Here are some selected excerpts from the transcript issued by the U.S. State Department of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s interview with two journalists from the Associated Press, Anne Geary and Matthew Lee, on 13 December in Washington D.C.:
“QUESTION: On the Middle East. Today we had the first meeting of the Israeli-Palestinian delegation since Annapolis. Our report calls it a — you know, pretty heated exchange, a relatively short one that did not produce anything specific that either side could point to afterward. Is this a setback or a return to old thinking and are you worried that you may already be losing momentum?
SECRETARY RICE: No, this is just the turbulence of negotiations. There are going to be ups and downs. And they did meet and my understanding is that they’ll meet again pretty soon. They have some organizational work to do. But both of these parties are committed to moving this forward and they’re going to move it forward. It’s — but you’re going to have some good meetings and some not very good meetings.
QUESTION: I’m struck, though, by the difference in atmospherics. I mean, you have the leaders, all smiles and handshakes for a few days and then when it gets down to the guys who are actually going to write stuff, they’re, you know, having a food fight.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, it gets hard because you start to get specific about what is required and it gets hard. Anyone who has ever been through negotiations recognizes the first few meetings of negotiations. If you sat down at negotiations and went right to the answer, you — then you’d have a story. There is going to be a process of working through this, of putting specifics on the table, they’ve got to get a negotiating structure in place. I’ll have a chance to talk to the parties either — probably tomorrow, now given the late time, and I’ll undoubtedly see Palestinians and Israelis at the Paris meeting as well and I’ll be able to get an assessment of what lies ahead. But I have never known, studied, read about, or participated in a negotiation that wasn’t pretty tough at the beginning.
QUESTION: One follow — you’ve commented a bit on Israel’s Har Homa settlement plans sometime after the first news broke and I want to ask you about, what was your initial reaction to that? Did you feel sucker-punched by such a — by that announcement so close after Annapolis?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the first thing I wanted to know was what happened, because the — so we sought clarification from the Israeli Government and they talked about this as something that had been long planned. But I did think that it had the potential, as I said, to — it wasn’t going to contribute to an atmosphere of confidence. It had the potential to undermine the atmosphere of confidence. But look, it’s time to now recognize that we’re in a phase where they now need to negotiate. Ultimately, the best way to deal with all of these problems is to have an agreement and firmly outline the borders of a Palestinian state. Then everybody can know what’s permitted where, but — that is the key. But it’s also going to be important, as we go through what is going to admittedly be a very difficult process, that both sides — and I want to emphasize both sides do everything that they can to live up to their roadmap obligations and to do everything that they can to enhance confidence…
QUESTION: The reports out of Gaza seem to be getting worse by the day. We had reports today of people dying for lack of access to medical care, a shortage of water and so forth. You’ve said you will not stand for a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but do you think one is building? Are you essentially tacitly allowing one to happen because it may speed the exit of Hamas?
SECRETARY RICE: No, because innocent people shouldn’t suffer because of the terrible policies of Hamas in terms of the humanitarian side. No, we’re following the humanitarian situation very closely and sometimes, it requires very specific actions about what kinds of equipment, medicine, food can get in. It relates, of course, to issues of electricity where the Israelis, in their own processes, have been told to be extremely careful about making certain that there’s electrical supply to Gaza. But we get reports on the situation and I know that the situation is difficult, but we don’t intend to allow it to become a humanitarian crisis”…
ON HER PRIORITIES:
“I think there are several very high priorities, and if we can leave them in better shape — obviously, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the Annapolis process as it’s now called, is a very big issue and to leave that in a much better place than it was when we came would, I think, reverberate in many important ways throughout the region, and not just the region of the Middle East… I hear from our friends in Southeast Asia like Indonesia, for instance, or Malaysia how important it would be to them…”
