FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
04/02/2015 06:41 PM EDT
Press Availability in Lausanne, Switzerland
Press Availability
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland
April 2, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, good evening and – excuse me – thank you all very, very much for your patience. And I want to start by expressing an enormous thank you, merci, danke, to the people and the Government of Switzerland for their incredible generosity. The way in which they have welcomed us and the amount of effort is really extraordinary, and we’re very, very grateful to them. And throughout this entire process, certainly over the past week, the people of Switzerland have gone above and beyond in order to facilitate these negotiations, and I don’t think anybody could imagine a much more peaceful setting in order to pursue a peaceful path forward. (In French.)
I also want to thank the very many other nations that have provided a home for these negotiations over the past couple of years – people forget that, it’s been going on that long – and that includes Austria, which was incredibly generous in hosting our delegation in Vienna for a long period of time; Oman, which has not only hosted a number of important meetings, but also played a critical role in getting these talks off the ground in the first place; and then, of course, we say thank you to Turkey, Russia, Kazakhstan, Iraq, and my home country, the United States.
I particularly want to thank President Obama. He has been courageous and determined in his pursuit of a diplomatic path. And from the day that he took office, President Obama has been crystal-clear that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a threat to our security and the security of our allies in the region, including Israel. He has been just as clear that the best and most effective way to prevent that threat is through diplomacy.
The journey towards a diplomatic solution began years ago. And I can tell you that I’ve personally been involved for about four years, beginning from the time that I was serving in the United States Senate. Others have been on this journey, and some of the others in our team, for even longer than that.
But as Foreign Minister Zarif and High Representative Mogherini announced moments ago, today we have reached a critical milestone in that quest. We, our P5+1, EU partners, and Iran have arrived at a consensus on the key parameters of an arrangement that, once implemented, will give the international community confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain exclusively peaceful. And over the coming weeks, with all of the conditions of the 2013 Joint Plan of Action still in effect from this moment forward, our experts will continue to work hard to build on the parameters that we have arrived at today and finalize a comprehensive deal by the end of June.
Now we have said from the beginning – I think you’ve heard me say it again and again – that we will not accept just any deal, that we will only accept a good deal. And today, I can tell you that the political understanding with details that we have reached is a solid foundation for the good deal that we are seeking. It is the foundation for a deal that will see Iran reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98 percent for 15 years. It is a deal in which Iran will cut its installed centrifuges by more than two-thirds for 10 years. It is a deal that will increase Iran’s breakout time, which was confirmed publicly today to be two to three months, and that is the time that it would take Iran to speed up its enrichment in order to produce enough fissile material for one potential nuclear weapon. And that will be expanded now, under this deal, to one year from those two to three months. That is obviously as much as six times what it is today, and what it has been for the past three years.
I’d like also to make one more point very, very clear because it has been misinterpreted and misstated, misrepresented for much of this discussion: There will be no sunset to the deal that we are working to finalize – no sunset, none. The parameters of this agreement will be implemented in phases. Some provisions will be in place for 10 years; others will be in place for 15 years; others still will be in place for 25 years. But certain provisions, including many transparency measures, will be in place indefinitely into the future. They will never expire. And the bottom line is that, under this arrangement, the international community will have confidence that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful, providing, of course, that the provisions are adhered to. And if they aren’t, we have provisions that empower us to deal with that.
Ultimately, the parameters that we have agreed to will do exactly what we set out to do – make certain that all pathways to make enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon have been cut off, including the uranium pathway at Natanz and Fordow, and the plutonium pathway at Arak, and, of course, the covert pathway.
Now we, our partners, and Iran have agreed that the only uranium-enrichment facility Iran will operate moving forward will be the facility at Natanz. And even that one will undergo dramatic changes. The vast majority of the centrifuges and their infrastructure will be removed. And for at least the next 15 years, the stockpile will remain at 300 kilograms. And any uranium that is enriched at Natanz will be capped at 3.67 percent, which is a typical level of enrichment for civilian nuclear power, but doesn’t even begin to approach the enrichment level necessary for a weapon.
We have agreed that the facility at Fordow will halt all uranium enrichment, period – all uranium enrichment, and in fact, there will not even be any fissile material present at the site and no enrichment R&D. Instead, the facility will be converted into a nuclear physics and technology center.
We have also agreed that Iran will redesign and rebuild its heavy-water reactor at Arak so that it will no longer produce any weapons-grade plutonium. And the United States will be able to sign off, certify, the reactor’s final design, redesign. And through international cooperation, it will be transformed into a reactor supporting only peaceful nuclear research and nuclear medicine. And the calandria, as you heard earlier, will be taken out and destroyed.
We have agreed that Iran will ship all of its spent fuel from the Arak reactor out of the country for the reactor’s lifetime. And Iran has agreed to refrain from building any additional heavy-water reactors for the next 15 years at least – “at least” means still open for beyond that period in the course of the next three months.
And we have agreed that Iran will face regular and comprehensive inspections, which is the best possible way to detect any attempt to covertly produce a weapon. Not only will inspectors have regular access to all of Iran’s declared facilities indefinitely, but they will also be able to monitor the facilities that produce the centrifuges themselves and the uranium that supports the nuclear program. And they will be able to do that for at least 20 years.
This critical step will help to guard against diversion of those materials to any clandestine location or plant. In addition, Iran has agreed to allow IAEA to investigate any suspicious site or any allegations of covert nuclear activities anywhere.
So these are just a few of the key – and I mean a few – of the key measures that will make up an extraordinarily comprehensive monitoring and transparency regime when and if it is finally signed and completed over the course of the next months. Now we have been very clear, both publicly and privately, a final agreement will not rely on promises. It will rely on proof.
It is important to note that Iran, to date, has honored all of the commitments that it made under the Joint Plan of Action that we agreed to in 2013. And I ask you to think about that against the backdrop of those who predicted that it would fail and not get the job done.
And in return for Iran’s future cooperation, we and our international partners will provide relief in phases from the sanctions that have impacted Iran’s economy. And if we find at any point that Iran is not complying with this agreement, the sanctions can snap back into place. So together these parameters outline a reasonable standard that Iran can readily meet, and it is the standard that Iran has now agreed to meet.
Throughout history, diplomacy has been necessary to prevent wars and to define international boundaries, to design institutions, and to develop global norms. Simply demanding that Iran capitulate makes a nice soundbite, but it’s not a policy. It is not a realistic plan. So the true measure of this understanding is not whether it meets all the desires of one side at the expense of the other. The test is whether or not it will leave the world safer or more secure than it would be without this agreement. And there can be no question that the comprehensive plan that we are moving toward will more than pass that test.
This isn’t just my assessment. It isn’t just the assessment of the United States delegation and our experts. It is the assessment of every one of our P5+1 partners who stood up here a little while ago in front of the flags of their nations. It is the assessment of our negotiating partners – Germany, the UK, China, France, and Russia – and all of our experts who have analyzed every aspect of this issue also join in that assessment.
From the beginning, we have negotiated as a team, and we are all agreed that this is the best outcome achievable. No viable alternatives – not one – would be nearly as effective at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon than – over a period of time than the parameters, providing they get completed and are signed.
Our political understanding arrived at today opens the door for a long-term resolution to the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Now, we have no illusions about the fact that we still have a ways to travel before we’ll arrive at the destination that we seek. We still have many technical details to work out on both sides and still some other issues that we acknowledge still have to be resolved; for example, the duration of the UN arms and ballistic missile restrictions on Iran and the precise timing of and mechanism for the conversion of the Arak reactor and Fordow site. And of course, once we’re able to finalize a comprehensive deal, the process of implementation then remains in front of us as well. But that’s a good challenge to have, frankly.
Throughout this negotiation, we have made a diligent effort to consult with our allies, our partners, including Israel and the Gulf states, and we have vigorously reaffirmed our enduring commitment to their security. No one should mistake that. And we will continue to stand by that commitment in the years and days ahead.
Obviously, we remain deeply concerned about Iran’s destabilizing actions in the region, and we remain fully committed to addressing the full slate of issues that we currently have with Iran. But it is because we are so concerned about those issues and about the region’s security. Precisely because of that concern that we believe this deal is critical. The status quo with respect to Iran’s nuclear program is unacceptable.
And certainly, we will continue to consult closely in the days ahead with the United States Congress. They and we understand that an Iran that had a nuclear weapon in the context of today’s troubles would be even more problematic. I spent almost 30 years in the United States Senate, and I had the privilege and the responsibility of chairing the Foreign Relations Committee when we put tough sanctions in place when this regime was put in place. And that is the regime that indeed has brought this negotiation about.
We are deeply grateful for Congress’s support of the diplomatic path to date, and we appreciate their patience. There were those agitating to take action earlier. Responsible voices held off and they helped us to get to this moment, and we appreciate that. We sincerely hope that members will continue to give us the time and the space that we need to fully explain the political agreement that we have reached and to work out the remaining details of a final deal.
Before I take a few questions, I just want to take a moment to thank some very important people. The team that has been assembled throughout this process is really made up of an extraordinary group of public servants, and believe me, they have served their country and the world well in these days. I want to thank my Cabinet colleague, Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz, who was indispensable in his knowledge and his technical expertise to be able to sit down and work through some very complex issues. His background as a nuclear scientist and his expertise was essential in helping us to arrive at this moment. I also particularly want to thank my colleague at the State Department, the Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. She has been absolutely superb, indefatigable, organized, strong, clear, visionary, and we are grateful.
I also want to thank the remarkable team of experts who haven’t slept in days, who’ve kept working, who have chased down numbers on – instantaneous call at any hour, and that goes for the team back home in the United States in the laboratories, in the White House, in the State Department, all of whom have contributed to our ability to be able to know what we are doing and to be able to put this initial agreement together.
Now I want to thank the delegations also from the P5+1 countries. As I said earlier, this is a team effort, partnership, and each and every one of their political directors, each and every one of their experts, was essential to help chase down details, help us create a consensus, help us check our own figures and our own thoughts about this effort. And I particularly thank Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France, Foreign Secretary Hammond from the United Kingdom, Foreign Minister Lavrov from Russia, Foreign Minister Steinmeier from Germany, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi from China. Every one of them showed an extraordinary commitment to this effort, and they have all contributed to this outcome. And it has been a real partnership, with every country weighing in, every country concerned, every country making suggestions. And I believe that their presence here tonight, their affirmation of this opportunity to try to finalize a deal over the next three months, is a critical component of credibility that should be given to this effort.
I also want to thank the EU for its facilitation of these talks. That begins with Dame Cathy Ashton, who spent many, many hours over several years helping to guide these talks. She worked all the way through last December, and her efforts were essential in getting the formal negotiations structured. Her successor, Federica Mogherini, has seized the baton and done an excellent job of filling right in and helping to move the process forward, and we thank both of them. And Federica’s deputy has just been superb. Helga Schmid, who has been the critical link between the EU and the entire P5+1 – we are very, very grateful for her stamina and her creativity and commitment.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the hard work of the Iranian delegation led by Foreign Minister Zarif and Dr. Salehi. From the beginning, they have approached these talks with great professionalism and with seriousness of purpose. They’ve been difficult – at times extremely intense; at times emotional; always challenging. Not all of our meetings were easy. In fact, many were quite difficult because the passions are there for everybody. But we have shown, I think, diligence and respect on all sides and always kept the objective, which is a peaceful resolution of this issue, in mind.
I emphasize: We still have a lot of work to do. We have agreed on the most challenging and overarching issues, but now there are a number of technical decisions that need to be made, and there are still policy decisions that have to be made. But we have the outline; we have the basic framing, if you will – the construction. And as we continue on, the United States and our P5+1 partners will exhibit the same vigilance, the same unity of purpose, the same comprehensive approach, and the same good faith among us that has brought us this far. So thank you, and I’d be happy to answer any questions.
HARF: Great, thank you. The first question is from Indira Lakshmanan of Bloomberg News. I think a mike should be coming to you.
QUESTION: Thanks, Marie. Is this on? Okay.
Secretary Kerry, can you tell us which gaps you were unable to reach understanding on, and are any elements not being made public? How long will it take Iran to comply so that sanctions can be eased, and could the deal fall through over the next three months? And lastly, will the three Americans being held in Iran be released as a goodwill measure if this deal is completed? Thank you.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, yeah, of course. I mean, we have acknowledged there are some gaps. I just listed a few of them a moment ago for you. There are issues that we have to resolve. And I’m not going to go into all of them right now, but I think I listed several of them in my comments. We have to finish dealing with Fordow, in some respects, with respect to transition. That’s one of the things we’re going to be looking at and talking about. We have other considerations with respect to the sanctions themselves and the rate and timing and so forth. But I don’t think it serves any great purpose to go through all that now. In the days ahead, there will be plenty of time to focus on that with Congress and others, and we look forward to those consultations.
It’s really a matter of anywhere from probably six months to a year or so that it will take to begin to comply with all of the nuclear steps that need to be taken in order to then begin into the phasing. Those steps have to happen first. And in the meantime, the interim agreement – the JPOA, as it’s called, Joint Plan of Action – will continue to be implemented in full. And so we believe there is a full continuity in the oversight and accountability that is necessary to proceed forward.
And finally, with respect to our citizens, we, of course, have had a number of conversations; and no meeting, no date when we come together, has been without conversation about our American citizens. I’m not going to go into any details, except to say to you that that conversation is continuing. We have a very specific process in place to try to deal with it. And we call on Iran again today, now, in light of this, to release these Americans and let them get home with their families. And we’re working on that and we will continue to be very focused on it.
HARF: The next question is from Amir Paivar of BBC Persia.
QUESTION: Thank you very much, Secretary Kerry, for the opportunity. As the business correspondent for my channel, the single one question every Iranian, from ordinary Iranians to those in boardrooms of Iranian companies, have been asking me is if on July 1st we have a joint comprehensive plan of action how fast, in what sequence, and in what format will economic sanctions, more specifically banking sanctions, which have been hurting many Iranians inside and outside the country, will be removed? I do understand you said that it will depend on compliance from Iran, but if you could just give us a bit more precise idea.
And also if I can, second question is – you have been – Foreign Secretary Zarif seems to have the world record of having face time with you thanks to these negotiations. Would you say these negotiations will help in future to improve ties between Iran and United States?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, on the latter question, all I can do is hope, like I think most citizens would hope. I would assume, from what we pick up through the diaspora and otherwise with respect to Iran, there are many, many Iranians who hope that they can join the world. But I’m not going to speculate on that. I have no idea. It would depend entirely on the resolution of a lot of things as we go forward.
The one thing we do know is that if we can eliminate this question of the nuclear issue, it begins to at some point, conceivably, provide an opportunity for change. I’m not going to predict anything. But I do know that stopping having a nuclear weapon makes the world safer, and that is what President Obama and all of us have been focused on.
With respect to the negotiations, I think – what was the first part of your question? It was about --
QUESTION: It’s about sanctions.
SECRETARY KERRY: Oh, the sanctions, yes. On the sanctions, as I said, they were phased. There are a set of requirements, for instance, the dismantlement of some of the centrifuges and the dismantlement of the infrastructure that is associated with those centrifuges. Iran has a responsibility to get the breakout time to the one year. And they can do it as fast as they want, and I assume will try to do it very rapidly. But we think that just the amount of work and the things they have to do will be somewhere in the vicinity of four (inaudible) months to a year, somewhere in there. I can’t say for certain.
But when that is done and certified by the IAEA that they have lived up to that nuclear responsibility, and we make that judgment with them, at that point in time the – there would begin the phasing of the sanctions. And we have stated very clearly that that will begin with the suspension with respect to the economic and financial sanctions at that point in time.
So there will be – I mean, this is part of the nature of any negotiation. In exchange for the restraints and restrictions that Iran is putting in place here, we will, indeed, take the very tool that was calculated to bring people to negotiate, once it has succeeded in achieving the goal, we will begin to phase those out. And that timing on other parts of that obviously remains still to be negotiated. But on the finance and the banking component, the economic components, those the President has committed to move on when that first phase is complete, and we move on to the next phase of implementation.
HARF: The final question’s from Michael Gordon of The New York Times.
QUESTION: Mr. Kerry, Iranian TV also (inaudible).
HARF: No, let’s just do one at a time. Let’s do one at a time. Let’s go to Michael Gordon of The New York Times. Thank you.
QUESTION: Sir, you just said they’re not merely technical issues that remain to be threshed out, but still some policy decisions that need to be made. What are the most important policy issues that need to be confronted before there can be an agreement at the end of June? And also, nothing here has been said on how Iran’s large stock of uranium is to be disposed of, either by shipping it out of the country or dealing with it inside the country. How will that be done?
And lastly, on sanctions, Minister Zarif said the Security Council resolutions will be suspended or eliminated, but can you tell us some more how that will work, especially since they could take years for Iran to address the IAEA’s concerns over PMD? And have you assured the Iranians that the White House will be able to persuade the Congress to revoke the sanctions it has imposed if Iran keeps its commitments?
SECRETARY KERRY: The question of the sanctions, Michael, remains one of the issues of the timing – the exact timing and the exact process associated with it remains one of those issues that is going to be negotiated over the course of the next three months. The commitment is to lift the economic and financial sanctions on the occasion of what I mentioned earlier on the nuclear side. Beyond that, UN sanctions, others with respect to ballistic missile embargo, et cetera, those remain for negotiation.
With respect to the question of the IAEA process, et cetera, and what happens with respect to the stockpile, it has to either be diluted or sold on the international market, one of the two. So whatever excess there is with respect to that will actually be returned right into uranium and not serve any fundamental purpose. But the stockpile is going to have to be diluted or sold in the international marketplace, and that is agreed upon at this point in time.
So thank you all very, very much.
Showing posts with label SWITZERLAND. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SWITZERLAND. Show all posts
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Thursday, March 5, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS IN MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND
FROM: THE STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks in Montreux, Switzerland
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Montreux, Switzerland
March 4, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY: So good afternoon to all, and thank you very, very much for your patience. We’ve been involved in some long discussions over the past few days, and even well before that. And before I leave Montreux, I wanted to quickly share with you where we are.
From the beginning, these negotiations have been tough and intense, and they remain so. And we’ve made some progress from where we were, but there are still significant gaps and important choices that need to be made. The purpose of these negotiations is not to get any deal; it’s to get the right deal, one that can withstand scrutiny – the scrutiny of experts on nuclear affairs all around the world, the scrutiny of other governments, the scrutiny of people, the scrutiny of the Congress of the United States, people in America, and the scrutiny of countries in the region that are affected by it. And so we know that. We approach these negotiations with a full understanding of the test that will be applied to this and of the expectations that exist.
We also want an agreement that is sustainable over time, and particularly that achieves the singular goal of proving that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain peaceful. We aren’t going to be distracted by external factors or politics. We will continue to be guided by our experts, our scientists, our national interests and those of our partners and allies.
Now, for all the objections that any country has to Iranian activities in the region – and believe me, we have objections and others in the world have objections – the first step is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And we know that absent a deal, Iran will have the ability to move ahead with its nuclear program; that we know for sure, because that’s exactly what’s happened to date. We also know that any deal that we would agree to would significantly increase the breakout time, leaving Iran further – far further than it is today – from producing enough fissile material for a weapon, while it undertakes the effort of proving to the world that the program is, in fact, peaceful.
Clearly, increased breakout time makes any nation in the vicinity or any nation of concern safer. We also know that any deal that we reach would give us the intrusive access and verification measures necessary to confirm that Iran’s nuclear facilities are indeed on a peaceful path. And that would allow us to promptly detect any attempt to cheat or to break out, and then to respond appropriately. And contrary to some public reports, we are only contemplating a deal in which important access and verification measures will endure.
We also know that the international sanctions, which many want to simply hang their hats on – they may have gotten Iran to the table, but to date they haven’t stopped Iran from advancing its nuclear program. In fact, the first and only thing that had stopped their program from progressing in almost a decade was the Joint Plan of Action that we negotiated and we reached in November of 2013, and that has been adhered to in every single respect since then.
And most importantly, as President Obama said yesterday, we know that no one has presented a more viable, lasting alternative for how you actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. So folks, simply demanding that Iran capitulate is not a plan, and nor would any of our P5+1 partners support us in that position. And it’s very important to remember we have partners in this effort – France, Germany, Britain, China, Russia – all of whom have similar feelings about the importance of what must be done here.
So we continue to be focused on reaching a good deal, the right deal, that closes off any paths that Iran could have towards fissile material for a weapon and that protects the world from the enormous threat that we all know a nuclear-armed Iran would pose.
Now, we still don’t know whether we will get there, and it is certainly possible that we won’t. It may be that Iran simply can’t say yes to the type of deal that the international community requires. But we do know that we owe it to the American people in my case, people in the world, to try to find out. And we will return to these talks on the 15th of March, recognizing that time is of the essence, the days are ticking by, and important decisions need to be made. Thank you.
Remarks in Montreux, Switzerland
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Montreux, Switzerland
March 4, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY: So good afternoon to all, and thank you very, very much for your patience. We’ve been involved in some long discussions over the past few days, and even well before that. And before I leave Montreux, I wanted to quickly share with you where we are.
From the beginning, these negotiations have been tough and intense, and they remain so. And we’ve made some progress from where we were, but there are still significant gaps and important choices that need to be made. The purpose of these negotiations is not to get any deal; it’s to get the right deal, one that can withstand scrutiny – the scrutiny of experts on nuclear affairs all around the world, the scrutiny of other governments, the scrutiny of people, the scrutiny of the Congress of the United States, people in America, and the scrutiny of countries in the region that are affected by it. And so we know that. We approach these negotiations with a full understanding of the test that will be applied to this and of the expectations that exist.
We also want an agreement that is sustainable over time, and particularly that achieves the singular goal of proving that Iran’s nuclear program is and will remain peaceful. We aren’t going to be distracted by external factors or politics. We will continue to be guided by our experts, our scientists, our national interests and those of our partners and allies.
Now, for all the objections that any country has to Iranian activities in the region – and believe me, we have objections and others in the world have objections – the first step is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. And we know that absent a deal, Iran will have the ability to move ahead with its nuclear program; that we know for sure, because that’s exactly what’s happened to date. We also know that any deal that we would agree to would significantly increase the breakout time, leaving Iran further – far further than it is today – from producing enough fissile material for a weapon, while it undertakes the effort of proving to the world that the program is, in fact, peaceful.
Clearly, increased breakout time makes any nation in the vicinity or any nation of concern safer. We also know that any deal that we reach would give us the intrusive access and verification measures necessary to confirm that Iran’s nuclear facilities are indeed on a peaceful path. And that would allow us to promptly detect any attempt to cheat or to break out, and then to respond appropriately. And contrary to some public reports, we are only contemplating a deal in which important access and verification measures will endure.
We also know that the international sanctions, which many want to simply hang their hats on – they may have gotten Iran to the table, but to date they haven’t stopped Iran from advancing its nuclear program. In fact, the first and only thing that had stopped their program from progressing in almost a decade was the Joint Plan of Action that we negotiated and we reached in November of 2013, and that has been adhered to in every single respect since then.
And most importantly, as President Obama said yesterday, we know that no one has presented a more viable, lasting alternative for how you actually prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. So folks, simply demanding that Iran capitulate is not a plan, and nor would any of our P5+1 partners support us in that position. And it’s very important to remember we have partners in this effort – France, Germany, Britain, China, Russia – all of whom have similar feelings about the importance of what must be done here.
So we continue to be focused on reaching a good deal, the right deal, that closes off any paths that Iran could have towards fissile material for a weapon and that protects the world from the enormous threat that we all know a nuclear-armed Iran would pose.
Now, we still don’t know whether we will get there, and it is certainly possible that we won’t. It may be that Iran simply can’t say yes to the type of deal that the international community requires. But we do know that we owe it to the American people in my case, people in the world, to try to find out. And we will return to these talks on the 15th of March, recognizing that time is of the essence, the days are ticking by, and important decisions need to be made. Thank you.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY'S REMARKS AFTER ADDRESSING UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL IN GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at a Press Availability
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland
March 2, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you. And I apologize for keeping you waiting for a few minutes.
A little while ago, as I think you know, I had the opportunity to address the UN Human Rights Council here in Geneva. And since the United States made the decision to re-engage on the council, we have worked hard to try to drive a number of significant steps to be able to bring new levels of international attention to some of the world’s most egregious human rights violations, and also to focus on some of the worst abusers – particularly, obviously, we have focused on North Korea and Syria.
We’ve also worked hard to try to create new mechanisms that explore and address serious human rights infringements on the freedom of assembly, expression, and religion, and the rights of LGBT people. And as many of you know, just the other day, I had the privilege of making the appointment for Randy Berry as the first special envoy for global LGBT rights for the State Department.
Because of the important progress that we have seen over the course of the past five years, the United States very much continues to believe in the potential of the Human Rights Council, and we’re dedicated to try to work for its success. At the same time, however, as I mentioned earlier, we recognize that there are places where it needs to improve, and most notably, as I cited earlier, has been the excessive bias, in our judgment, on one country, on Israel. So we wanted to make it clear today that we think that that is an impediment that stands in the way of the progress that should be achieved here when we look at the wide array of the world’s ills and the many challenges that we need to speak out on with respect to human rights.
I made it clear that the United States will oppose any effort by any group or any participant to abuse the UN system in order to delegitimize or isolate Israel. And we think it’s important that for the right – for the council to be able to achieve the breadth of goals that it is faced with – the breadth of the – to address the breadth of the challenges that it currently faces, it really needs to break out of an older mold and begin to put the time and energy and major focus on some of those most egregious situations. And that is really what has happened within the Council over the course of the last five years, particularly if you look at the commission of inquiry work that has been done with respect to the DPRK and other work it has done.
I also met this morning with Foreign Minister Lavrov. And we spent a fair amount of time discussing Syria, Ukraine, ISIS, and Iran. I reiterated the urgency of Russia’s leaders and the separatists that they back implementing the full measure of the commitments under the Minsk agreements and to implement them everywhere, including in Debaltseve, outside Mariupol, and in other key strategic areas. And I underscored this morning that if that does not happen, if there continue to be these broad swaths of noncompliance, or there continues to be a cherry-picking as to where heavy equipment will be moved back from without knowing where it’s been moved to, or if the OSCE is not able to adequately be able to gain the access necessary, then there would be inevitably further consequences that will place added strain on Russia’s already troubled economy. Now, obviously, Ukraine is just one of the issues, as I mentioned, that we focused on. And it’s only one of the issues, frankly, on which the United States and Russia together are focused.
This morning, Foreign Minister Lavrov and I also spoke at some length about Syria. The situation in Syria actually grows worse, if that’s possible for people to imagine. Almost three-quarters of the entire country is now displaced people – half of them refugees in mostly Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, but many of them displaced within the country and unable to move because of ISIL, Daesh, al-Nusrah, the regime, or some other extremist group.
So we spoke at length about steps that might be able to be taken in order to try to see if there is a potential of common ground. And we agreed that there is no military solution; we agreed there is a need for a political solution; and we agreed on the need of those countries who have been supporting people in this endeavor, in this conflict, to be able to search yet again to see whether or not there is a path either to Geneva 1 or to some hybrid or some means of ending the violence. And one of the things that drives that interest, that common interest, is the reality of Daesh, the reality of what is happening to Syria as a result of the presence of Daesh there and its use of Syria as a base for spreading its evil to other places.
We also talked about the Iran nuclear negotiations, where we are, together with the other P5+1 members – where we are all focused simultaneously on the need to elicit from Iran answers to questions about their nuclear program – not just answers for today, but answers that are capable of lasting well into the future in order to be able to provide people with a confidence that the program is, indeed, a peaceful nuclear program.
We continue to believe, all the members of the P5+1, that the best way to deal with the questions surrounding this nuclear program is to find a comprehensive deal, but not a deal that comes at any cost, not a deal just for the purpose of a deal; a deal that meets the test of providing the answers and the guarantees that are needed in order to know that the four pathways to a nuclear bomb have been closed off. And that is the task. And we hope it is possible to get there, but there is no guarantee.
Sanctions alone are not going to provide that solution. What needs to happen is that Iran needs to provide a verifiable set of commitments that its program is in fact peaceful. And that average people and experts alike looking at that verifiable set of commitments have confidence that they are sustainable, that they are real, and that they will provide the answers and guarantees well into the future.
Any deal must close every potential pathway that Iran has towards fissile material, whether it’s uranium, plutonium, or a covert path. The fact is only a good, comprehensive deal in the end can actually check off all of those boxes.
Now, I want to be clear about two things. Right now, no deal exists, no partial deal exists. And unless Iran is able to make the difficult decisions that will be required, there won’t be a deal. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That is the standard by which this negotiation is taking place, and anyone who tells you otherwise is simply misinformed.
Now, we are concerned by reports that suggest selective details of the ongoing negotiations will be discussed publicly in the coming days. I want to say clearly that doing so would make it more difficult to reach the goal that Israel and others say they share in order to get a good deal. Israel’s security is absolutely at the forefront of all of our minds, but frankly, so is the security of all the other countries in the region, so is our security in the United States. And we are very clear that as we negotiate with Iran, if we are able to reach the kind of deal that we’re hoping for, then it would have to be considered in its entirety and measured against alternatives.
Second – I cannot emphasize this enough. I have said this from the first moment that I become engaged in this negotiating process, President Obama has said this repeatedly: We will not accept a bad deal. We have said no deal is better than a bad deal, because a bad deal could actually make things less secure and more dangerous. Any deal that we would possibly agree to would make the international community, and especially Israel, safer than it is today. That’s our standard. So our team is working very hard to close remaining gaps, to reach a deal that ensures Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively and verifiably peaceful, and we have made some progress, but we still have a long way to go and the clock is ticking.
That’s why I will leave here momentarily to head to Montreux to meet with Foreign Minister Zarif and continue the negotiations. And in the days and weeks ahead, we’re going to answer a very simple question. We’re going to find out whether or not Iran is willing to make the hard choices that are necessary to get where we need to be. I’m happy to take a few of your questions.
MS. PSAKI: Michael Gordon, New York Times. Right over here.
QUESTION: Sir, Minister Lavrov asserted in his address that the ceasefire in Ukraine was being consolidated, but you made clear that Russia cannot expect to consolidate its gains in Debaltseve and avoid economic sanctions. Did Minister Lavrov offer you any assurances that Russia would arrange for the separatists to pull back from Debaltseve? And how long is the Obama Administration prepared to wait before imposing those additional sanctions you’ve been talking about? And did he have any response to your assertion to Congress last week that Russians have lied to your face?
And lastly, you’re meeting shortly with Foreign Minister Zarif on the Iran issues. You told Congress last week that you hoped to know soon, “whether or not Iran is willing to put together an acceptable and verifiable plan.” What do you need to hear from Mr. Zarif today, and what do you need to get done over the next three days to stay on track for the framework accord? Thank you.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, Michael, first of all regarding Russia, it’s clear from the conversations that I’ve had with President Poroshenko as well as with Foreign Minister Lavrov, and the conversations that we’ve had in Washington in the aftermath of the Minsk negotiations, that there was not a clarity with respect to Debaltseve, which we obviously saw play out in the drama of the soldiers who were left there and who were fighting and who eventually fought their way out, with many being killed. What is critical here is that the maps that were agreed to show several different areas of drawback on both sides from the line of contact and according to the size of the weapon, the gauge of a particular weapon, they have to pull back different amounts.
Right now, the OSCE has complained to us, at least, that they have not been granted full access to be able to make those judgments, and particularly the end zones as to where items that have been withdrawn have actually been placed, whether they’ve been placed there or not.
So there’s been a kind of cherry picking, a piecemeal selectivity to the application of the Minsk agreements. And as we all know, shooting, shelling has still been going on and people have still been killed over the course of these last days. So there is not yet a full ceasefire, and it’s extremely difficult for the full measure of the Minsk agreement, which includes a political component, to begin to be implemented until you actually have the full measure of security that comes with OSCE monitoring and an actual ceasefire. So our hope is that in the next hours, certainly not more than days, this will be fully implemented. I might add, a convoy that came through from Russia passed across the border into the eastern part of Ukraine without being properly inspected also.
So these are the issues I raised with the foreign minister. He assured me that they are intent on seeing to it that the accord – that the agreements are, in fact, implemented. He said he would get back to me with respect to a number of the issues that I raised. And our hope is, indeed, that this will prove to be a road to further de-escalation rather than a road to disappointment, potential deception, and further violence. But that’s going to have to play out, obviously, over the course of the next few days. So I’m very hopeful that it will, in fact, be the start of a change which would be an improvement for everybody.
With respect to Iran, I really just articulated – I just said it – France doesn’t have to answer questions here, Germany doesn’t have to answer questions here, Great Britain doesn’t have to, China doesn’t, Russia doesn’t, the United States doesn’t. We’re not the ones who have been pursuing a program outside of international norms. Iran has posed the questions over the course of time sufficient to invite United Nations sanctions, United Nations Security Council resolution, and IAEA outstanding questions. Iran needs to answer those questions and Iran needs to give confidence to the world that its many articulations of a peaceful program can have the confidence of verification. Every arms agreement in history has been subject to verification to clear levels of access and knowledge and insight, transparency, that allow people to be able to measure that program.
And one of the reasons I make it clear to people that we’re not going to accept a bad deal is because we know that whatever agreement is reached here doesn’t suddenly get stuffed in a drawer and put away and disappear to be implemented; it is going to be scrutinized by people all over the world – leaders of countries, scientists, nuclear experts, every NGO involved in nonproliferation – not to mention, obviously, all the countries in the region most affected by the choices we are making, and all of the members of the United States Congress House and Senate.
This is going to be highly judged and we’re aware of that, and frankly, we would be either – well, I’m not going to – we just – we’re not about to jump into something that we don’t believe can get the job done. Now, there may be disagreements; if somebody believes that any kind of program is wrong, then we have a fundamental disagreement. And clearly, sanctions are not going to eliminate just any kind of program. You can’t bomb knowledge into oblivion unless you kill everybody. You can’t bomb it away. People have a knowledge here. The question is: Can you provide an adequate level of the management of intrusive inspections; structured, tough requirements; limitations; all the insights necessary to be able to know to a certainty that the program is, in fact, peaceful?
That’s what the IAEA was set up to be there for, that’s what the NPT is, that’s what the additional protocol – the NPT is. There are all kinds of tested components of this. This isn’t happening at first blush. This has been in effect for a long time with a lot of countries, and there are ways to be able to make certain that a program is peaceful and the test – what we’re looking for in the next days, Michael, is adequate satisfaction that this program is, in fact, going to be complying with its own promises, that it is a purely peaceful nuclear program.
MS. PSAKI: Frédéric Koller from Le Temps.
QUESTION: Yes, thank you. You just said on Iran that sanctions cannot eliminate problems. And I would like to know – with the Ukrainian situation, it seems the conflict in Ukraine becomes more and more conflict between Russia and Western countries – Russia and United States. And I would like to know how to deal with these problems, knowing that United States threatens now Russia with more sanctions if the Minsk agreement is not implemented. And a few years ago, you were here in the – at the hotel – Intercontinental Hotel, and you started – well, it was Hillary Clinton at the time who started with this reset policy with Russia. What went wrong with Russia? And how to deal now with Russia? Comprehensive agreement somehow is needed between Russia and United States, I guess to deal with --
SECRETARY KERRY: How what? I’m sorry. I missed the last part. How to?
QUESTION: How to deal with Russia. We understand that Russia needs something more to build a new confidence with the United States and Western countries. When we hear Mr. Lavrov this morning at the Human Rights Council, he has very strong statement against United States and its values – it’s kind of clash of values. How to deal with today’s Russia?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, it may be a clash of realities. I don’t see it as a clash of values. It seems to me that on sanctions, there’s a real distinction between sanctions that are calculated to have an impact on a nuclear program which is one set of choices for a particular country, and sanctions which are broadly adopted by many nations because of a violation of a norm of international law and which particularly have an impact on the – particularly have an impact on Russia’s choices at this particular moment, given a lot of other variables like oil prices, other exigencies that Russia faces.
So sanctions have obviously had a significant impact on Russia, and you try to use them in order to make a point about the choices that are available. And in the case of Russia, the ruble has gone down 50 percent, there’s been about $151 billion of capital flight, the bonds of Russia are now judged to be junk bonds, and the economic predictions are that Russia will be going into recession this year. So it’s obviously had a profound impact, but not sufficient that President Putin has decided that he isn’t going to pursue his particular strategy. It may change at some point in the future, but those are the things you have to weigh in deciding what alternative policies you may pursue or what alternative choices may be available.
I suspect that President Putin, as the months go on, is going to have to really weigh those things. And we’ve tried to make it clear to him and particularly to the Russian people we’re not doing this to hurt the people of Russia, we’re not doing this to make life difficult for all Russians. We’re doing this to try to affect the choices that their leaders are making in order to uphold the norms of international law. We’re here in a UN facility, and the United Nations is critical to the upholding of international standards of behavior. And the world has worked hard since World War II to try to adhere to a set of global norms of behavior, particularly with respect to respect for territorial integrity.
One of the cries that came out of the World War II experience was we can’t allow nations to make land grabs running over the territorial integrity of external borders, as we saw in the period leading up to and then during World War II. So we’ve really ingrained in international behavior this notion of the value of international borders and of upholding the sovereignty and integrity of nation states. That sovereignty and integrity has been violated over the course of the last months, and that’s the purpose of the sanctions that we put in place.
But our hope is, obviously, that we can get back to a better place of cooperation with Russia. I personally – I think President Putin misinterprets a great deal of what the United States has been doing and has tried to do. We are not involved in multiple color revolutions, as he asserts, nor are we involved in a particularly personal way here. We are trying to uphold the international law with respect to the sovereignty and integrity of another nation. And others have joined us. The fact is that Europe has the same sense of commitment to this. And our hope is that we can persuade President Putin and Russia that we’re prepared to cooperate with them as soon as they are genuinely prepared to uphold the agreements that they signed and to live by these international standards.
We have happily been able to find cooperation continue on other issues. Russia has been helpful in the context of the P5+1 talks. Russia was extremely engaged and essential in our success in getting chemical weapons out of Syria in the arrangement that we reached right here in Geneva. And we were able to work together to do that. Russia is sitting with us even now, as I discussed with you, and talking about ways we might – might, I underscore – be able to try to make some progress with respect to Syria and with respect to Daesh.
So even in the midst of this major disagreement over Ukraine, we are still finding ways to cooperate together, and I hope that if we can work through Ukraine, we will get back to a place where we are finding more to be able to cooperate on and less to disagree on. And I’m not going to get into resets or non-resets, but I think that sometimes events get in the way of the best-laid policies. But both countries have indicated, I think, a maturity with respect to the willingness to try to find ways to cooperate notwithstanding this fundamental disagreement over Ukraine.
MS. PSAKI: Unfortunately, we need to get on the road for our next meeting, so this will conclude this press availability. Thank you, everyone.
Remarks at a Press Availability
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Palais des Nations
Geneva, Switzerland
March 2, 2015
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, good afternoon, everybody, and thank you. And I apologize for keeping you waiting for a few minutes.
A little while ago, as I think you know, I had the opportunity to address the UN Human Rights Council here in Geneva. And since the United States made the decision to re-engage on the council, we have worked hard to try to drive a number of significant steps to be able to bring new levels of international attention to some of the world’s most egregious human rights violations, and also to focus on some of the worst abusers – particularly, obviously, we have focused on North Korea and Syria.
We’ve also worked hard to try to create new mechanisms that explore and address serious human rights infringements on the freedom of assembly, expression, and religion, and the rights of LGBT people. And as many of you know, just the other day, I had the privilege of making the appointment for Randy Berry as the first special envoy for global LGBT rights for the State Department.
Because of the important progress that we have seen over the course of the past five years, the United States very much continues to believe in the potential of the Human Rights Council, and we’re dedicated to try to work for its success. At the same time, however, as I mentioned earlier, we recognize that there are places where it needs to improve, and most notably, as I cited earlier, has been the excessive bias, in our judgment, on one country, on Israel. So we wanted to make it clear today that we think that that is an impediment that stands in the way of the progress that should be achieved here when we look at the wide array of the world’s ills and the many challenges that we need to speak out on with respect to human rights.
I made it clear that the United States will oppose any effort by any group or any participant to abuse the UN system in order to delegitimize or isolate Israel. And we think it’s important that for the right – for the council to be able to achieve the breadth of goals that it is faced with – the breadth of the – to address the breadth of the challenges that it currently faces, it really needs to break out of an older mold and begin to put the time and energy and major focus on some of those most egregious situations. And that is really what has happened within the Council over the course of the last five years, particularly if you look at the commission of inquiry work that has been done with respect to the DPRK and other work it has done.
I also met this morning with Foreign Minister Lavrov. And we spent a fair amount of time discussing Syria, Ukraine, ISIS, and Iran. I reiterated the urgency of Russia’s leaders and the separatists that they back implementing the full measure of the commitments under the Minsk agreements and to implement them everywhere, including in Debaltseve, outside Mariupol, and in other key strategic areas. And I underscored this morning that if that does not happen, if there continue to be these broad swaths of noncompliance, or there continues to be a cherry-picking as to where heavy equipment will be moved back from without knowing where it’s been moved to, or if the OSCE is not able to adequately be able to gain the access necessary, then there would be inevitably further consequences that will place added strain on Russia’s already troubled economy. Now, obviously, Ukraine is just one of the issues, as I mentioned, that we focused on. And it’s only one of the issues, frankly, on which the United States and Russia together are focused.
This morning, Foreign Minister Lavrov and I also spoke at some length about Syria. The situation in Syria actually grows worse, if that’s possible for people to imagine. Almost three-quarters of the entire country is now displaced people – half of them refugees in mostly Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, but many of them displaced within the country and unable to move because of ISIL, Daesh, al-Nusrah, the regime, or some other extremist group.
So we spoke at length about steps that might be able to be taken in order to try to see if there is a potential of common ground. And we agreed that there is no military solution; we agreed there is a need for a political solution; and we agreed on the need of those countries who have been supporting people in this endeavor, in this conflict, to be able to search yet again to see whether or not there is a path either to Geneva 1 or to some hybrid or some means of ending the violence. And one of the things that drives that interest, that common interest, is the reality of Daesh, the reality of what is happening to Syria as a result of the presence of Daesh there and its use of Syria as a base for spreading its evil to other places.
We also talked about the Iran nuclear negotiations, where we are, together with the other P5+1 members – where we are all focused simultaneously on the need to elicit from Iran answers to questions about their nuclear program – not just answers for today, but answers that are capable of lasting well into the future in order to be able to provide people with a confidence that the program is, indeed, a peaceful nuclear program.
We continue to believe, all the members of the P5+1, that the best way to deal with the questions surrounding this nuclear program is to find a comprehensive deal, but not a deal that comes at any cost, not a deal just for the purpose of a deal; a deal that meets the test of providing the answers and the guarantees that are needed in order to know that the four pathways to a nuclear bomb have been closed off. And that is the task. And we hope it is possible to get there, but there is no guarantee.
Sanctions alone are not going to provide that solution. What needs to happen is that Iran needs to provide a verifiable set of commitments that its program is in fact peaceful. And that average people and experts alike looking at that verifiable set of commitments have confidence that they are sustainable, that they are real, and that they will provide the answers and guarantees well into the future.
Any deal must close every potential pathway that Iran has towards fissile material, whether it’s uranium, plutonium, or a covert path. The fact is only a good, comprehensive deal in the end can actually check off all of those boxes.
Now, I want to be clear about two things. Right now, no deal exists, no partial deal exists. And unless Iran is able to make the difficult decisions that will be required, there won’t be a deal. Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That is the standard by which this negotiation is taking place, and anyone who tells you otherwise is simply misinformed.
Now, we are concerned by reports that suggest selective details of the ongoing negotiations will be discussed publicly in the coming days. I want to say clearly that doing so would make it more difficult to reach the goal that Israel and others say they share in order to get a good deal. Israel’s security is absolutely at the forefront of all of our minds, but frankly, so is the security of all the other countries in the region, so is our security in the United States. And we are very clear that as we negotiate with Iran, if we are able to reach the kind of deal that we’re hoping for, then it would have to be considered in its entirety and measured against alternatives.
Second – I cannot emphasize this enough. I have said this from the first moment that I become engaged in this negotiating process, President Obama has said this repeatedly: We will not accept a bad deal. We have said no deal is better than a bad deal, because a bad deal could actually make things less secure and more dangerous. Any deal that we would possibly agree to would make the international community, and especially Israel, safer than it is today. That’s our standard. So our team is working very hard to close remaining gaps, to reach a deal that ensures Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively and verifiably peaceful, and we have made some progress, but we still have a long way to go and the clock is ticking.
That’s why I will leave here momentarily to head to Montreux to meet with Foreign Minister Zarif and continue the negotiations. And in the days and weeks ahead, we’re going to answer a very simple question. We’re going to find out whether or not Iran is willing to make the hard choices that are necessary to get where we need to be. I’m happy to take a few of your questions.
MS. PSAKI: Michael Gordon, New York Times. Right over here.
QUESTION: Sir, Minister Lavrov asserted in his address that the ceasefire in Ukraine was being consolidated, but you made clear that Russia cannot expect to consolidate its gains in Debaltseve and avoid economic sanctions. Did Minister Lavrov offer you any assurances that Russia would arrange for the separatists to pull back from Debaltseve? And how long is the Obama Administration prepared to wait before imposing those additional sanctions you’ve been talking about? And did he have any response to your assertion to Congress last week that Russians have lied to your face?
And lastly, you’re meeting shortly with Foreign Minister Zarif on the Iran issues. You told Congress last week that you hoped to know soon, “whether or not Iran is willing to put together an acceptable and verifiable plan.” What do you need to hear from Mr. Zarif today, and what do you need to get done over the next three days to stay on track for the framework accord? Thank you.
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, Michael, first of all regarding Russia, it’s clear from the conversations that I’ve had with President Poroshenko as well as with Foreign Minister Lavrov, and the conversations that we’ve had in Washington in the aftermath of the Minsk negotiations, that there was not a clarity with respect to Debaltseve, which we obviously saw play out in the drama of the soldiers who were left there and who were fighting and who eventually fought their way out, with many being killed. What is critical here is that the maps that were agreed to show several different areas of drawback on both sides from the line of contact and according to the size of the weapon, the gauge of a particular weapon, they have to pull back different amounts.
Right now, the OSCE has complained to us, at least, that they have not been granted full access to be able to make those judgments, and particularly the end zones as to where items that have been withdrawn have actually been placed, whether they’ve been placed there or not.
So there’s been a kind of cherry picking, a piecemeal selectivity to the application of the Minsk agreements. And as we all know, shooting, shelling has still been going on and people have still been killed over the course of these last days. So there is not yet a full ceasefire, and it’s extremely difficult for the full measure of the Minsk agreement, which includes a political component, to begin to be implemented until you actually have the full measure of security that comes with OSCE monitoring and an actual ceasefire. So our hope is that in the next hours, certainly not more than days, this will be fully implemented. I might add, a convoy that came through from Russia passed across the border into the eastern part of Ukraine without being properly inspected also.
So these are the issues I raised with the foreign minister. He assured me that they are intent on seeing to it that the accord – that the agreements are, in fact, implemented. He said he would get back to me with respect to a number of the issues that I raised. And our hope is, indeed, that this will prove to be a road to further de-escalation rather than a road to disappointment, potential deception, and further violence. But that’s going to have to play out, obviously, over the course of the next few days. So I’m very hopeful that it will, in fact, be the start of a change which would be an improvement for everybody.
With respect to Iran, I really just articulated – I just said it – France doesn’t have to answer questions here, Germany doesn’t have to answer questions here, Great Britain doesn’t have to, China doesn’t, Russia doesn’t, the United States doesn’t. We’re not the ones who have been pursuing a program outside of international norms. Iran has posed the questions over the course of time sufficient to invite United Nations sanctions, United Nations Security Council resolution, and IAEA outstanding questions. Iran needs to answer those questions and Iran needs to give confidence to the world that its many articulations of a peaceful program can have the confidence of verification. Every arms agreement in history has been subject to verification to clear levels of access and knowledge and insight, transparency, that allow people to be able to measure that program.
And one of the reasons I make it clear to people that we’re not going to accept a bad deal is because we know that whatever agreement is reached here doesn’t suddenly get stuffed in a drawer and put away and disappear to be implemented; it is going to be scrutinized by people all over the world – leaders of countries, scientists, nuclear experts, every NGO involved in nonproliferation – not to mention, obviously, all the countries in the region most affected by the choices we are making, and all of the members of the United States Congress House and Senate.
This is going to be highly judged and we’re aware of that, and frankly, we would be either – well, I’m not going to – we just – we’re not about to jump into something that we don’t believe can get the job done. Now, there may be disagreements; if somebody believes that any kind of program is wrong, then we have a fundamental disagreement. And clearly, sanctions are not going to eliminate just any kind of program. You can’t bomb knowledge into oblivion unless you kill everybody. You can’t bomb it away. People have a knowledge here. The question is: Can you provide an adequate level of the management of intrusive inspections; structured, tough requirements; limitations; all the insights necessary to be able to know to a certainty that the program is, in fact, peaceful?
That’s what the IAEA was set up to be there for, that’s what the NPT is, that’s what the additional protocol – the NPT is. There are all kinds of tested components of this. This isn’t happening at first blush. This has been in effect for a long time with a lot of countries, and there are ways to be able to make certain that a program is peaceful and the test – what we’re looking for in the next days, Michael, is adequate satisfaction that this program is, in fact, going to be complying with its own promises, that it is a purely peaceful nuclear program.
MS. PSAKI: Frédéric Koller from Le Temps.
QUESTION: Yes, thank you. You just said on Iran that sanctions cannot eliminate problems. And I would like to know – with the Ukrainian situation, it seems the conflict in Ukraine becomes more and more conflict between Russia and Western countries – Russia and United States. And I would like to know how to deal with these problems, knowing that United States threatens now Russia with more sanctions if the Minsk agreement is not implemented. And a few years ago, you were here in the – at the hotel – Intercontinental Hotel, and you started – well, it was Hillary Clinton at the time who started with this reset policy with Russia. What went wrong with Russia? And how to deal now with Russia? Comprehensive agreement somehow is needed between Russia and United States, I guess to deal with --
SECRETARY KERRY: How what? I’m sorry. I missed the last part. How to?
QUESTION: How to deal with Russia. We understand that Russia needs something more to build a new confidence with the United States and Western countries. When we hear Mr. Lavrov this morning at the Human Rights Council, he has very strong statement against United States and its values – it’s kind of clash of values. How to deal with today’s Russia?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, it may be a clash of realities. I don’t see it as a clash of values. It seems to me that on sanctions, there’s a real distinction between sanctions that are calculated to have an impact on a nuclear program which is one set of choices for a particular country, and sanctions which are broadly adopted by many nations because of a violation of a norm of international law and which particularly have an impact on the – particularly have an impact on Russia’s choices at this particular moment, given a lot of other variables like oil prices, other exigencies that Russia faces.
So sanctions have obviously had a significant impact on Russia, and you try to use them in order to make a point about the choices that are available. And in the case of Russia, the ruble has gone down 50 percent, there’s been about $151 billion of capital flight, the bonds of Russia are now judged to be junk bonds, and the economic predictions are that Russia will be going into recession this year. So it’s obviously had a profound impact, but not sufficient that President Putin has decided that he isn’t going to pursue his particular strategy. It may change at some point in the future, but those are the things you have to weigh in deciding what alternative policies you may pursue or what alternative choices may be available.
I suspect that President Putin, as the months go on, is going to have to really weigh those things. And we’ve tried to make it clear to him and particularly to the Russian people we’re not doing this to hurt the people of Russia, we’re not doing this to make life difficult for all Russians. We’re doing this to try to affect the choices that their leaders are making in order to uphold the norms of international law. We’re here in a UN facility, and the United Nations is critical to the upholding of international standards of behavior. And the world has worked hard since World War II to try to adhere to a set of global norms of behavior, particularly with respect to respect for territorial integrity.
One of the cries that came out of the World War II experience was we can’t allow nations to make land grabs running over the territorial integrity of external borders, as we saw in the period leading up to and then during World War II. So we’ve really ingrained in international behavior this notion of the value of international borders and of upholding the sovereignty and integrity of nation states. That sovereignty and integrity has been violated over the course of the last months, and that’s the purpose of the sanctions that we put in place.
But our hope is, obviously, that we can get back to a better place of cooperation with Russia. I personally – I think President Putin misinterprets a great deal of what the United States has been doing and has tried to do. We are not involved in multiple color revolutions, as he asserts, nor are we involved in a particularly personal way here. We are trying to uphold the international law with respect to the sovereignty and integrity of another nation. And others have joined us. The fact is that Europe has the same sense of commitment to this. And our hope is that we can persuade President Putin and Russia that we’re prepared to cooperate with them as soon as they are genuinely prepared to uphold the agreements that they signed and to live by these international standards.
We have happily been able to find cooperation continue on other issues. Russia has been helpful in the context of the P5+1 talks. Russia was extremely engaged and essential in our success in getting chemical weapons out of Syria in the arrangement that we reached right here in Geneva. And we were able to work together to do that. Russia is sitting with us even now, as I discussed with you, and talking about ways we might – might, I underscore – be able to try to make some progress with respect to Syria and with respect to Daesh.
So even in the midst of this major disagreement over Ukraine, we are still finding ways to cooperate together, and I hope that if we can work through Ukraine, we will get back to a place where we are finding more to be able to cooperate on and less to disagree on. And I’m not going to get into resets or non-resets, but I think that sometimes events get in the way of the best-laid policies. But both countries have indicated, I think, a maturity with respect to the willingness to try to find ways to cooperate notwithstanding this fundamental disagreement over Ukraine.
MS. PSAKI: Unfortunately, we need to get on the road for our next meeting, so this will conclude this press availability. Thank you, everyone.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
SWISS TAX EVASION ENABLER PLEADS GUILTY
FROM: U.S. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Swiss Offshore Tax Evasion Enabler Pleads Guilty
“Today’s plea further pulls back the curtain on efforts by Swiss banks to help U.S. taxpayers evade taxes through the use of sham trusts and foundations,” said Deputy Attorney General Cole. “Rest assured, the days of bank secrecy for U.S. tax cheats in Switzerland – and around the world – are numbered.”
“This plea sends a strong message to those who use or help others use offshore bank accounts to evade U.S. taxes,” said Assistant Attorney General Keneally. “We are receiving information from a variety of sources and are committed to investigating and prosecuting this wrongdoing.”
“We will continue to investigate and prosecute banks and individuals who assist U.S. citizens in the evasion of income taxes with overseas accounts,” said U.S. Attorney Boente. “The doors are quickly closing on this illegal activity.”
“Assisting American taxpayers to evade their tax obligations with the use of secret bank accounts held in sham entities violates the law, and we will find those who are doing it,” said Chief of IRS-Criminal Investigation Richard Weber. “IRS-CI will pursue those who use anonymous offshore accounts to avoid paying their fair share. IRS Criminal Investigation is proud to have shared our hallmark expertise in following the money trail in this and other increasingly sophisticated criminal schemes.”
In a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, Dörig admitted that between 1997 and 2011, while owning and operating a trust company, he engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to aid and assist U.S. customers in evading their income taxes by concealing assets and income in secret bank accounts held in the names of sham entities at a financial institution referred to in the superseding indictment as International Bank (IB), one of the biggest banks in Switzerland and one of the largest wealth managers in the world.
According to the statement of facts, from 1972 to 1996, Dörig worked for a subsidiary of IB. The subsidiary formed, managed and maintained nominee tax haven entities. Individuals concealed their assets by holding their accounts at IB in the names of these tax haven entities. During this time, the subsidiary managed and maintained over 100 sham entities for U.S. taxpayers committing tax evasion.
Also included in the statement of facts, in 1997, executives at the subsidiary devised a plan to spin off all of these sham entities into a new trust company, Dörig Partner AG, to be owned and operated by Dörig, who was then an employee of the subsidiary. Dörig was required to make his best efforts to keep the existing accounts at IB open and to ensure that any clients referred to him by IB would open new accounts at that institution.
According to the statement of facts, IB promoted Dörig Partner as a provider of various entity structures. The phone list used in IB’s New York representative office identified Dörig Partner as an external trust expert. Dörig Partner also sublet space from IB in an office tower where a private bank owned by IB was the major tenant.
As part of the conspiracy, Dörig traveled to the United States to introduce himself to new clients he had obtained as part of the spin-off. In the following years, he traveled to the United States with bankers from IB, including his co-defendants Markus Walder, Marco Parenti-Adami and Michele Bergantino, to meet with existing and prospective clients who already had undeclared accounts at IB but had been identified by the IB’s bankers as potential candidates for the use of a structure.
According to the statement of facts, although Dörig ostensibly controlled both the structure and the account at IB, in practice, many of the U.S. taxpayers with undeclared accounts controlled the assets in those accounts by dealing directly with IB bankers, often without either the knowledge or consent of Dörig.
According to the statement of facts, in 2008, IB ordered Dörig Partner to close accounts for the structures they managed. Dörig turned to an asset manager at a financial services firm in Zurich for assistance. The financial services firm maintained a master account in its own name at a private bank in Gibraltar, and then opened sub-accounts for Dörig’s clients at that bank to which Dörig transferred the funds from the clients’ undeclared accounts at IB. The financial services firm provided the Gibraltar bank only with the number associated with each sub-account and did not inform the bank of any information regarding the owners of the assets in the sub-accounts.
This case is being investigated by IRS-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark D. Lytle and Trial Attorneys Mark F. Daly and Nanette L. Davis of the Tax Division are prosecuting the case.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
READOUT: VP BIDEN'S MEETING WITH DIDIER BURKHALTER, PRESIDENT OF SWISS CONFEDERATION
FROM: THE WHITE HOUSE
Readout of Vice President Biden’s Meeting with President of the Swiss Confederation and Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Didier Burkhalter
Vice President Biden met today with the President of the Swiss Confederation and Chairperson-in-Office for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Didier Burkhalter, to discuss regional and bilateral issues of concern. The two leaders consulted on the current situation in Ukraine, including what support the United States and the OSCE could offer to help return the country to peace and stability, to ensure justice and accountability, and to strengthen democratic institutions as Ukrainians chart their future course. The Vice President praised the strong and important friendship between our two countries and expressed deep appreciation for Switzerland’s continued protection of U.S. interests in Iran and Cuba. The Vice President and President Burkhalter discussed opportunities for continued cooperation across our shared agenda, including on non-proliferation, countering violent extremism, development and humanitarian assistance. Finally, given shared interest in strengthening workforce skills, the Vice President and President Burkhalter discussed vocational and other job skills training efforts in both countries.
Readout of Vice President Biden’s Meeting with President of the Swiss Confederation and Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Didier Burkhalter
Vice President Biden met today with the President of the Swiss Confederation and Chairperson-in-Office for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Didier Burkhalter, to discuss regional and bilateral issues of concern. The two leaders consulted on the current situation in Ukraine, including what support the United States and the OSCE could offer to help return the country to peace and stability, to ensure justice and accountability, and to strengthen democratic institutions as Ukrainians chart their future course. The Vice President praised the strong and important friendship between our two countries and expressed deep appreciation for Switzerland’s continued protection of U.S. interests in Iran and Cuba. The Vice President and President Burkhalter discussed opportunities for continued cooperation across our shared agenda, including on non-proliferation, countering violent extremism, development and humanitarian assistance. Finally, given shared interest in strengthening workforce skills, the Vice President and President Burkhalter discussed vocational and other job skills training efforts in both countries.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
ROSE GOTTEMOELLER'S REMARKS AT UN CONFERENCE ON DISARMAMENT
FROM: STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks to the UN Conference on Disarmament
Remarks
Rose Gottemoeller
Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security
Geneva, Switzerland
February 4, 2014
As Delivered
Mr. President, Acting Secretary-General Moeller, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the Conference on Disarmament. To start, I would like to congratulate Israel and Ambassador Manor and his team on assuming the first Presidency of the 2014 CD session, and to thank them for their very dedicated efforts in guiding our deliberations. I would also like to extend our best wishes to the other CD Presidents for 2014 – Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, and Malaysia. We look forward to working with all of you in the year ahead.
In his January 21 remarks to the Conference, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke about the importance of substantive discussion in laying groundwork for future CD negotiations. The United States believes it is crucial for the CD to adopt a program of work, but we also believe we must continue to engage substantively with one another – both about the disarmament steps we are taking and the steps we hope to take next – as we work to break this body’s impasse.
As colleagues here are well aware, we stand ready to begin negotiations on an FMCT, the next logical – and necessary – step in creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons. It has been frustrating to watch the CD remain deadlocked over this issue, but negotiation of an FMCT is an essential prerequisite for global nuclear disarmament. In recognition of this fact, Action 15 of the 2010 NPT Review Conference Action Plan included an agreement that the CD should begin immediate negotiation of an FMCT. The United States will continue to urge negotiation of an FMCT in this body, convinced that FMCT negotiations at the CD will provide each member state the ability not only to protect, but also to enhance its national security. With that as our guiding conviction, we look forward to engaging fully in the upcoming meetings of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), with a view to providing further impetus to long-sought FMCT negotiations in the CD.
As disappointed as we are that a Program of Work for the CD remains elusive, we are not standing still. The United States has slashed its nuclear stockpile by 85% from Cold War levels. Under the New START Treaty, US and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads will decline to their lowest levels in over half a century. Recently, the US-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Purchase Agreement culminated with the final shipment of low enriched uranium converted from the equivalent of 20,000 dismantled Russian nuclear warheads to fuel US nuclear reactors. Those former warheads have been providing ten percent of all US electricity. One in ten light bulbs in the U.S. are lit by former Soviet weapon material
Historic efforts like this one reflect the ongoing and significant progress we are making toward our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Article VI commitments. Here I would add that there are no shortcuts to reaching our shared goal of a world without nuclear weapons. It is necessarily an incremental process that requires hard work by governments operating in the realm of supreme national and international security commitments impacting regional and global stability. The United States is expending tremendous effort to meet its commitments, and we look forward to continuing to engage the Russian Federation regarding issues of strategic stability and with a view to achieving further bilateral reductions.
Like many of you, we are preparing for the upcoming meeting of the NPT Third Preparatory Committee, where we look forward to discussing the important roles both nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states play in implementing the 2010 Action Plan, in anticipation of the 2015 NPT Review Conference. We are also preparing for the fifth P5 Conference, which we thank China for hosting this year.
The United States attaches great value to the P5 process. I like to stress, the importance of the P5 process is not what it can produce in the immediate-term, but rather what it means for the prospects of multilateral nuclear disarmament efforts in years to come. These conferences are an essential means for laying the foundation for future agreements that could involve parties beyond the United States and Russia. Most people understand that we and Russia likely will need to take some additional bilateral steps before our arsenals are to a level where other nuclear weapon states would be prepared to join us at the negotiating table. The work we are doing now in these conferences will help to ensure that when that day arrives, we will not be starting at square one. Our partners will have the opportunity to benefit from the experience we have gained and shared regarding how monitoring activities like on-site inspections can be conducted to gain an understanding about the technology required to conduct arms control activities and methods of information sharing that build confidence that treaty partners are adhering to the agreement.
We also hope this process will lead to cooperative work in addressing the significant verification challenges we will face as we move to lower numbers and categories of nuclear weapons beyond strategic weapons. The United States and the UK have begun some of this work on developing verification procedures and technologies, and we have briefed our P5 partners on the results. The P5 are uniquely positioned to engage in such research and development given their experience as nuclear weapon states. In the context of a P5 working group chaired by China, we continue to develop a common glossary of nuclear weapons-related terms. A glossary may not sound important or interesting, until you consider that verifiable multilateral nuclear disarmament will require clear agreement on the definitions and concepts for the vital aspects that must be covered in future treaties.
We continue to work to build support for ratification of the CTBT, making the case to our citizens and legislators that the Treaty will serve to enhance our collective security. We ask for the support of the international community in continuing to build and maintain the International Monitoring System and On-Site Inspection regime. As we make the case for the Treaty’s verifiability, this support will be crucial.
These are just a few of the practical measures we are taking to advance toward our shared goal. We celebrate the progress these step-by-step efforts have achieved, but we know we still have much work to do. We remain committed to fulfilling our obligations and working to take additional practical and meaningful steps. Like UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the United States agrees the CD continues to possess promise. It must surmount its deadlock regarding a Program of Work, and in pursuit f that goal the United States is open to renewing the Informal Working Group. At the same time, we believe that CD member states should foster substantive discussions aimed at future progress, with a view to promoting the prospects for work on issues ripe for negotiation, above all, an FMCT. Like the Secretary General, we hope the CD helps to build “a safer world and a better future” because we also believe “that is its very mission.” Thank you.
Remarks to the UN Conference on Disarmament
Remarks
Rose Gottemoeller
Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security
Geneva, Switzerland
February 4, 2014
As Delivered
Mr. President, Acting Secretary-General Moeller, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address the Conference on Disarmament. To start, I would like to congratulate Israel and Ambassador Manor and his team on assuming the first Presidency of the 2014 CD session, and to thank them for their very dedicated efforts in guiding our deliberations. I would also like to extend our best wishes to the other CD Presidents for 2014 – Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, and Malaysia. We look forward to working with all of you in the year ahead.
In his January 21 remarks to the Conference, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke about the importance of substantive discussion in laying groundwork for future CD negotiations. The United States believes it is crucial for the CD to adopt a program of work, but we also believe we must continue to engage substantively with one another – both about the disarmament steps we are taking and the steps we hope to take next – as we work to break this body’s impasse.
As colleagues here are well aware, we stand ready to begin negotiations on an FMCT, the next logical – and necessary – step in creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons. It has been frustrating to watch the CD remain deadlocked over this issue, but negotiation of an FMCT is an essential prerequisite for global nuclear disarmament. In recognition of this fact, Action 15 of the 2010 NPT Review Conference Action Plan included an agreement that the CD should begin immediate negotiation of an FMCT. The United States will continue to urge negotiation of an FMCT in this body, convinced that FMCT negotiations at the CD will provide each member state the ability not only to protect, but also to enhance its national security. With that as our guiding conviction, we look forward to engaging fully in the upcoming meetings of the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE), with a view to providing further impetus to long-sought FMCT negotiations in the CD.
As disappointed as we are that a Program of Work for the CD remains elusive, we are not standing still. The United States has slashed its nuclear stockpile by 85% from Cold War levels. Under the New START Treaty, US and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads will decline to their lowest levels in over half a century. Recently, the US-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Purchase Agreement culminated with the final shipment of low enriched uranium converted from the equivalent of 20,000 dismantled Russian nuclear warheads to fuel US nuclear reactors. Those former warheads have been providing ten percent of all US electricity. One in ten light bulbs in the U.S. are lit by former Soviet weapon material
Historic efforts like this one reflect the ongoing and significant progress we are making toward our Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Article VI commitments. Here I would add that there are no shortcuts to reaching our shared goal of a world without nuclear weapons. It is necessarily an incremental process that requires hard work by governments operating in the realm of supreme national and international security commitments impacting regional and global stability. The United States is expending tremendous effort to meet its commitments, and we look forward to continuing to engage the Russian Federation regarding issues of strategic stability and with a view to achieving further bilateral reductions.
Like many of you, we are preparing for the upcoming meeting of the NPT Third Preparatory Committee, where we look forward to discussing the important roles both nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states play in implementing the 2010 Action Plan, in anticipation of the 2015 NPT Review Conference. We are also preparing for the fifth P5 Conference, which we thank China for hosting this year.
The United States attaches great value to the P5 process. I like to stress, the importance of the P5 process is not what it can produce in the immediate-term, but rather what it means for the prospects of multilateral nuclear disarmament efforts in years to come. These conferences are an essential means for laying the foundation for future agreements that could involve parties beyond the United States and Russia. Most people understand that we and Russia likely will need to take some additional bilateral steps before our arsenals are to a level where other nuclear weapon states would be prepared to join us at the negotiating table. The work we are doing now in these conferences will help to ensure that when that day arrives, we will not be starting at square one. Our partners will have the opportunity to benefit from the experience we have gained and shared regarding how monitoring activities like on-site inspections can be conducted to gain an understanding about the technology required to conduct arms control activities and methods of information sharing that build confidence that treaty partners are adhering to the agreement.
We also hope this process will lead to cooperative work in addressing the significant verification challenges we will face as we move to lower numbers and categories of nuclear weapons beyond strategic weapons. The United States and the UK have begun some of this work on developing verification procedures and technologies, and we have briefed our P5 partners on the results. The P5 are uniquely positioned to engage in such research and development given their experience as nuclear weapon states. In the context of a P5 working group chaired by China, we continue to develop a common glossary of nuclear weapons-related terms. A glossary may not sound important or interesting, until you consider that verifiable multilateral nuclear disarmament will require clear agreement on the definitions and concepts for the vital aspects that must be covered in future treaties.
We continue to work to build support for ratification of the CTBT, making the case to our citizens and legislators that the Treaty will serve to enhance our collective security. We ask for the support of the international community in continuing to build and maintain the International Monitoring System and On-Site Inspection regime. As we make the case for the Treaty’s verifiability, this support will be crucial.
These are just a few of the practical measures we are taking to advance toward our shared goal. We celebrate the progress these step-by-step efforts have achieved, but we know we still have much work to do. We remain committed to fulfilling our obligations and working to take additional practical and meaningful steps. Like UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the United States agrees the CD continues to possess promise. It must surmount its deadlock regarding a Program of Work, and in pursuit f that goal the United States is open to renewing the Informal Working Group. At the same time, we believe that CD member states should foster substantive discussions aimed at future progress, with a view to promoting the prospects for work on issues ripe for negotiation, above all, an FMCT. Like the Secretary General, we hope the CD helps to build “a safer world and a better future” because we also believe “that is its very mission.” Thank you.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY MAKES REMARKS AFTER P5+1 TALKS
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Press Availability After P5+1 Talks
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Geneva, Switzerland
November 24, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, good very early morning to all of you. It’s been a long day and a long night, and I’m delighted to be here to share some thoughts with you about the recent negotiations. I particularly want to thank the Swiss Government. I want to thank the United Nations. It’s been a (inaudible) and we’re honored to be here, even at this very early hour of the morning. I particularly want to thank my colleagues from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, China, and especially Lady Cathy Ashton, who is not only a good friend but a persistent and dogged negotiator and somebody who’s been staying at this for a long period of time. And we’re very grateful for her stewardship of these negotiations.
And if I can take a moment, I really want to thank the team from the United States. There have been a great many people involved in this effort for a long period of time now, both here in Switzerland with us now, but also back in the United States, and they know who they are. But I will single out our Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who has been a dogged, unbelievably patient hand and a skillful hand, and she has helped through long and arduous months – years of stewardship of our part of this within the P5+1, and I’m very grateful to her for those long efforts and all of her team.
At the United Nations General Assembly in September, President Obama asked me and our team to work with our partners in order to pursue a negotiated settlement or solution with respect to the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Last month, the P5+1 entered into a more accelerated negotiation after a number of years of meetings in various parts of the world and efforts to engage Iran in serious negotiations. The purpose of this is very simple: to require Iran to prove the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and to ensure that it cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. And the reason for this is very clear. The United Nations Security Council found that they were not in compliance with the NPT or other IAEA and other standards. And obviously, activities such as a secret, multi-centrifuge mountain hideaway, which was being used for enrichment, raised many people’s questions, which is why ultimately sanctions were put in place.
Today, we are taking a serious step toward answering all of those important questions that have been raised through the United Nations Security Council, through the IAEA, and by individual countries. And we are taking those steps with an agreement that impedes the progress in a very dramatic way of Iran’s principal enrichment facilities and parts of its program, and ensures they cannot advance in a way that will threaten our friends in the region, threaten other countries, threaten the world. The fact is that if this step – first step – leads to what is our ultimate goal, which is a comprehensive agreement that will make the world safer. This first step, I want to emphasize, actually rolls back the program from where it is today, enlarges the breakout time, which would not have occurred unless this agreement existed. It will make our partners in the region safer. It will make our ally Israel safer. This has been a difficult and a prolonged process. It’s been difficult for us, and it’s been difficult for our allies, and it’s obviously been difficult for the Government of Iran. The next phase, let me be clear, will be even more difficult, and we need to be honest about it. But it will also be even more consequential.
And while we obviously have profound differences with Iran yet to be resolved, the fact is that this agreement could not have been reached without the decision of the Iranian Government to come to the table and negotiate. And I want to say tonight that Foreign Minister Zarif worked hard, deliberated hard, and we are obviously, we believe, better that the decision was made to come here than not to, and to work hard to reach an agreement. And we thank the Foreign Minister for those efforts.
Together now, we need to set about the critical task of proving to the world what Iran has said many times – that its program is in fact peaceful. Now, with this first step, we have created the time and the space in order to be able to pursue a comprehensive agreement that would finish the work that President Obama began on the very first day in office, and that is to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. President Obama worked intensively and his Administration worked intensively before I even came in; when I was in the Congress and voted for sanctions, the President worked in order to put in place a significant sanctions regime, an unprecedented regime. And he worked with countries around the world in order to ensure broad participation and support for these sanctions. That has been essential to the success of these sanctions. And we believe that it is the sanctions that have brought us to this negotiation and ultimately to the more significant negotiation to follow for a comprehensive agreement.
Make no mistakes, and I ask you, don’t interpret that the sanctions were an end unto themselves. They weren’t. The goal of the sanctions was always to have a negotiation. And that is precisely what is now taking place, and that negotiation’s goal is to secure a strong and verifiable agreement that guarantees the peacefulness of Iran’s nuclear program. For more than 40 years, the international community has been united in its willingness to negotiate in good faith. And we have been particularly crystal clear that we will do whatever is necessary in order to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. We have also said that we prefer a peaceful solution, a peaceful path for Iran to respond to the international community’s concerns. And as a result of those efforts, we took the first step today to move down that path.
The measures that we have committed to will remain in place for six months, and they will address the most urgent concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Since there have been many premature and even misleading reports, I want to clearly outline what this first step entails. First, it locks the most critical components of a nuclear program into place and impedes progress in those critical components in a way that actually rolls back the stockpile of enriched uranium and widens the length of time possible for breakout. That makes people safer. With daily access – we will gain daily access to key facilities. And that will enable us to determine more quickly and with greater certainty than ever before that Iran is complying. Here’s how we do that: Iran has agreed to suspend all enrichment of uranium above 5 percent. Iran has agreed to dilute or convert its entire stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium.
So let me make clear what that means. That means that whereas Iran today has about 200 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, they could readily be enriched towards a nuclear weapon. In six months, Iran will have zero – zero. Iran will not increase its stockpile of 3.5 percent lower-enriched uranium over the next six months, and it will not construct additional enrichment facilities. Iran will not manufacture centrifuges beyond those that are broken and must be replaced. Very importantly, Iran will not commission or fuel the Arak reactor – Arak, A-r-a-k, reactor – an unfinished facility, that if it became operational would provide Iran with an alternative plutonium path to a nuclear weapon.
And to ensure that these commitments are met, Iran has agreed to submit its program to unprecedented monitoring. For the international community, this first step will provide the most far-reaching insight and view of Iran’s nuclear program that the international community has ever had. This first step – let me be clear. This first step does not say that Iran has a right to enrichment. No matter what interpretive comments are made, it is not in this document. There is no right to enrich within the four corners of the NPT. And this document does not do that. Rather, the scope and role of Iran’s enrichment, as is set forth in the language within this document, says that Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is subject to a negotiation and to mutual agreement. And it can only be by mutual agreement that enrichment might or might not be able to be decided on in the course of negotiations.
So what is on the other side of the ledger here? Again, there have been a number of premature reports and reactions, so I want to be clear about what this step provides, this first step, and what it doesn’t provide. In return for the significant steps that Iran will take that I just listed – and there are more, incidentally, than I just listed; those are the principal – the international community will provide Iran with relief that is limited and, perhaps most importantly, reversible. The main elements of this relief would hold Iran’s oil sales steady and permit it to repatriate $4.2 billion from those sales. And that would otherwise be destined for an overseas account restricted by our sanctions. In addition, we will suspend certain sanctions on imports of gold and precious metals, Iran’s auto sector, and Iran’s petrochemical exports, potentially – potentially – providing Iran with about $1.5 billion in additional export revenues.
For the benefit of the Iranian people, we will also facilitate humanitarian transactions that are already allowed by U.S. law. No U.S. law will be changed. Nothing will have to be different. In fact, the sanctions laws specifically exempt humanitarian assistance. So this channel will not provide Iran any new source of funds, but we will help them in order to try to provide the people of Iran with additional assistance. It simply improves access to goods that were never intended to be denied to the Iranian people.
Now, I want to emphasize the core sanctions architecture that President Obama, together with allies and friends around the world, have put together, that core architecture remains firmly in place through these six months, including with respect to oil and financial services. To put this number in perspective, during this six-month phase, the oil sanctions that will remain in place will continue to cause over 25 billion in lost revenues to Iran, or over $4 billion a month. That is compared to what Iran earned before this took effect – the sanctions. And while Iran will get access to the 4.2 billion that I talked about of the restricted oil revenues, 14 to 16 billion of its sales during this period will be locked up and out of reach.
Together with our partners, we are committed to maintaining our commitment to vigorously enforcing the vast majority of the sanctions that are currently in place. Again, let me repeat: This is only the first step. But it is a first step that guarantees while you take the second step and move towards a comprehensive agreement, Iran’s fundamentals of its program are not able to progress – Fordow, Natanz, Arak, and other centrifuge and other things that matter. So that is a critical first step.
And I will say to all of you that as we conclude this first round of negotiation, with the beginning of the possibility of a much broader accomplishment down the road, it is our responsibility to be as firmly committed to diplomacy and as relentless in our resolve over the years as we have been to bring the concerted pressure that brought us to this moment. For the Iranian Government, it’s their responsibility to recognize that this first phase is a very simple test. Many times, Iran, I think you heard the Foreign Minister here tonight reiterate, that they have a peaceful program and that’s their only intention. Folks, it is not hard to prove peaceful intent if that’s what you want to do. We are anxious to try to make certain that this deal ultimately will do exactly that – prove it.
And I will just say finally, I know that there are those who will assert that this deal is imperfect. Well, they too bear a responsibility, and that is to tell people what the better alternative is. Some might say we should simply continue to increase pressure – just turn up the screws, continue to put sanctions on, and somehow that’s going to push Iran towards capitulation or collapse. Not by any interpretation that we have from all the experts and all of the input that we have, and from all of the countries – the P5+1 – that took place in this today, none of them believe that would be the outcome.
Instead, we believe that while we are engaged in that effort, Iran’s program would actually march forward. It would gain. And while it gains, it would become more dangerous in the region and countries like Israel and the Emirates, other people in the region who are threatened, would in fact be more threatened.
So we believe that you would wind up with an Iran with bigger stockpiles, with more advanced centrifuges and more progress at pursuing a plutonium track. And President Obama believes that doesn’t benefit anybody.
In 1973 – 19 – excuse me, in 2003, when the Iranians made an offer to the former Administration with respect to their nuclear program, there were 164 centrifuges. That offer was not taken. Subsequently, sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing. So people have a responsibility to make a judgment about this choice. And I am comfortable, as is President Obama, that we have made the right choice for how you proceed to get a complete agreement.
Moreover, making sanctions the sum total of our policy will not strengthen the international coalition that we have built in order to bring Iran to the negotiating table. Instead, it would actually weaken that coalition, and many people believe that to merely continue at a time where Iran says, “We’re prepared to negotiate,” would in fact break up the current sanctions regime. Others argue for military action as a first resort. Well, President Obama and I do not share a belief that war is a permanent solution, and it should never be the first option. Instead, that particular option involves enormous risks in many different ways, and as President Obama has often said, while that option remains available to us – and the President will not take it off the table – he believes that that can only be entertained after we have made every effort to resolve the dispute through diplomacy, barring some immediate emergency that requires a different response.
So I close by saying to all of you that the singular objective that brought us to Geneva remains our singular objective as we leave Geneva, and that is to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. In that singular object, we are resolute. Foreign Minister Zarif emphasized that they don’t intent to do this, and the Supreme Leader has indicated there is a fatwa, which forbids them to do this. We want to see the process put in place by which all of that is proven, not through words but with actions. And we are prepared to work in good faith, with mutual respect, to work in a way as we did in the last days – cordially, with an atmosphere that was respectful, even as it was tough, as we move towards the process of making certain that this threat will be eliminated. In that singular object, we are absolutely resolute, and in that mission, we are absolutely committed, and in that endeavor, we will do everything in our power to be able to succeed.
On that note, I’m happy to answer a couple of questions.
MODERATOR: The first question will be from Anne Gearan of The Washington Post.
SECRETARY KERRY: Anne, hi.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you started with your – about (inaudible) who want this on Iran, and you’re opposed for what it will do on a sort of a technical level. I would hope that you might just take a moment and reflect on what this agreement may mean or signify longer term or in a larger sense. And this is – you just came through several months that represent the first time that a diplomatic level from the United States and one from Iran sat together and talked about anything, much less something of this moment. What is your view and what is your hope for the next steps as far as the U.S. relationship with Iran will be?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I – the – obviously it is not insignificant, nor does it just fly be me, nor the President, who took great risks in committing on this and making certain that we would proceed forward with this endeavor. It’s no small thing, I think, that since 1979, for about 34 years, Iran and the United States have not been able to talk to each other. And there’s been enormous buildup of suspicion and an enormous buildup of animosity, and there have been moments here and there where there might have been some kind of minor assistance one way or the other. For instance, when we went into Afghanistan in 2001, there actually was some assistance back home (inaudible) from Iran. So there have been these moments.
But I think by and large, it is fair to say that Iran’s choices have created a very significant barrier, and huge security concerns for our friends in the region, for Israel, for Gulf states and others, and obviously they have made certain choices that are deeply, profoundly unsettling in terms of stability in the region and the possibility of anything except our focus on (inaudible). It’s too early for us to talk about other things. It’s just not right. Obviously, one would hope that Iran will make choices that it will rejoin the community of nations in full. The first step is to resolve the nuclear issue, and it shouldn’t be hard if you are in fact absolutely determined to make good on the promise that this is a peaceful program.
So our hope is that the (inaudible) engagement and the resolution of its differences with respect to the UN and the international community can indeed lead to what the Foreign Minister and President Rouhani have talked about, which is a new relationship with the West and with its neighbors. But nobody that I know of is going to accept the words at face value. It is going to be proven by the choices Iran makes, by the actions that it takes. We are open. President Obama has made clear that he is prepared to put in motion the steps that can improve those attributes, to put these words to the test. And that’s exactly what we’re doing now with this first step. And we look forward to, hopefully in a short span of time, being able to put together a comprehensive agreement that will provide the guarantees necessary to our friends in the region.
Let me be crystal clear to Israel, to our other friends in the region, to any neighbor who feels threatened, that the next step requires proof certain of a failsafe set of steps which eliminate the current prospect of a breakout and the creation of a nuclear weapon. That will require dismantling certain things. It will require stopping certain kinds of activities. It will require some fundamental choices, and we’re prepared to work with Iran in order to put in place a protocol that achieves those ends.
So I think this is potentially a significant moment, but I’m not going to stand here in some triumphal moment and suggest to you that this is an end unto itself. It is not. It is a step towards the much more significant goal and the much harder to achieve goal of having a program that is absolutely failsafe provable to be only possible to be peaceful. And that’s what we have to work for now.
MODERATOR: The last question will be from Nicole Gaouette of Bloomberg News.
QUESTION: Hi, Mr. Secretary. Congratulations to you and your team. I’m wondering (inaudible) and how you answer the criticism from Israel that by easing sanctions, you have less leverage over Iran, say, than you did yesterday. They’re (inaudible) reach that settlement. I also just wondered if you have a brief comment about more sanctions being in place. That’s been true for a long time, and for a long time (inaudible) Congress.
SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible) by the Congress and designed to give new sanctions. And in my email feed, there are already statements from Republican senators saying it’s not good enough. The – my understanding is that this deal --
SECRETARY KERRY: Gee, you mean members of the other party (inaudible). (Laughter.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible.) My understanding is that you – the P5+1 are pledging not to increase nuclear-review sanctions for the next six months if Iran complies? How can you assure that you can get the majority in the Congress (inaudible)?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, those are two very good questions. Let me answer both of them very directly. First of all, with respect to Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a friend of mine, a man I have great respect for and I’ve worked with very closely, particularly right now, on the Middle East peace process. I talk to him several times a week. I’ve talked to him as recently as the last days about this very issue, on several occasions. And the fact that we might disagree about a tactic does not mean there is a sliver of daylight between us with respect to our strategy. The tactic is whether or not you increase sanctions or take advantage of this moment to pull the progress and guarantee you have insight into their program while you keep the pressure on. And it’s a difference of judgment. It would be nice, but there is no difference whatsoever between the United States and Israel and what the end goal must be here. We cannot have an Iran that is going to threaten its neighbors, and that has a nuclear weapon. From the day President Obama came into office, he made it clear that a centerpiece of his policy is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
Now, Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, it is going after a nuclear weapon. Therefore, it ought to be really easy to do the things that other nations do who enrich, and prove that their program is peaceful. So that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for it in absolute sync with our friends in Israel. And I have said frequently, no deal is better than a bad deal. We are not going to strike, ultimately, a bad deal. And you have to be able to prove that this program is peaceful. That means you’re going to have to look at putting on the grave uranium and what happens to it. You’re going to have to have limitations on certain components. You’re going to have to have limitations on the type of facilities. Arak, a heavy-water plutonium facilities, has no business within the framework of a peaceful program. We’ve been very clear about that.
So there are many things. I’m not going to go through them all right now, but it is crystal clear that Israel and the United States have the same goal, the same strategic interest, and we will stand with Israel with respect to this policy and the other allies in the region who are equally concerned about what Iran might or might not choose to do.
Now, with respect to the second part of your question, the Congress, look, I have great confidence in my colleagues in the Congress. I think they are going to look at this very carefully, and they should. And I look forward to going up on the Hill. I look forward to engaging with my former colleagues, explaining what we’ve done, why we can keep the – and working together with Congress in order to achieve the goal that Congress embraced when they put these sanctions in place in the first place. Congress sought to have negotiations.
Now ultimately, if somehow we wind up (inaudible) and Congress – midterm election obviously – the President obviously has a possibility of a veto. There have been. But I don’t think it should come to that. We don’t want it to come to that. I don’t if it will come to that. I believe Congress will see the wisdom of pursuing this for the very specific purposes that I’ve articulated with very straight delineation of exactly how we’re going to achieve our goals. And it was really a cooperative effort. And we will brief Congress readily. We will work for Congress in a very cooperative way. And I think Congress will be a very important partner in helping us put this to the test over the course of the next six months.
MODERATOR: That’s it, everyone.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.
Press Availability After P5+1 Talks
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Geneva, Switzerland
November 24, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, good very early morning to all of you. It’s been a long day and a long night, and I’m delighted to be here to share some thoughts with you about the recent negotiations. I particularly want to thank the Swiss Government. I want to thank the United Nations. It’s been a (inaudible) and we’re honored to be here, even at this very early hour of the morning. I particularly want to thank my colleagues from the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, China, and especially Lady Cathy Ashton, who is not only a good friend but a persistent and dogged negotiator and somebody who’s been staying at this for a long period of time. And we’re very grateful for her stewardship of these negotiations.
And if I can take a moment, I really want to thank the team from the United States. There have been a great many people involved in this effort for a long period of time now, both here in Switzerland with us now, but also back in the United States, and they know who they are. But I will single out our Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who has been a dogged, unbelievably patient hand and a skillful hand, and she has helped through long and arduous months – years of stewardship of our part of this within the P5+1, and I’m very grateful to her for those long efforts and all of her team.
At the United Nations General Assembly in September, President Obama asked me and our team to work with our partners in order to pursue a negotiated settlement or solution with respect to the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Last month, the P5+1 entered into a more accelerated negotiation after a number of years of meetings in various parts of the world and efforts to engage Iran in serious negotiations. The purpose of this is very simple: to require Iran to prove the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and to ensure that it cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. And the reason for this is very clear. The United Nations Security Council found that they were not in compliance with the NPT or other IAEA and other standards. And obviously, activities such as a secret, multi-centrifuge mountain hideaway, which was being used for enrichment, raised many people’s questions, which is why ultimately sanctions were put in place.
Today, we are taking a serious step toward answering all of those important questions that have been raised through the United Nations Security Council, through the IAEA, and by individual countries. And we are taking those steps with an agreement that impedes the progress in a very dramatic way of Iran’s principal enrichment facilities and parts of its program, and ensures they cannot advance in a way that will threaten our friends in the region, threaten other countries, threaten the world. The fact is that if this step – first step – leads to what is our ultimate goal, which is a comprehensive agreement that will make the world safer. This first step, I want to emphasize, actually rolls back the program from where it is today, enlarges the breakout time, which would not have occurred unless this agreement existed. It will make our partners in the region safer. It will make our ally Israel safer. This has been a difficult and a prolonged process. It’s been difficult for us, and it’s been difficult for our allies, and it’s obviously been difficult for the Government of Iran. The next phase, let me be clear, will be even more difficult, and we need to be honest about it. But it will also be even more consequential.
And while we obviously have profound differences with Iran yet to be resolved, the fact is that this agreement could not have been reached without the decision of the Iranian Government to come to the table and negotiate. And I want to say tonight that Foreign Minister Zarif worked hard, deliberated hard, and we are obviously, we believe, better that the decision was made to come here than not to, and to work hard to reach an agreement. And we thank the Foreign Minister for those efforts.
Together now, we need to set about the critical task of proving to the world what Iran has said many times – that its program is in fact peaceful. Now, with this first step, we have created the time and the space in order to be able to pursue a comprehensive agreement that would finish the work that President Obama began on the very first day in office, and that is to ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. President Obama worked intensively and his Administration worked intensively before I even came in; when I was in the Congress and voted for sanctions, the President worked in order to put in place a significant sanctions regime, an unprecedented regime. And he worked with countries around the world in order to ensure broad participation and support for these sanctions. That has been essential to the success of these sanctions. And we believe that it is the sanctions that have brought us to this negotiation and ultimately to the more significant negotiation to follow for a comprehensive agreement.
Make no mistakes, and I ask you, don’t interpret that the sanctions were an end unto themselves. They weren’t. The goal of the sanctions was always to have a negotiation. And that is precisely what is now taking place, and that negotiation’s goal is to secure a strong and verifiable agreement that guarantees the peacefulness of Iran’s nuclear program. For more than 40 years, the international community has been united in its willingness to negotiate in good faith. And we have been particularly crystal clear that we will do whatever is necessary in order to prevent Iran from having a nuclear weapon. We have also said that we prefer a peaceful solution, a peaceful path for Iran to respond to the international community’s concerns. And as a result of those efforts, we took the first step today to move down that path.
The measures that we have committed to will remain in place for six months, and they will address the most urgent concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Since there have been many premature and even misleading reports, I want to clearly outline what this first step entails. First, it locks the most critical components of a nuclear program into place and impedes progress in those critical components in a way that actually rolls back the stockpile of enriched uranium and widens the length of time possible for breakout. That makes people safer. With daily access – we will gain daily access to key facilities. And that will enable us to determine more quickly and with greater certainty than ever before that Iran is complying. Here’s how we do that: Iran has agreed to suspend all enrichment of uranium above 5 percent. Iran has agreed to dilute or convert its entire stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium.
So let me make clear what that means. That means that whereas Iran today has about 200 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, they could readily be enriched towards a nuclear weapon. In six months, Iran will have zero – zero. Iran will not increase its stockpile of 3.5 percent lower-enriched uranium over the next six months, and it will not construct additional enrichment facilities. Iran will not manufacture centrifuges beyond those that are broken and must be replaced. Very importantly, Iran will not commission or fuel the Arak reactor – Arak, A-r-a-k, reactor – an unfinished facility, that if it became operational would provide Iran with an alternative plutonium path to a nuclear weapon.
And to ensure that these commitments are met, Iran has agreed to submit its program to unprecedented monitoring. For the international community, this first step will provide the most far-reaching insight and view of Iran’s nuclear program that the international community has ever had. This first step – let me be clear. This first step does not say that Iran has a right to enrichment. No matter what interpretive comments are made, it is not in this document. There is no right to enrich within the four corners of the NPT. And this document does not do that. Rather, the scope and role of Iran’s enrichment, as is set forth in the language within this document, says that Iran’s peaceful nuclear program is subject to a negotiation and to mutual agreement. And it can only be by mutual agreement that enrichment might or might not be able to be decided on in the course of negotiations.
So what is on the other side of the ledger here? Again, there have been a number of premature reports and reactions, so I want to be clear about what this step provides, this first step, and what it doesn’t provide. In return for the significant steps that Iran will take that I just listed – and there are more, incidentally, than I just listed; those are the principal – the international community will provide Iran with relief that is limited and, perhaps most importantly, reversible. The main elements of this relief would hold Iran’s oil sales steady and permit it to repatriate $4.2 billion from those sales. And that would otherwise be destined for an overseas account restricted by our sanctions. In addition, we will suspend certain sanctions on imports of gold and precious metals, Iran’s auto sector, and Iran’s petrochemical exports, potentially – potentially – providing Iran with about $1.5 billion in additional export revenues.
For the benefit of the Iranian people, we will also facilitate humanitarian transactions that are already allowed by U.S. law. No U.S. law will be changed. Nothing will have to be different. In fact, the sanctions laws specifically exempt humanitarian assistance. So this channel will not provide Iran any new source of funds, but we will help them in order to try to provide the people of Iran with additional assistance. It simply improves access to goods that were never intended to be denied to the Iranian people.
Now, I want to emphasize the core sanctions architecture that President Obama, together with allies and friends around the world, have put together, that core architecture remains firmly in place through these six months, including with respect to oil and financial services. To put this number in perspective, during this six-month phase, the oil sanctions that will remain in place will continue to cause over 25 billion in lost revenues to Iran, or over $4 billion a month. That is compared to what Iran earned before this took effect – the sanctions. And while Iran will get access to the 4.2 billion that I talked about of the restricted oil revenues, 14 to 16 billion of its sales during this period will be locked up and out of reach.
Together with our partners, we are committed to maintaining our commitment to vigorously enforcing the vast majority of the sanctions that are currently in place. Again, let me repeat: This is only the first step. But it is a first step that guarantees while you take the second step and move towards a comprehensive agreement, Iran’s fundamentals of its program are not able to progress – Fordow, Natanz, Arak, and other centrifuge and other things that matter. So that is a critical first step.
And I will say to all of you that as we conclude this first round of negotiation, with the beginning of the possibility of a much broader accomplishment down the road, it is our responsibility to be as firmly committed to diplomacy and as relentless in our resolve over the years as we have been to bring the concerted pressure that brought us to this moment. For the Iranian Government, it’s their responsibility to recognize that this first phase is a very simple test. Many times, Iran, I think you heard the Foreign Minister here tonight reiterate, that they have a peaceful program and that’s their only intention. Folks, it is not hard to prove peaceful intent if that’s what you want to do. We are anxious to try to make certain that this deal ultimately will do exactly that – prove it.
And I will just say finally, I know that there are those who will assert that this deal is imperfect. Well, they too bear a responsibility, and that is to tell people what the better alternative is. Some might say we should simply continue to increase pressure – just turn up the screws, continue to put sanctions on, and somehow that’s going to push Iran towards capitulation or collapse. Not by any interpretation that we have from all the experts and all of the input that we have, and from all of the countries – the P5+1 – that took place in this today, none of them believe that would be the outcome.
Instead, we believe that while we are engaged in that effort, Iran’s program would actually march forward. It would gain. And while it gains, it would become more dangerous in the region and countries like Israel and the Emirates, other people in the region who are threatened, would in fact be more threatened.
So we believe that you would wind up with an Iran with bigger stockpiles, with more advanced centrifuges and more progress at pursuing a plutonium track. And President Obama believes that doesn’t benefit anybody.
In 1973 – 19 – excuse me, in 2003, when the Iranians made an offer to the former Administration with respect to their nuclear program, there were 164 centrifuges. That offer was not taken. Subsequently, sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing. So people have a responsibility to make a judgment about this choice. And I am comfortable, as is President Obama, that we have made the right choice for how you proceed to get a complete agreement.
Moreover, making sanctions the sum total of our policy will not strengthen the international coalition that we have built in order to bring Iran to the negotiating table. Instead, it would actually weaken that coalition, and many people believe that to merely continue at a time where Iran says, “We’re prepared to negotiate,” would in fact break up the current sanctions regime. Others argue for military action as a first resort. Well, President Obama and I do not share a belief that war is a permanent solution, and it should never be the first option. Instead, that particular option involves enormous risks in many different ways, and as President Obama has often said, while that option remains available to us – and the President will not take it off the table – he believes that that can only be entertained after we have made every effort to resolve the dispute through diplomacy, barring some immediate emergency that requires a different response.
So I close by saying to all of you that the singular objective that brought us to Geneva remains our singular objective as we leave Geneva, and that is to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. In that singular object, we are resolute. Foreign Minister Zarif emphasized that they don’t intent to do this, and the Supreme Leader has indicated there is a fatwa, which forbids them to do this. We want to see the process put in place by which all of that is proven, not through words but with actions. And we are prepared to work in good faith, with mutual respect, to work in a way as we did in the last days – cordially, with an atmosphere that was respectful, even as it was tough, as we move towards the process of making certain that this threat will be eliminated. In that singular object, we are absolutely resolute, and in that mission, we are absolutely committed, and in that endeavor, we will do everything in our power to be able to succeed.
On that note, I’m happy to answer a couple of questions.
MODERATOR: The first question will be from Anne Gearan of The Washington Post.
SECRETARY KERRY: Anne, hi.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you started with your – about (inaudible) who want this on Iran, and you’re opposed for what it will do on a sort of a technical level. I would hope that you might just take a moment and reflect on what this agreement may mean or signify longer term or in a larger sense. And this is – you just came through several months that represent the first time that a diplomatic level from the United States and one from Iran sat together and talked about anything, much less something of this moment. What is your view and what is your hope for the next steps as far as the U.S. relationship with Iran will be?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, I – the – obviously it is not insignificant, nor does it just fly be me, nor the President, who took great risks in committing on this and making certain that we would proceed forward with this endeavor. It’s no small thing, I think, that since 1979, for about 34 years, Iran and the United States have not been able to talk to each other. And there’s been enormous buildup of suspicion and an enormous buildup of animosity, and there have been moments here and there where there might have been some kind of minor assistance one way or the other. For instance, when we went into Afghanistan in 2001, there actually was some assistance back home (inaudible) from Iran. So there have been these moments.
But I think by and large, it is fair to say that Iran’s choices have created a very significant barrier, and huge security concerns for our friends in the region, for Israel, for Gulf states and others, and obviously they have made certain choices that are deeply, profoundly unsettling in terms of stability in the region and the possibility of anything except our focus on (inaudible). It’s too early for us to talk about other things. It’s just not right. Obviously, one would hope that Iran will make choices that it will rejoin the community of nations in full. The first step is to resolve the nuclear issue, and it shouldn’t be hard if you are in fact absolutely determined to make good on the promise that this is a peaceful program.
So our hope is that the (inaudible) engagement and the resolution of its differences with respect to the UN and the international community can indeed lead to what the Foreign Minister and President Rouhani have talked about, which is a new relationship with the West and with its neighbors. But nobody that I know of is going to accept the words at face value. It is going to be proven by the choices Iran makes, by the actions that it takes. We are open. President Obama has made clear that he is prepared to put in motion the steps that can improve those attributes, to put these words to the test. And that’s exactly what we’re doing now with this first step. And we look forward to, hopefully in a short span of time, being able to put together a comprehensive agreement that will provide the guarantees necessary to our friends in the region.
Let me be crystal clear to Israel, to our other friends in the region, to any neighbor who feels threatened, that the next step requires proof certain of a failsafe set of steps which eliminate the current prospect of a breakout and the creation of a nuclear weapon. That will require dismantling certain things. It will require stopping certain kinds of activities. It will require some fundamental choices, and we’re prepared to work with Iran in order to put in place a protocol that achieves those ends.
So I think this is potentially a significant moment, but I’m not going to stand here in some triumphal moment and suggest to you that this is an end unto itself. It is not. It is a step towards the much more significant goal and the much harder to achieve goal of having a program that is absolutely failsafe provable to be only possible to be peaceful. And that’s what we have to work for now.
MODERATOR: The last question will be from Nicole Gaouette of Bloomberg News.
QUESTION: Hi, Mr. Secretary. Congratulations to you and your team. I’m wondering (inaudible) and how you answer the criticism from Israel that by easing sanctions, you have less leverage over Iran, say, than you did yesterday. They’re (inaudible) reach that settlement. I also just wondered if you have a brief comment about more sanctions being in place. That’s been true for a long time, and for a long time (inaudible) Congress.
SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible) by the Congress and designed to give new sanctions. And in my email feed, there are already statements from Republican senators saying it’s not good enough. The – my understanding is that this deal --
SECRETARY KERRY: Gee, you mean members of the other party (inaudible). (Laughter.)
QUESTION: (Inaudible.) My understanding is that you – the P5+1 are pledging not to increase nuclear-review sanctions for the next six months if Iran complies? How can you assure that you can get the majority in the Congress (inaudible)?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, those are two very good questions. Let me answer both of them very directly. First of all, with respect to Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a friend of mine, a man I have great respect for and I’ve worked with very closely, particularly right now, on the Middle East peace process. I talk to him several times a week. I’ve talked to him as recently as the last days about this very issue, on several occasions. And the fact that we might disagree about a tactic does not mean there is a sliver of daylight between us with respect to our strategy. The tactic is whether or not you increase sanctions or take advantage of this moment to pull the progress and guarantee you have insight into their program while you keep the pressure on. And it’s a difference of judgment. It would be nice, but there is no difference whatsoever between the United States and Israel and what the end goal must be here. We cannot have an Iran that is going to threaten its neighbors, and that has a nuclear weapon. From the day President Obama came into office, he made it clear that a centerpiece of his policy is that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
Now, Iran says it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, it is going after a nuclear weapon. Therefore, it ought to be really easy to do the things that other nations do who enrich, and prove that their program is peaceful. So that’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for it in absolute sync with our friends in Israel. And I have said frequently, no deal is better than a bad deal. We are not going to strike, ultimately, a bad deal. And you have to be able to prove that this program is peaceful. That means you’re going to have to look at putting on the grave uranium and what happens to it. You’re going to have to have limitations on certain components. You’re going to have to have limitations on the type of facilities. Arak, a heavy-water plutonium facilities, has no business within the framework of a peaceful program. We’ve been very clear about that.
So there are many things. I’m not going to go through them all right now, but it is crystal clear that Israel and the United States have the same goal, the same strategic interest, and we will stand with Israel with respect to this policy and the other allies in the region who are equally concerned about what Iran might or might not choose to do.
Now, with respect to the second part of your question, the Congress, look, I have great confidence in my colleagues in the Congress. I think they are going to look at this very carefully, and they should. And I look forward to going up on the Hill. I look forward to engaging with my former colleagues, explaining what we’ve done, why we can keep the – and working together with Congress in order to achieve the goal that Congress embraced when they put these sanctions in place in the first place. Congress sought to have negotiations.
Now ultimately, if somehow we wind up (inaudible) and Congress – midterm election obviously – the President obviously has a possibility of a veto. There have been. But I don’t think it should come to that. We don’t want it to come to that. I don’t if it will come to that. I believe Congress will see the wisdom of pursuing this for the very specific purposes that I’ve articulated with very straight delineation of exactly how we’re going to achieve our goals. And it was really a cooperative effort. And we will brief Congress readily. We will work for Congress in a very cooperative way. And I think Congress will be a very important partner in helping us put this to the test over the course of the next six months.
MODERATOR: That’s it, everyone.
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT ANNOUNCES SWITZERLAND HOSTED INITIAL PLANNING MEETING FOR THE GLOBAL FUND
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Initial Planning Meeting for the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
November 15, 2013
The Government of Switzerland hosted the initial planning meeting to develop the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience, November 14–15. The Fund will mobilize public and private sector resources to support local, community-based efforts to counter violent extremism.
This two-day event, held in Lucerne, was facilitated by Carol Bellamy, the former Executive Director of UNICEF and former Chair of the Global Partnership for Education. Some 40 officials and experts from around the world met to begin discussions on the mandate, organizational architecture, and legal foundation of the Fund. Discussions are expected to continue over the coming months with a view to having the Fund become operational by mid-2014.
The Fund was announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at a Global Counterterrorism Forum Ministerial meeting in New York on September 27. Once established, the Fund is expected to provide and monitor the implementation of grants to local, grass-roots organizations for community-based projects on education, vocational training, civic engagement, media, and women’s advocacy that target those individuals or groups most vulnerable to radicalization or recruitment by violent extremists.
Initial Planning Meeting for the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
November 15, 2013
The Government of Switzerland hosted the initial planning meeting to develop the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience, November 14–15. The Fund will mobilize public and private sector resources to support local, community-based efforts to counter violent extremism.
This two-day event, held in Lucerne, was facilitated by Carol Bellamy, the former Executive Director of UNICEF and former Chair of the Global Partnership for Education. Some 40 officials and experts from around the world met to begin discussions on the mandate, organizational architecture, and legal foundation of the Fund. Discussions are expected to continue over the coming months with a view to having the Fund become operational by mid-2014.
The Fund was announced by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at a Global Counterterrorism Forum Ministerial meeting in New York on September 27. Once established, the Fund is expected to provide and monitor the implementation of grants to local, grass-roots organizations for community-based projects on education, vocational training, civic engagement, media, and women’s advocacy that target those individuals or groups most vulnerable to radicalization or recruitment by violent extremists.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY'S REMARKS IN GENEVA, SWITZERLAND ON IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAM
FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Press Availability
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Geneva, Switzerland
November 10, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you for hanging in here with all of us in what has obviously been a long and interesting process, but a very productive one if I can say so. I want to thank my colleagues from the United Kingdom, Turkey, France, Russia and China. And I particularly want to thank Lady Catherine Ashton for her leadership and for the European Union’s convening all of us here in order to perform this very important business of trying to deal with the question of a country’s potential move towards nuclear weapons. And obviously, the commitment by the President, by all of the member states of the P5+1 and others in the world makes certain that that doesn’t happen, that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
I want to say that the negotiations were conducted with mutual respect. They were very serious. But they were conducted in a very civil and appropriate way for a subject matter as serious as this one. And we came to Geneva determined. As President Obama has said, his goal is, since day one as President, to make certain that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. That remains our goal because we remain committed to preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and we remain committed to protecting our allies, particularly our allies in that region where security is so critical. We also are committed to protecting our interests in the world from the consequences of the spread of these weapons.
We came to Geneva to narrow the differences. And I can tell you without any exaggeration we not only narrowed differences and clarified those that remain, but we made significant progress in working through the approaches to this question of how one brings in a program that guarantees this peaceful nature. There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than we were when we came, and that with good work and good faith over the course of the next weeks, we can in fact secure our goal.
And over the last two days, a significant amount of progress was made. I am impressed and grateful for the way in which the P5[1] countries joined together and worked effectively together, the teams worked effectively together. And I think that tonight there was a unity in our position and a unity in the purpose as we leave here. We are committed to have our political directors – and I think Lady Catherine Ashton probably shared this with you – meet in the next days, and we are also committed to returning as necessary somewhere over the next weeks, hopefully, with the goal of either building on what was done today or completing the task.
Let me just say that for those who are wondering about this kind of process, it takes time to build confidence between countries that have really been at odds with each other for a long time now – in the case of Iran, since 1979. And so we are working hard to try to overcome mistrust, to try to build confidence, to try to find the ways that both the P5+1 and the united – and Iran have the ability to be able to achieve this goal of ascertaining for certain, without a doubt, that a program is a peaceful nuclear program.
Diplomacy takes time, and all the parties here need time to fully consider the issues – very complicated, technical, difficult issues that we discussed here in the last days. And I particularly am anxious to return to brief the President and to share with Congress and others what we’ve learned and what we are thinking as we look forward. We also understand there are very strong feelings about the consequences of the choices we face for our allies, and we respect that. Some of them are absolutely directly, immediately involved and we have enormous respect, needless to say, for those concerns.
I want to caution everyone from jumping to conclusions or believing premature reports or prejudging outcomes or, particularly, believing either rumors or other little parcels of information that somebody portends to know or that leak out. The fact is that the negotiations are actually taking place enormously privately, and that is a sign of the seriousness of what is taking place. We have been working on this for a long time. The P5+1 has been at this for something like four years or more. I know that I’ve been watching and engaged in this effort as a Senator and now as Secretary of State for some period of time, and so I am aware of the complicated nature of this particular challenge.
But we came to Geneva with the clear purpose of trying to advance the goal of preventing Iran from securing a nuclear weapon, and I believe we leave this round of talks not only committed, recommitted to that goal, but clearly further down the road in understanding what the remaining challenges are and clarifying the ways that we can actually do certain things together to reach that goal.
I would emphasize also that the window for diplomacy does not stay open indefinitely, and we will continue working to find a peaceful solution because we believe that forceful diplomacy is a powerful enough weapon to be able to actually defuse the world’s most threatening weapons of mass destruction. And that’s why we’ll continue to do this.
So with that, I’m happy to answer a couple of questions here, see where we are.
MS. PSAKI: The first question is going to be from Kim Ghattas of BBC.
QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY KERRY: Good evening – good morning.
QUESTION: Good morning.
SECRETARY KERRY: It’s all right.
QUESTION: I can only imagine how tired you are.
SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, two questions. How much coordination takes place between the members of the P5+1 ahead of a meeting like this? Were you blindsided by the French and their objections to the agreement? And a second question is, you don’t have a deal yet; you’re hoping to get one in the coming weeks with further negotiations. But that does give detractors of a deal with Iran time to derail your work. I’m thinking of Israel. I’m thinking of Saudi Arabia, but also of Congress in the U.S. Are you worried that Congress is going to push once again for further sanctions against Iran?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me answer the second part of your question first, and just tell you point blank that this is an issue of such consequence that it really needs to rise or fall on the merits, not on politics. People need to stop and think about what happens each day now that you don’t have an agreement. Each day that you don’t have an agreement, Iran will continue to enrich, and Iran will continue to put centrifuges in, and Iran will continue its program. What we were looking to do here – and will do, I believe – is freeze that program in place so that it is not in a position to continue while the real negotiation goes on to figure out what the future final agreement would look like. And that takes time.
Now, it seems to me that the members of Congress and others in the world understand that you need to give diplomacy the chance to exhaust all the remedies available to it if you are ultimately going to exercise your ultimate option, which is the potential use of force. The world wants to know that it was a last resort, not a first resort. So I believe it is essential for Congress, essential for all of our countries – and I think we all share this – the P5+1 is absolutely united in the notion that we must pursue diplomacy as a means of trying to prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon. We know the clock is ticking. That is part of what makes this urgent. But I am convinced that over these next days, the reasonableness of what we were doing and the reality of what we achieve will be taken into account by those who need to know what that is, and that will be shared as appropriate as we get back.
With respect to the negotiation itself, we work very closely with the French. We agreed with the French that there were certain issues that we needed to work through. We came here with bracketed language. That’s the nature of a negotiation. And we knew that we were going to have to negotiate going forward, and we did. And I think we were unified in feeling we needed certain language here that clarified certain things. I certainly came in here intending to do that, and that’s what the President wanted me to do.
The President has repeatedly said we will not rush to an agreement. The President has made clear that no deal is better than a bad deal. And I think it’s good we’re going to take the time we’re taking to make certain that we are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and doing what is necessary to have an agreement – that we are assured we can look our allies and our friends in the face and say, “This gets the job done.” That’s the purpose of it.
So we thank the – we’re grateful to the French for the work that we did together, and we worked also – every member there made contributions in one way or another. That’s the nature of the P5[2]. These are sovereign nations. No one country is going to come rolling in here, one point of view or another. We have to work it together, and that is the nature of the process.
And this is something that I think over the next weeks, as the political directors work together, they’ll build on what was achieved here in the last hours, and I feel very confident that this can be done. Not going to tell you it will be, but I can tell you it absolutely can be with good effort over these next days ahead.
MODERATOR: The next question will be from Michael Gordon of The New York Times.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the other day when you were in Israel, you said that the U.S. was asking Iran to agree, as you put it, to a complete freeze over where they are today. How important is it to impose constraints on the plutonium side of the Iranian program as part of a first-step agreement, say, precluding Iran from operating or putting fuel in the heavy water reactor that is being built in Iraq? Is that an important step to take as part of the complete freeze that you were talking about? And lastly, the next meeting, as you just pointed out, sir, is at the political director level, not at the foreign minister level. Doesn’t that suggest that there are significant differences that need to be narrowed before it makes sense to bring the foreign ministers back into the picture here in Geneva?
SECRETARY KERRY: No, it really is a reflection of wanting to get language issues that came up absolutely resolved, so the ministers, when they come, have a sense that everybody is in agreement with respect to the particular language. And the schedules of the ministers – it is not possible for all the ministers. And I think everybody felt they wanted to go back to their capitals, work through a few of these issues that are technical, complicated, and see if we can find the ways to deal with that with the political directors and the appropriate people to work that language at that level. That’s what got us here. And we’ve made a lot of progress. Now we go to the next step and hopefully, when the ministers come back – two weeks or so, something like that – we’ll be in the position to move forward.
But with respect to the plutonium, absolutely. It’s a very central issue and it’s one we spent a significant amount of time on, and one we are absolutely adamant must be addressed in the context of any kind of agreement – among others, and there are a number of others.
MS. PSAKI: Thanks, everyone.
SECRETARY KERRY: Is that it?
MS. PSAKI: We have to finish, unfortunately.
SECRETARY KERRY: I apologize. Thanks.
Press Availability
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Geneva, Switzerland
November 10, 2013
SECRETARY KERRY: Thank you for hanging in here with all of us in what has obviously been a long and interesting process, but a very productive one if I can say so. I want to thank my colleagues from the United Kingdom, Turkey, France, Russia and China. And I particularly want to thank Lady Catherine Ashton for her leadership and for the European Union’s convening all of us here in order to perform this very important business of trying to deal with the question of a country’s potential move towards nuclear weapons. And obviously, the commitment by the President, by all of the member states of the P5+1 and others in the world makes certain that that doesn’t happen, that Iran does not get a nuclear weapon.
I want to say that the negotiations were conducted with mutual respect. They were very serious. But they were conducted in a very civil and appropriate way for a subject matter as serious as this one. And we came to Geneva determined. As President Obama has said, his goal is, since day one as President, to make certain that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon. That remains our goal because we remain committed to preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and we remain committed to protecting our allies, particularly our allies in that region where security is so critical. We also are committed to protecting our interests in the world from the consequences of the spread of these weapons.
We came to Geneva to narrow the differences. And I can tell you without any exaggeration we not only narrowed differences and clarified those that remain, but we made significant progress in working through the approaches to this question of how one brings in a program that guarantees this peaceful nature. There’s no question in my mind that we are closer now, as we leave Geneva, than we were when we came, and that with good work and good faith over the course of the next weeks, we can in fact secure our goal.
And over the last two days, a significant amount of progress was made. I am impressed and grateful for the way in which the P5[1] countries joined together and worked effectively together, the teams worked effectively together. And I think that tonight there was a unity in our position and a unity in the purpose as we leave here. We are committed to have our political directors – and I think Lady Catherine Ashton probably shared this with you – meet in the next days, and we are also committed to returning as necessary somewhere over the next weeks, hopefully, with the goal of either building on what was done today or completing the task.
Let me just say that for those who are wondering about this kind of process, it takes time to build confidence between countries that have really been at odds with each other for a long time now – in the case of Iran, since 1979. And so we are working hard to try to overcome mistrust, to try to build confidence, to try to find the ways that both the P5+1 and the united – and Iran have the ability to be able to achieve this goal of ascertaining for certain, without a doubt, that a program is a peaceful nuclear program.
Diplomacy takes time, and all the parties here need time to fully consider the issues – very complicated, technical, difficult issues that we discussed here in the last days. And I particularly am anxious to return to brief the President and to share with Congress and others what we’ve learned and what we are thinking as we look forward. We also understand there are very strong feelings about the consequences of the choices we face for our allies, and we respect that. Some of them are absolutely directly, immediately involved and we have enormous respect, needless to say, for those concerns.
I want to caution everyone from jumping to conclusions or believing premature reports or prejudging outcomes or, particularly, believing either rumors or other little parcels of information that somebody portends to know or that leak out. The fact is that the negotiations are actually taking place enormously privately, and that is a sign of the seriousness of what is taking place. We have been working on this for a long time. The P5+1 has been at this for something like four years or more. I know that I’ve been watching and engaged in this effort as a Senator and now as Secretary of State for some period of time, and so I am aware of the complicated nature of this particular challenge.
But we came to Geneva with the clear purpose of trying to advance the goal of preventing Iran from securing a nuclear weapon, and I believe we leave this round of talks not only committed, recommitted to that goal, but clearly further down the road in understanding what the remaining challenges are and clarifying the ways that we can actually do certain things together to reach that goal.
I would emphasize also that the window for diplomacy does not stay open indefinitely, and we will continue working to find a peaceful solution because we believe that forceful diplomacy is a powerful enough weapon to be able to actually defuse the world’s most threatening weapons of mass destruction. And that’s why we’ll continue to do this.
So with that, I’m happy to answer a couple of questions here, see where we are.
MS. PSAKI: The first question is going to be from Kim Ghattas of BBC.
QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY KERRY: Good evening – good morning.
QUESTION: Good morning.
SECRETARY KERRY: It’s all right.
QUESTION: I can only imagine how tired you are.
SECRETARY KERRY: (Inaudible.)
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, two questions. How much coordination takes place between the members of the P5+1 ahead of a meeting like this? Were you blindsided by the French and their objections to the agreement? And a second question is, you don’t have a deal yet; you’re hoping to get one in the coming weeks with further negotiations. But that does give detractors of a deal with Iran time to derail your work. I’m thinking of Israel. I’m thinking of Saudi Arabia, but also of Congress in the U.S. Are you worried that Congress is going to push once again for further sanctions against Iran?
SECRETARY KERRY: Well, let me answer the second part of your question first, and just tell you point blank that this is an issue of such consequence that it really needs to rise or fall on the merits, not on politics. People need to stop and think about what happens each day now that you don’t have an agreement. Each day that you don’t have an agreement, Iran will continue to enrich, and Iran will continue to put centrifuges in, and Iran will continue its program. What we were looking to do here – and will do, I believe – is freeze that program in place so that it is not in a position to continue while the real negotiation goes on to figure out what the future final agreement would look like. And that takes time.
Now, it seems to me that the members of Congress and others in the world understand that you need to give diplomacy the chance to exhaust all the remedies available to it if you are ultimately going to exercise your ultimate option, which is the potential use of force. The world wants to know that it was a last resort, not a first resort. So I believe it is essential for Congress, essential for all of our countries – and I think we all share this – the P5+1 is absolutely united in the notion that we must pursue diplomacy as a means of trying to prevent Iran from acquiring a weapon. We know the clock is ticking. That is part of what makes this urgent. But I am convinced that over these next days, the reasonableness of what we were doing and the reality of what we achieve will be taken into account by those who need to know what that is, and that will be shared as appropriate as we get back.
With respect to the negotiation itself, we work very closely with the French. We agreed with the French that there were certain issues that we needed to work through. We came here with bracketed language. That’s the nature of a negotiation. And we knew that we were going to have to negotiate going forward, and we did. And I think we were unified in feeling we needed certain language here that clarified certain things. I certainly came in here intending to do that, and that’s what the President wanted me to do.
The President has repeatedly said we will not rush to an agreement. The President has made clear that no deal is better than a bad deal. And I think it’s good we’re going to take the time we’re taking to make certain that we are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and doing what is necessary to have an agreement – that we are assured we can look our allies and our friends in the face and say, “This gets the job done.” That’s the purpose of it.
So we thank the – we’re grateful to the French for the work that we did together, and we worked also – every member there made contributions in one way or another. That’s the nature of the P5[2]. These are sovereign nations. No one country is going to come rolling in here, one point of view or another. We have to work it together, and that is the nature of the process.
And this is something that I think over the next weeks, as the political directors work together, they’ll build on what was achieved here in the last hours, and I feel very confident that this can be done. Not going to tell you it will be, but I can tell you it absolutely can be with good effort over these next days ahead.
MODERATOR: The next question will be from Michael Gordon of The New York Times.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the other day when you were in Israel, you said that the U.S. was asking Iran to agree, as you put it, to a complete freeze over where they are today. How important is it to impose constraints on the plutonium side of the Iranian program as part of a first-step agreement, say, precluding Iran from operating or putting fuel in the heavy water reactor that is being built in Iraq? Is that an important step to take as part of the complete freeze that you were talking about? And lastly, the next meeting, as you just pointed out, sir, is at the political director level, not at the foreign minister level. Doesn’t that suggest that there are significant differences that need to be narrowed before it makes sense to bring the foreign ministers back into the picture here in Geneva?
SECRETARY KERRY: No, it really is a reflection of wanting to get language issues that came up absolutely resolved, so the ministers, when they come, have a sense that everybody is in agreement with respect to the particular language. And the schedules of the ministers – it is not possible for all the ministers. And I think everybody felt they wanted to go back to their capitals, work through a few of these issues that are technical, complicated, and see if we can find the ways to deal with that with the political directors and the appropriate people to work that language at that level. That’s what got us here. And we’ve made a lot of progress. Now we go to the next step and hopefully, when the ministers come back – two weeks or so, something like that – we’ll be in the position to move forward.
But with respect to the plutonium, absolutely. It’s a very central issue and it’s one we spent a significant amount of time on, and one we are absolutely adamant must be addressed in the context of any kind of agreement – among others, and there are a number of others.
MS. PSAKI: Thanks, everyone.
SECRETARY KERRY: Is that it?
MS. PSAKI: We have to finish, unfortunately.
SECRETARY KERRY: I apologize. Thanks.
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