the air.” I went up above the air, and I remember he – I was turning, and he said, “Senator, you better turn faster; you’re going over Egypt.” And so I turned the airplane and came back. And we did some aerobatics, and I was doing a loop, and I went up – way up high and came down. And as you look, you put your head back and catch the horizon underneath you. And I looked, and I looked out and I could see all the way out in the Sinai, all the way down in the Gulf of Aqaba. I could see all the way over into Jordan. And I said to myself, “This is perfect. I’m looking at the Middle East the right way, upside down – (laughter) – and I can understand it now.”
But after the debate on Masada, we took a vote, and we all voted unanimously that it happened exactly the way it is recorded, that they had fought and died. And at the end, Yadin took us to the edge of the precipice. And there, where a lot of the air force, I understand, and other military are sworn in and take the oath, we yelled across the chasm, “Am Yisrael chai.” (Applause.) And the echo came back. And I will tell you, it was stunning to hear that echo. You sort of felt like you were listening to the souls of the past tell you Israel is going to survive. And that’s why, my friends, you have a Secretary of State who gets it, who understands this mission. And with your help and your support, we’ll get it done the right way.
Thank you. (Applause.)
Saturday, June 15, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY MAKES REMARKS WITH BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE
FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Remarks With British Foreign Secretary William Hague After Their Meeting
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Treaty Room
Washington, DC
June 12, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much. It’s a huge pleasure for me to welcome my friend and partner in so many efforts, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, William Hague.
The United States and the United Kingdom obviously share a now time-honored and time-defined relationship, and it’s grounded in so much – our history, our values, our traditions. It is, without question, an essential, if not the essential relationship, and based on a common agenda that we share, our mutual cooperation on so many global issues, from peace and stability in the Middle East, Afghanistan, proliferation, Libya, Egypt, you run the gamut; we have been able to work together in effective ways. We’re the closest of military allies, having served alongside each other in major campaigns over the last 20 years, six major campaigns in total, including right now in Afghanistan, where our troops are serving side-by-side. And we promote together a very vigorous and a capable NATO.
But it’s fair to say that this special relationship really touches many different issues. Let me just say that two days ago, our governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the Global Innovation Initiative. And this important initiative is going to support multilateral research emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and it will focus on issues such as climate change, which we have just discussed at length, and sustainable development. And this initiative will also further our higher education cooperation, which is a priority of both President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron. It will bolster collaborations between universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.
I also want to applaud Prime Minister Cameron and Foreign Secretary Hague for their important leadership in the lead-up to the G-8. The UK is helping to take a lead on an important initiative to prevent sexual violence in conflict areas around the world. We met in London on that as a prep leading up to the G-8, and the Foreign Secretary convened a very important gathering and I think there was some important progress made in our discussions there. And we stood together in April, the G-8 foreign ministers, to affirm what will lead into the meetings in Ireland, Northern Ireland.
Our relationship is also rooted in our very, very close economic cooperation. We are each each other’s largest investors. Almost one million people in the United States work for British companies, and almost one million people work for American companies in the UK. We are also both committed to making this economic relationship stronger. President Obama’s commitment to launch the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union is a significant way to make it stronger. And we look forward to the deliberations that will take place in a few days in the EU with respect to the mandate for those negotiations. We are convinced, both of us, that a successful conclusion to this agreement would have a profound, important impact boosting both of our economies and, in fact, the economies of Europe as a whole.
Together, our two countries also remain committed to a Syrian-led political solution to the crisis there. We are deeply concerned about the dire situation in Syria, including the involvement of Hezbollah, as well as Iran, across state lines in another country. So we are focusing our efforts now on doing all that we can to support the opposition as they work to change the balance on the ground. And together, we have provided tremendous humanitarian assistance in an effort to mitigate the human suffering that is taking place in Syria. We remain committed to the Geneva 2 conference. We both understand the complications with the situation on the ground and moving forward rapidly. But there will have to be a political solution, ultimately, to the situation on the ground, and that is the framework that will continue to be the outline, and we remain committed to it.
Throughout each of our careers, I think it’s fair to say that Foreign Secretary Hague and I have spoken candidly about the urgent need for a two-state solution in the Middle East. This is a top priority for President Obama, a top priority for Prime Minister Cameron, and we will continue to work towards it together.
With respect to Iran’s nuclear program, as President Obama said in Israel in March, Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. We appreciate the United Kingdom’s leadership in continuing to push for the EU efforts to adopt and implement strict EU sanctions on Iran. They are making a difference, and they are – the UK has also been critical in its leadership of the P-5+1 in those efforts.
So I am delighted to welcome, as you can see in all that I have just described, a vital partner, and in our case, I’m happy to say, a close friend. We’ve gotten to know each other better and better in this process, and I think we enjoy working together enormously. And I’m happy to welcome you here, William. Thank you.
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: Thank you very much, John. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be back here in Washington, D.C and with my great friend and colleague, who I’ve hugely enjoyed – come to enjoy working with already over the last four months, Secretary Kerry. The United States is the United Kingdom’s greatest ally in world affairs, and the range of issues that we have discussed today reflects that.
And I want to pay tribute to the energy and the resolve and the commitment that Secretary Kerry has brought to this role as Secretary of State. I’ve particularly welcomed his personal leadership on the Middle East peace process. He’s put an enormous amount of his time and energy into creating the foundations for a return to negotiations. And no single act would do more to unlock a more peaceful and stable Middle East than a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A two-state solution is the only way to end this conflict and achieve peace and security for both sides, but the window for a viable settlement is closing fast, and the regional environment is growing more difficult and more dangerous, as you know, all the time. The United States can count on the full and active support of the United Kingdom in getting both sides to the negotiating table bilaterally, through our relationships with Israelis and Palestinians, and using our role in the European Union as well.
We also discussed the meeting of the G-8 in Northern Ireland, as you’ve heard, where we hoped to make progress on the priorities of trade and tax and transparency set out by Prime Minister David Cameron. I also reiterated our commitment to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the United States and the EU. This is the biggest opportunity in a generation to power new jobs and growth in Europe and America and to provide an immense boost to the world economy. The United Kingdom is fully behind it.
We’ve also discussed our work together to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. We’ve identified new areas in which the State Department and the Foreign Office can work together on climate change issues. And the British Government greatly looks forward to welcoming President Obama to the G-8. We see this as an important opportunity to discuss many matters in world affairs, but it’s also an important opportunity to discuss with world leaders, including President Putin, the most urgent crisis anywhere in the world today, the terrible and deepening conflict in Syria.
Syria has been a focus, of course, of our talks today. We’re both deeply concerned by what is happening to innocent people there. The regime appears to be preparing new assaults, endangering the lives and safety of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who are already in desperate need. And the scale of the regime’s repression and the human suffering that it has caused beggars belief. A campaign of murder and tyranny that they have waged for more than 800 days now is not only a moral outrage, it’s a grave threat to the wider region, it’s a danger to our own national security, and this includes the risks of growing radicalization, the involvement of Hezbollah and Iranian proxies, and credible reports of the use of chemical weapons.
So we agreed today that we cannot turn away from Syria and its people. The United Kingdom believes the situation demands a strong, coordinated, and determined approach by the UK, the U.S., and our allies in Europe and in the region.
I want to pay tribute to the governments and people of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon for their extraordinary generosity in hosting the vast refugee population and the burden that they’re shouldering for the whole world because of their proximity to this appalling conflict. And we will all have to do more in the coming weeks to assist with the immense humanitarian effort that is necessary.
We agreed today, of course, that our priority remains to see a diplomatic process in Geneva that succeeds in reaching a negotiated end to the conflict. But we will have to be prepared to do more to save lives, to pressure the Assad regime to negotiate seriously, and to prevent the growth of extremism and terrorism if diplomatic efforts are going to succeed. So we have discussed that thoroughly, how to help the regime and opposition come to the negotiating table, as well as to protect civilian life.
And we should never forget that this conflict began when the Assad regime turned its tanks, helicopter gunships, and heavy weapons against peaceful protesters. We shouldn’t forget that 1.6 million people have become refugees and more than 4 million are internally displaced. These are innocent victims of war and repression, and they’ve been at the forefront of our minds in our discussions here in Washington today.
Thank you very much.
MS. PSAKI: The first question will be from Jill Dougherty of CNN.
QUESTION: Thank you very much. Secretary Kerry – I have a question, actually, for both Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hague. After this catastrophic defeat for the opposition in Qusayr, do you still believe that they can win and do it without the weapons that they are asking for? That’s to both of you.
And then Secretary Kerry, these reports of NSA surveillance – are you hearing from allies concerned? Did you hear it from Secretary Hague today concerned about this? We’re hearing the Germans are disturbed. They’ll be talking with President Obama about it.
And then finally just a very quick one on the OIG. Are you concerned that these – that allegations of serious, perhaps even illegal behavior or conduct, are not being investigated because of any alleged undue influence by senior State Department officials?
Thank you very much.
SECRETARY KERRY: Okay. Let me take your three questions in order, beginning with the NSA leaks.
The answer is no, I think the Secretary and I both understand the very delicate but vital balance between privacy and the protection of people in our country. And the Secretary made a very fine statement on the floor of the parliament in which, at the beginning of the week, he made clear the British Government’s position with respect to this. And I’ll just say for us, as you’re hearing now more and more, the members of Congress understand that Congress passed on this, voted for it several times, and the judiciary branch of our country has reviewed this and been engaged in this. This is a three-branch of government effort to keep America safe, and in fact, it has not read emails or looked at or listened to conversations, the exception of where a court may have made some decision which was predicated on appropriate evidence.
The United States of America has been hugely protected over the course of these last years by the valiant efforts of our law enforcement community, our international law enforcement efforts, the FBI, our agencies, the Homeland Security, all of whom have coordinated in remarkable ways to prevent some very terrible events from taking place. And I think they have done so in a remarkable balance of the values of our nation with respect to privacy, freedom, and the Constitution. And I think over time, this will withstand scrutiny and people will understand that.
That said, on the OIG I’ll just say very quickly all employees of this Department are held to the highest standards of behavior, and now and always. And I welcome the OIG who was asked – I’m a former prosecutor. I can tell you as a former prosecutor I take very seriously a investigative process, and I am confident that the OIG’s process where he has invited outsiders to come and review whatever took place a year ago will be reviewed. And I welcome that, I think the Department welcomes that, because we do want the highest standards applied.
And finally with respect to Syria, your question on Syria is specifically about whether or not --
QUESTION: About specifically with, after Qusayr --
SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, I got it, whether or not they’re going to be able to win and so forth. Yeah.
QUESTION: Whether you have confidence.
SECRETARY KERRY: Look, I think that nobody wins in Syria the way things are going; the people lose, and Syria as a country loses. And what we have been pushing for, all of us involved in this effort, is a political solution that ends the violence, saves Syria, stops the killing and destruction of an entire nation. And that’s what we’re pushing for. So it’s not a question to me whether or not the opposition can, quote, "win." It’s a question of whether or not we can get to this political solution.
And the political solution that the Russians have agreed to contemplates a transition government. The implementation of Geneva 1 is the goal of Geneva 2, and that is a transition government with full executive authority which gives the Syrian people as a whole, everybody in Syria, the chance to have a new beginning where they choose their future leadership. Now, that’s the goal. And we have said that we will do everything we can and we’re able to do to help the opposition be able to achieve that goal and to reach a point where that can be implemented. And that’s what we’re trying to do. And I think that there’s a unanimity about the importance of trying to find a way to peace, not a way to war. Now, the Assad regime is making that very difficult.
We will be – as everybody knows and has written about, we’re meeting to talk about the various balances in this issue right now. And I have nothing to announce about that at this point, but clearly, the choice of weapons that he has engaged in across the board challenge anybody’s values and standards of human behavior. And we’re going to have to make judgments for ourselves about how we can help the opposition to be able to deal with that.
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: On that, I want to support what Secretary Kerry has said. He’s spoken quite rightly, as I often have, of there only being a political solution in the end in Syria. Whatever happens, however long it goes on for, in the end there has to be a political solution. There isn’t a solution for either side of only military conquest. The Syria that would be left at the end of that is not a Syria that would be able to function at all. And so there has to be a political solution. That is why I particularly pay tribute to Secretary Kerry’s efforts to create a new process in Geneva, building on what we agreed last year at Geneva, a transitional government with full executive powers, formed by mutual consent.
But what the regime is doing at the moment, and what you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks in the military action, supported in this case by Hezbollah, is making a political solution more difficult. It may be designed to make a political solution more difficult. And so our efforts in Syria have been to try to save lives, to prevent radicalization, to send a message to the regime that in the end there does have to be a political solution. That’s why the United Kingdom has sent practical support to the opposition, to the national coalition, why we send so much humanitarian support. This is what our diplomatic effort is working towards. And so I think Secretary Kerry are in complete agreement about this. I also don’t have any new announcement that we’re making today about this. But we are determined that we will address this issue together and do our utmost to create the conditions for a political solution in Syria.
On the NSA and intelligence matters, that’s not been the focus of our discussions today. We’ve noted recent controversies, and the Secretary was very kind about my speech in the House of Commons on Monday. The intelligence sharing relationship between the UK and the U.S. is unique in the world. It is the strongest in the world. And it contributes massively to the national security of both countries. I think that’s something that the citizens of our countries should have confidence in, and in particular have confidence in that that relationship is based on a framework of law in both countries, law that is vigorously upheld. And so I repeat what I said in the House of Commons on Monday about the importance of that. And it’s a relationship we must never endanger, because it has saved many lives over recent decades in countering terrorism and in contributing to the security of all our citizens.
MODERATOR: The second question is Tom Whipple, The Times.
QUESTION: Thank you. I’ve got one question for both of you on Syria, if you don’t mind. But first of all, Foreign Secretary, to pick you up on the NSA story, I mean, you have made it clear in Parliament you don’t think British intelligence is breaking the law using information gathered by whatever means by U.S. intelligence. I’m not sure you that you’ve addressed what safeguards there are protecting British people from U.S. intelligence using these kinds of wholesale trawling of phone records and online activity we’ve been hearing about directly on innocent people in the UK.
And on Syria, we have heard what you’ve been saying about Syria for 800 days now. Have you discussed what military help you can give Syria’s rebels? And have you agreed on anything?
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: Well, on the first point, the UK and the U.S. are very close partners on cyber security, on intelligence sharing. There couldn’t be two more trusted partners in the world than the United Kingdom and the United States. And I think that should give some level of assurance to the citizens of our countries. I pointed out in the House of Commons on Monday the legal protections that are there. And of course, I’ve made very clear that any information received by the United Kingdom is subject to all the laws of the United Kingdom. And so that remains the answer. That is the situation.
But no two countries in the world work more closely to protect the privacy of their citizens than the United Kingdom and the United States. There may be threats from elsewhere, of course, and there are, from criminal networks, sometimes from other states. It’s the UK and the U.S. that work together in trying to deal with that. So it’s not the United States we should be looking at when we’re worried about those things.
On the question about Syria, we’ve discussed many things about Syria, but I think we’ve dealt with this point earlier where we are restating today our determination that the UK, the U.S., our other allies in Europe and across the region, will work closely on this. Secretary Kerry has done a great deal in recent weeks to pull together a group of foreign ministers. We’ve met several times, including in Istanbul and in Amman recently, to coordinate our actions and our diplomacy and our support for the national coalition. We will continue to do that, and we may well have to intensify that in various ways over the coming weeks and months in order to make it more likely that we can achieve a political solution in Syria. So we’ve discussed all the ramifications of that today, but I can’t go into any more detail than that at the moment.
SECRETARY KERRY: Which part of it do you want me to answer?
QUESTION: Sorry. About Syria. We’ve heard you say similar things for 800 days about Syria.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, not me. I haven’t been in office for 800 days.
QUESTION: Officials like yourself, sir. Can you say – can you give us a sense, any sense at all, what you’ve been talking about in terms of the kind of help you may be offering the Syrian rebels, and why you aren’t able to say anything more than you’re saying at the moment, which you’re staying pretty tight-lipped about what you’ve been discussing in terms of this help you can give the rebels? At some point, it’s going to be too late for that, isn’t it? Do you think we’ve reached that point?
SECRETARY KERRY: I’m not going to make judgments about the points, where we are or aren’t. I’ll just say to you that as I said to you, we are determined to do everything that we can in order to help the opposition to be able to reach – to save Syria. And that stands. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. I have nothing new to announce today. When and if I do, you’ll hear about it. But at this moment, we are in consideration, as everybody knows – it’s been written about this week. People are talking about what further options might be exercised here. And we certainly had some discussion about that, obviously. But we don’t have anything to announce at this moment.
Thank you, all. Appreciate it.
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: Thank you very much.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thanks very much.
Remarks With British Foreign Secretary William Hague After Their Meeting
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Treaty Room
Washington, DC
June 12, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much. It’s a huge pleasure for me to welcome my friend and partner in so many efforts, the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain, William Hague.
The United States and the United Kingdom obviously share a now time-honored and time-defined relationship, and it’s grounded in so much – our history, our values, our traditions. It is, without question, an essential, if not the essential relationship, and based on a common agenda that we share, our mutual cooperation on so many global issues, from peace and stability in the Middle East, Afghanistan, proliferation, Libya, Egypt, you run the gamut; we have been able to work together in effective ways. We’re the closest of military allies, having served alongside each other in major campaigns over the last 20 years, six major campaigns in total, including right now in Afghanistan, where our troops are serving side-by-side. And we promote together a very vigorous and a capable NATO.
But it’s fair to say that this special relationship really touches many different issues. Let me just say that two days ago, our governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the Global Innovation Initiative. And this important initiative is going to support multilateral research emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and it will focus on issues such as climate change, which we have just discussed at length, and sustainable development. And this initiative will also further our higher education cooperation, which is a priority of both President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron. It will bolster collaborations between universities in the United States and the United Kingdom.
I also want to applaud Prime Minister Cameron and Foreign Secretary Hague for their important leadership in the lead-up to the G-8. The UK is helping to take a lead on an important initiative to prevent sexual violence in conflict areas around the world. We met in London on that as a prep leading up to the G-8, and the Foreign Secretary convened a very important gathering and I think there was some important progress made in our discussions there. And we stood together in April, the G-8 foreign ministers, to affirm what will lead into the meetings in Ireland, Northern Ireland.
Our relationship is also rooted in our very, very close economic cooperation. We are each each other’s largest investors. Almost one million people in the United States work for British companies, and almost one million people work for American companies in the UK. We are also both committed to making this economic relationship stronger. President Obama’s commitment to launch the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union is a significant way to make it stronger. And we look forward to the deliberations that will take place in a few days in the EU with respect to the mandate for those negotiations. We are convinced, both of us, that a successful conclusion to this agreement would have a profound, important impact boosting both of our economies and, in fact, the economies of Europe as a whole.
Together, our two countries also remain committed to a Syrian-led political solution to the crisis there. We are deeply concerned about the dire situation in Syria, including the involvement of Hezbollah, as well as Iran, across state lines in another country. So we are focusing our efforts now on doing all that we can to support the opposition as they work to change the balance on the ground. And together, we have provided tremendous humanitarian assistance in an effort to mitigate the human suffering that is taking place in Syria. We remain committed to the Geneva 2 conference. We both understand the complications with the situation on the ground and moving forward rapidly. But there will have to be a political solution, ultimately, to the situation on the ground, and that is the framework that will continue to be the outline, and we remain committed to it.
Throughout each of our careers, I think it’s fair to say that Foreign Secretary Hague and I have spoken candidly about the urgent need for a two-state solution in the Middle East. This is a top priority for President Obama, a top priority for Prime Minister Cameron, and we will continue to work towards it together.
With respect to Iran’s nuclear program, as President Obama said in Israel in March, Iran must not get a nuclear weapon. We appreciate the United Kingdom’s leadership in continuing to push for the EU efforts to adopt and implement strict EU sanctions on Iran. They are making a difference, and they are – the UK has also been critical in its leadership of the P-5+1 in those efforts.
So I am delighted to welcome, as you can see in all that I have just described, a vital partner, and in our case, I’m happy to say, a close friend. We’ve gotten to know each other better and better in this process, and I think we enjoy working together enormously. And I’m happy to welcome you here, William. Thank you.
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: Thank you very much, John. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to be back here in Washington, D.C and with my great friend and colleague, who I’ve hugely enjoyed – come to enjoy working with already over the last four months, Secretary Kerry. The United States is the United Kingdom’s greatest ally in world affairs, and the range of issues that we have discussed today reflects that.
And I want to pay tribute to the energy and the resolve and the commitment that Secretary Kerry has brought to this role as Secretary of State. I’ve particularly welcomed his personal leadership on the Middle East peace process. He’s put an enormous amount of his time and energy into creating the foundations for a return to negotiations. And no single act would do more to unlock a more peaceful and stable Middle East than a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A two-state solution is the only way to end this conflict and achieve peace and security for both sides, but the window for a viable settlement is closing fast, and the regional environment is growing more difficult and more dangerous, as you know, all the time. The United States can count on the full and active support of the United Kingdom in getting both sides to the negotiating table bilaterally, through our relationships with Israelis and Palestinians, and using our role in the European Union as well.
We also discussed the meeting of the G-8 in Northern Ireland, as you’ve heard, where we hoped to make progress on the priorities of trade and tax and transparency set out by Prime Minister David Cameron. I also reiterated our commitment to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the United States and the EU. This is the biggest opportunity in a generation to power new jobs and growth in Europe and America and to provide an immense boost to the world economy. The United Kingdom is fully behind it.
We’ve also discussed our work together to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. We’ve identified new areas in which the State Department and the Foreign Office can work together on climate change issues. And the British Government greatly looks forward to welcoming President Obama to the G-8. We see this as an important opportunity to discuss many matters in world affairs, but it’s also an important opportunity to discuss with world leaders, including President Putin, the most urgent crisis anywhere in the world today, the terrible and deepening conflict in Syria.
Syria has been a focus, of course, of our talks today. We’re both deeply concerned by what is happening to innocent people there. The regime appears to be preparing new assaults, endangering the lives and safety of hundreds of thousands of Syrians who are already in desperate need. And the scale of the regime’s repression and the human suffering that it has caused beggars belief. A campaign of murder and tyranny that they have waged for more than 800 days now is not only a moral outrage, it’s a grave threat to the wider region, it’s a danger to our own national security, and this includes the risks of growing radicalization, the involvement of Hezbollah and Iranian proxies, and credible reports of the use of chemical weapons.
So we agreed today that we cannot turn away from Syria and its people. The United Kingdom believes the situation demands a strong, coordinated, and determined approach by the UK, the U.S., and our allies in Europe and in the region.
I want to pay tribute to the governments and people of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon for their extraordinary generosity in hosting the vast refugee population and the burden that they’re shouldering for the whole world because of their proximity to this appalling conflict. And we will all have to do more in the coming weeks to assist with the immense humanitarian effort that is necessary.
We agreed today, of course, that our priority remains to see a diplomatic process in Geneva that succeeds in reaching a negotiated end to the conflict. But we will have to be prepared to do more to save lives, to pressure the Assad regime to negotiate seriously, and to prevent the growth of extremism and terrorism if diplomatic efforts are going to succeed. So we have discussed that thoroughly, how to help the regime and opposition come to the negotiating table, as well as to protect civilian life.
And we should never forget that this conflict began when the Assad regime turned its tanks, helicopter gunships, and heavy weapons against peaceful protesters. We shouldn’t forget that 1.6 million people have become refugees and more than 4 million are internally displaced. These are innocent victims of war and repression, and they’ve been at the forefront of our minds in our discussions here in Washington today.
Thank you very much.
MS. PSAKI: The first question will be from Jill Dougherty of CNN.
QUESTION: Thank you very much. Secretary Kerry – I have a question, actually, for both Secretary Kerry and Secretary Hague. After this catastrophic defeat for the opposition in Qusayr, do you still believe that they can win and do it without the weapons that they are asking for? That’s to both of you.
And then Secretary Kerry, these reports of NSA surveillance – are you hearing from allies concerned? Did you hear it from Secretary Hague today concerned about this? We’re hearing the Germans are disturbed. They’ll be talking with President Obama about it.
And then finally just a very quick one on the OIG. Are you concerned that these – that allegations of serious, perhaps even illegal behavior or conduct, are not being investigated because of any alleged undue influence by senior State Department officials?
Thank you very much.
SECRETARY KERRY: Okay. Let me take your three questions in order, beginning with the NSA leaks.
The answer is no, I think the Secretary and I both understand the very delicate but vital balance between privacy and the protection of people in our country. And the Secretary made a very fine statement on the floor of the parliament in which, at the beginning of the week, he made clear the British Government’s position with respect to this. And I’ll just say for us, as you’re hearing now more and more, the members of Congress understand that Congress passed on this, voted for it several times, and the judiciary branch of our country has reviewed this and been engaged in this. This is a three-branch of government effort to keep America safe, and in fact, it has not read emails or looked at or listened to conversations, the exception of where a court may have made some decision which was predicated on appropriate evidence.
The United States of America has been hugely protected over the course of these last years by the valiant efforts of our law enforcement community, our international law enforcement efforts, the FBI, our agencies, the Homeland Security, all of whom have coordinated in remarkable ways to prevent some very terrible events from taking place. And I think they have done so in a remarkable balance of the values of our nation with respect to privacy, freedom, and the Constitution. And I think over time, this will withstand scrutiny and people will understand that.
That said, on the OIG I’ll just say very quickly all employees of this Department are held to the highest standards of behavior, and now and always. And I welcome the OIG who was asked – I’m a former prosecutor. I can tell you as a former prosecutor I take very seriously a investigative process, and I am confident that the OIG’s process where he has invited outsiders to come and review whatever took place a year ago will be reviewed. And I welcome that, I think the Department welcomes that, because we do want the highest standards applied.
And finally with respect to Syria, your question on Syria is specifically about whether or not --
QUESTION: About specifically with, after Qusayr --
SECRETARY KERRY: Yeah, I got it, whether or not they’re going to be able to win and so forth. Yeah.
QUESTION: Whether you have confidence.
SECRETARY KERRY: Look, I think that nobody wins in Syria the way things are going; the people lose, and Syria as a country loses. And what we have been pushing for, all of us involved in this effort, is a political solution that ends the violence, saves Syria, stops the killing and destruction of an entire nation. And that’s what we’re pushing for. So it’s not a question to me whether or not the opposition can, quote, "win." It’s a question of whether or not we can get to this political solution.
And the political solution that the Russians have agreed to contemplates a transition government. The implementation of Geneva 1 is the goal of Geneva 2, and that is a transition government with full executive authority which gives the Syrian people as a whole, everybody in Syria, the chance to have a new beginning where they choose their future leadership. Now, that’s the goal. And we have said that we will do everything we can and we’re able to do to help the opposition be able to achieve that goal and to reach a point where that can be implemented. And that’s what we’re trying to do. And I think that there’s a unanimity about the importance of trying to find a way to peace, not a way to war. Now, the Assad regime is making that very difficult.
We will be – as everybody knows and has written about, we’re meeting to talk about the various balances in this issue right now. And I have nothing to announce about that at this point, but clearly, the choice of weapons that he has engaged in across the board challenge anybody’s values and standards of human behavior. And we’re going to have to make judgments for ourselves about how we can help the opposition to be able to deal with that.
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: On that, I want to support what Secretary Kerry has said. He’s spoken quite rightly, as I often have, of there only being a political solution in the end in Syria. Whatever happens, however long it goes on for, in the end there has to be a political solution. There isn’t a solution for either side of only military conquest. The Syria that would be left at the end of that is not a Syria that would be able to function at all. And so there has to be a political solution. That is why I particularly pay tribute to Secretary Kerry’s efforts to create a new process in Geneva, building on what we agreed last year at Geneva, a transitional government with full executive powers, formed by mutual consent.
But what the regime is doing at the moment, and what you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks in the military action, supported in this case by Hezbollah, is making a political solution more difficult. It may be designed to make a political solution more difficult. And so our efforts in Syria have been to try to save lives, to prevent radicalization, to send a message to the regime that in the end there does have to be a political solution. That’s why the United Kingdom has sent practical support to the opposition, to the national coalition, why we send so much humanitarian support. This is what our diplomatic effort is working towards. And so I think Secretary Kerry are in complete agreement about this. I also don’t have any new announcement that we’re making today about this. But we are determined that we will address this issue together and do our utmost to create the conditions for a political solution in Syria.
On the NSA and intelligence matters, that’s not been the focus of our discussions today. We’ve noted recent controversies, and the Secretary was very kind about my speech in the House of Commons on Monday. The intelligence sharing relationship between the UK and the U.S. is unique in the world. It is the strongest in the world. And it contributes massively to the national security of both countries. I think that’s something that the citizens of our countries should have confidence in, and in particular have confidence in that that relationship is based on a framework of law in both countries, law that is vigorously upheld. And so I repeat what I said in the House of Commons on Monday about the importance of that. And it’s a relationship we must never endanger, because it has saved many lives over recent decades in countering terrorism and in contributing to the security of all our citizens.
MODERATOR: The second question is Tom Whipple, The Times.
QUESTION: Thank you. I’ve got one question for both of you on Syria, if you don’t mind. But first of all, Foreign Secretary, to pick you up on the NSA story, I mean, you have made it clear in Parliament you don’t think British intelligence is breaking the law using information gathered by whatever means by U.S. intelligence. I’m not sure you that you’ve addressed what safeguards there are protecting British people from U.S. intelligence using these kinds of wholesale trawling of phone records and online activity we’ve been hearing about directly on innocent people in the UK.
And on Syria, we have heard what you’ve been saying about Syria for 800 days now. Have you discussed what military help you can give Syria’s rebels? And have you agreed on anything?
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: Well, on the first point, the UK and the U.S. are very close partners on cyber security, on intelligence sharing. There couldn’t be two more trusted partners in the world than the United Kingdom and the United States. And I think that should give some level of assurance to the citizens of our countries. I pointed out in the House of Commons on Monday the legal protections that are there. And of course, I’ve made very clear that any information received by the United Kingdom is subject to all the laws of the United Kingdom. And so that remains the answer. That is the situation.
But no two countries in the world work more closely to protect the privacy of their citizens than the United Kingdom and the United States. There may be threats from elsewhere, of course, and there are, from criminal networks, sometimes from other states. It’s the UK and the U.S. that work together in trying to deal with that. So it’s not the United States we should be looking at when we’re worried about those things.
On the question about Syria, we’ve discussed many things about Syria, but I think we’ve dealt with this point earlier where we are restating today our determination that the UK, the U.S., our other allies in Europe and across the region, will work closely on this. Secretary Kerry has done a great deal in recent weeks to pull together a group of foreign ministers. We’ve met several times, including in Istanbul and in Amman recently, to coordinate our actions and our diplomacy and our support for the national coalition. We will continue to do that, and we may well have to intensify that in various ways over the coming weeks and months in order to make it more likely that we can achieve a political solution in Syria. So we’ve discussed all the ramifications of that today, but I can’t go into any more detail than that at the moment.
SECRETARY KERRY: Which part of it do you want me to answer?
QUESTION: Sorry. About Syria. We’ve heard you say similar things for 800 days about Syria.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, not me. I haven’t been in office for 800 days.
QUESTION: Officials like yourself, sir. Can you say – can you give us a sense, any sense at all, what you’ve been talking about in terms of the kind of help you may be offering the Syrian rebels, and why you aren’t able to say anything more than you’re saying at the moment, which you’re staying pretty tight-lipped about what you’ve been discussing in terms of this help you can give the rebels? At some point, it’s going to be too late for that, isn’t it? Do you think we’ve reached that point?
SECRETARY KERRY: I’m not going to make judgments about the points, where we are or aren’t. I’ll just say to you that as I said to you, we are determined to do everything that we can in order to help the opposition to be able to reach – to save Syria. And that stands. That’s exactly what we’re going to do. I have nothing new to announce today. When and if I do, you’ll hear about it. But at this moment, we are in consideration, as everybody knows – it’s been written about this week. People are talking about what further options might be exercised here. And we certainly had some discussion about that, obviously. But we don’t have anything to announce at this moment.
Thank you, all. Appreciate it.
FOREIGN SECRETARY HAGUE: Thank you very much.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thanks very much.
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