U.S. Department of State 96/02/09 Daily Press Briefing

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U.S. State Department Directory

U.S. Department of State

96/02/09 Daily Press Briefing

Office of the Spokesman

[...]
EUROPEAN AND CANADIAN AFFAIRS
U.S.-EU Relations/Cooperation ...........................9-11
FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Incident Involving EU Administrator Koschnick ...........9,13
Decision of EU Administrator on Mostar ..................13-14
--Degree of U.S. Contact w/Ms. Agnelli ..................13
--U.S. Contacts w/President Tudjman .....................14-15
NATO/Bosnian-Serb Contacts, Communications ..............15-17
Assistant Secretary Holbrooke's Trip to Region ..........15
Detention of Suspected War Criminals/General Mladic .....15-18
Implementation of Dayton Accords ........................17
Admiral Smith's Mtg. in Han Pijesak .....................17-18
Report of Military Cooperation Agreement w/Russia .......19
Report of Karadzic Mtg. in Belgrade .....................19
Report of Detention of Photojournalists by Bosnian-Serbs.19-20
GREECE/TURKEY
Imia/Kardak Issue .......................................11-13

[...]

MR. DAVIES: On the first question, I'm not going to sit here and react to remarks attributed to Holbrooke from a longer interview that he might have given. I can give you our policy -- what we view as the importance of our relationship with the European Union.

We've cooperated tremendously well on Bosnia, which is a complex subject, and that, I think, is a testament to our good relations.

On the other aspect of that, which was the remarks he may have made about the Aegean and the European Union's level --

Q (Inaudible)

MR. DAVIES: The point there is U.S. involvement -- the reason the U.S. became involved in that was because we're talking about a conflict that had sprung up between two NATO countries. The United States is the leader, really, of NATO, and for that reason we became involved in a big way in last week's dispute in the Aegean.

In general terms, the U.S. has a very good relationship with the European Union. We've cooperated very, very well on a number of issues, and we hope to continue to do so.

Q And Miss Agnelli's --

MR. DAVIES: If we can go to Mostar in a second.

Q At that point the British Foreign Office issued a fairly strong exception to the remarks of Holbrooke. I wonder if you're aware of it, and do you endorse what they said?

MR. DAVIES: I haven't seen it. I haven't seen what they've said.

Q What they said is that Britain did take an active role, and so did other European countries in trying to defuse the Aegean conflict, and that it's completely wrong to say that they were asleep. They were on the phone. They were doing their diplomatic best as well. I'm not sure what the truth of it is.

MR. DAVIES: I'm not either. I don't speak for the European Union. I've no doubt they were concerned about events unfolding in the Aegean. They may well have taken certain actions. I'm not sure what those actions were. I mean, I can describe what we did.

Q I mean, are we working in a kind of harmony and consultation with them, or is everybody just operating on their own?

MR. DAVIES: We're working, I think, in perfect harmony with the European Union on a broad range of issues. Bosnia is the headliner right now. That's where our cooperation is deepest and perhaps in some respect most important. But we deal with the EU on a variety of things.

I don't know to what extent there was consultation or to what extent the EU on the Aegean issue was engaged.

Q Could you take that question? I mean, it comes to the heart of whether Holbrooke is right about this being an American exclusive production or whether EU members and other NATO members did their part as well.

MR. DAVIES: I don't think I'm going to take that question. I'm sure that the EU was concerned, expressed its concern and played a role in that issue. I don't know to what extent they may have done so. It's not up to us to characterize what the EU did or didn't do, and I don't think it's useful for us to kind of go into the level of consultations that we had with the European Union or any of its member countries as this unfolded.

Q But Mr. Holbrooke didn't characterize it. He said they were asleep.

MR. DAVIES: Again, I'm not going to sit here and comment on every phrase or sentence of Ambassador Holbrooke as excerpted in these various articles. He gave an interview. It was a longer interview. I don't have the full text in front of me, but, even if I did, it's not my role to sit here and give you a kind of an analysis of everything he said. What I've given you is our view of the important cooperative relationship that we have with the European Union and their importance to us as a partner.

Q But you're giving the impression that it was not coordinated.

MR. DAVIES: It's up to your to draw impressions.

Q That's the impression that you're leaving. I don't suppose you want to leave it.

MR. DAVIES: I appreciate your having told me the impression I left. No, seriously, what I've --

Q The British say that they made several phone calls at a key moment, and they did their best, and your Assistant Secretary of State is saying that they were asleep and basically did nothing. I mean, there's a contradiction with a major ally on a major issue.

MR. DAVIES: I'm certain that the U.K. and the others involved did do their best. I'm not saying that they didn't do their best. What I can't do for you here nor is it, I think, appropriate for me to do is to analyze what steps the U.K. took or Italy took or Germany or any of the other EU nations or the EU collectively. It's just not the business of the Spokesman at this podium to do that kind of an analysis.

But I think the European Union -- obviously, they had a concern about what was occurring down there. You can talk to them about what they might have done, and I'm not going to take on Ambassador Holbrooke's remarks point by point.

Q Aegean issue still?

MR. DAVIES: Pardon me?

Q Aegean issue.

MR. DAVIES: Okay, because we still have Mostar to come back to. But is it okay if we stay in the Aegean and then come back to Mostar? Is that all right?

Q There have been a lot of questions in the last ten days, especially on the Kardak issue, namely the sovereignty of Kardak, and so forth -- the rocky islet over --

MR. DAVIES: Imia/Kardak?

Q Yes, Imia/Kardak.

Q Kardak/Imia.

MR. DAVIES: Kardak/Imia. (Laughter)

Q Now, one question was not asked was if the disputes in question could be settled unless Turkey and Greece came to an understanding on the following four general areas of dispute: namely, territorial waters, air space demarcation, demilitarization of the islands and the continental shelf.

Does the U.S. Administration agree that these four interlinked issued have to be taken together through peaceful negotiations? Whether one goes to this court or that court, or one focuses on this piece of rock or that piece of rock?

MR. DAVIES: On the issue of Kardak/Imia, Imia/Kardak, we've said before and I'll say again that it's our view that Greece and Turkey should take their case to some consensual body, and the International Court of Justice is one such that could be useful.

If there are other issues that are in dispute, it may be that the ICJ is not the appropriate consensual body to refer matters to. We're not going to prescribe precisely how the two countries should work out their disputes.

Our abiding interest, though, in this is that, of course, they do so peacefully.

Q But does the Administration again realize that these four issues are important points of concern in dispute between the two NATO allies, and they have to be taken and discussed about in a comprehensive manner rather than discussing about the sovereignty of this piece of rock and that piece of rock.

MR. DAVIES: We haven't taken a position on the degree of comprehensiveness of the various aspects of those issues. What I've said, I've said, which is that they ought to work it out peacefully. We haven't been called in to play a mediating role henceforth, and so I'm not going to give prescriptions to the sides as to how they ought to go about solving these difficulties.

Q So the bottom line, you won't confirm that there are these four areas of dispute that needs to be handled between the two NATO allies?

MR. DAVIES: There may well be. I don't have enough information about the various aspects of disputes in the Aegean to sit here and confirm that for you. Those may well be very important, serious areas or issues that divide the two sides. I can't say for certain that they are. I'm happy to look into whether or not we have a view on that.

But I think in general, what's important to take away is the friendly advice we've given to both sides: they should work things our peacefully on Imia/Kardak. A consensual body such as the ICJ is, we think, the way to go.

Q Mostar.

MR. DAVIES: I was asked yesterday a raft of questions about was there official backing of the mob or the police or some of the other elements in the events of several days ago. What I can't do is I can't confirm those reports. We don't have anybody on the ground in Mostar at the moment.

What I can say is that the Croats rejected Mr. Koshnick's decision creating a central district in the city. The Mostar Croats then instigated riots in protest of what they claimed was an unfair division of the city of Mostar.

We all know about the roughing up of Koschnick's car, blocking its passage. What we want to underscore in a policy sense is that both parties agreed to abide by the decision of the EU Administrator, Mr. Koschnick. We fully expect them to do so.

We've told the Croatian Government that we expect their support to insure compliance with the EU Administrator's decision, and we've had contacts with the Croatians at all levels, including the very highest levels, on this issue.

Q Have you had contact with Ms. Agnelli who's doing shuttle diplomacy now for the European Union -- the Italian Foreign Minister?

MR. DAVIES: I don't know if we do. I presume we do, but I don't know that, and I can look into that for you -- the degree of our contact with that diplomat.

Q If we can go to the situation in Sarajevo --

Q Same also --

MR. DAVIES: Mostar also? Sure, please go ahead.

Q How does the decision of the EU Administrator fit in the agreement on Mostar that was signed in Dayton, because that agreement calls on six municipalities. It doesn't mention the seventh.

MR. DAVIES: But that agreement also set up a mechanism by which Administrator Koschnick was appointed to in essence arbitrate this dispute, and the parties agreed to abide by his decision. He's made a decision, and what hasn't happened yet is there hasn't been complete acceptance of compliance with the follow-up to that decision, and that's what we're calling for now.

Q No, but his decision doesn't respect the words of the agreement signed in Dayton. I mean, that's the point.

MR. DAVIES: I don't know that that's the case.

Q I found the agreement. I don't know whether there were any other agreements signed after that, but this one says the city of Mostar shall be composed of six separate city municipalities. There is no seventh.

MR. DAVIES: I'm not an international lawyer, but I don't know that that necessarily precludes creation of a central zone. I can't comment on that specifically. But I think what's important here is that certainly all of these kinds of demonstrations or manifestations should cease, and the parties should get back together with Koschnick.

He's made a decision. We believe they should abide by that decision. They certainly shouldn't put a halt to the process.

Q What about the contact with Tudjman. Was this done at the Secretary of State level, at the Holbrooke level, or at the Ambassador's level?

MR. DAVIES: I know the Secretary of State has had phone conversations very recently with the three leaders in the area. He may have raised Mostar with Tudjman when he spoke with him. I'm not certain of that, but I do know we have had conversations with Tudjman diplomatically, I believe, at our Embassy there.

What I could perhaps check into is whether or not the Secretary raised Mostar in his phone call. But again you're talking about the process here. I think what's important is the fundamentals of it; that the parties do what they agreed to do in respecting Koschnick's decision.

Q What have you exactly asked Tudjman then to do? I mean, theoretically he's running a separate country from Bosnia.

MR. DAVIES: I believe that the Croatian Government was a signatory to the agreement on Mostar, if I'm not mistaken, so they are the guarantors for the Bosnian Croats on what was worked out on Mostar -- the agreement that was signed. So that's his role. It's exactly analogous to the role that Milosevic has as the guarantor of Bosnian Serb undertakings in the Dayton Agreement itself.

Q Do you have his response?

MR. DAVIES: I don't have his response to share with you, no. I'm not going to go into that.

Q On a little larger picture in Bosnia, I understand that contacts, I guess all communications, between NATO and the Bosnian Serbs have now been severed, as they were between the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosnian Government? What does that mean for Ambassador Holbrooke's mission?

MR. DAVIES: What that means, Bill, is that this is a continuation of what's developed over the last several days. We've got what he described, I think, quite accurately as serious challenges to the Dayton Accord.

He's going back to the region on an unscheduled tour of the capitals, precisely because of these problems that have come up.

Q Is he going to be able to communicate with the Bosnian Serbs is what I'm asking. Is there still a liaison there, and what does that mean for NATO troops that might be in Bosnian Serb territory?

MR. DAVIES: He'll certainly be going to Belgrade and talking with the Serb authorities who are, as we were discussing earlier, the guarantors on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs. I don't know what contacts he may have in Sarajevo when he gets here. I don't think his schedule has been precisely worked out yet.

Q Is it our policy to see that these two Bosnian Serb generals are held until the Tribunal can decide whether they should be indicted? Is that our policy?

MR. DAVIES: I went into our policy on the question of detainees yesterday at some length. I don't know that it would be useful to repeat it here. The basic elements of it are, of course, that the parties should not engage in arbitrary arrests; that the War Crimes Tribunal is the body to which they should look for decisions on whether or not certain individuals are or are not war criminals or indicted war criminals.

Judge Goldstone has issued a statement -- it's a couple of days ago -- about those two individuals, and he's asked that they remain in some kind of provisional arrest.

Q What's really then improper is that they should have been arrested before indictment, is that correct?

MR. DAVIES: The parties are obligated under Dayton to bring suspected war criminals to justice. Justice in this case means the War Crimes Tribunal. Strictly speaking, as far as we can figure this out, it was legal to make those arrests. What would not be helpful would be, of course, for there to be any kind of an escalation and for further arrests to occur simply for purposes of harassment or of retaliation.

What's important here is that all of the parties keep their eyes on the prize, really. The moment of reckoning that they came to in Dayton in signing this agreement -- it continues. Dayton wasn't a one-act. They've got to follow through on all of their obligations as spelled out in the Dayton Accords, and those include things like freedom of movement, in addition to going after war criminals.

So they're the ones, really, in the first instance who are on the hook to make this work.

Q Back to my first point. Does the Department feel that NATO troops are at any increased risk due to this lack of contact with them?

MR. DAVIES: You'd have to ask the commanders on the ground. They're the ones who are in the business, Bill, of assessing risk. We're not.

Q Is there a problem regarding General Mladic not only giving orders from wherever his base is -- I guess it's in Han Pijesak -- giving orders, and then they seem to be carried out. The reports out of Sarajevo today are that in many cases Bosnian Serbs have not shown up for the required meetings of the Joint Commission.

MR. DAVIES: Right. We've called on the Bosnian Serbs not to sustain these actions -- not to continue to stay away from the table. We believe that their actions in cutting off communications were far out of proportion to the provocation, if you will, in the form of the arrests of those eleven Bosnian Serb officials.

I talked about Mladic yesterday. He's an indicted war criminal. The parties are under an obligation to deliver up indicted war criminals to the War Crimes Tribunal. We've stressed repeatedly, almost daily, that obligation. He has no standing. He should not be in office, and we pay no attention to orders that he may give, and we've got no comment on the extent to which Bosnian Serbs may be paying attention to orders that he's issuing. They shouldn't be paying any attention to them.

Q If it turns out that they are, which suggests that he is in a position of command, whether we want to recognize it or not, he's there. Isn't that kind of an affront to NATO right now?

MR. DAVIES: That's, I think, a challenge -- even a serious challenge -- to implementation of the Dayton Accords, and first and foremost the implementation of the accords is the obligation of the signatories to the Dayton Accords.

We have to keep turning this back on the people who signed Dayton. They're the ones who have to make this work. They agreed to all of these various provisions. They've got to make good on it or else the peace that's prevailed now on the ground isn't going to last.

Q Is it a breach of Dayton not to attend these Joint Commission meetings? In other words, to boycott relations with NATO?

MR. DAVIES: It's certainly a breach of the spirit of Dayton. I don't know whether it's a breach of the letter of Dayton. I don't know whether Dayton gets into that specifically -- "thou shalt attend this or that meeting" -- I can't help you with that.

But the point to take away here is that the parties should not put the Dayton Accords at risk. It's not in their interest to do so. They're going to have about a year's worth of the international spotlight, international help, international attention, and they ought to take advantage of it.

Q Have they put the Dayton Accords at risk?

MR. DAVIES: I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Dayton Accords are at risk. I think what we've got is a problem in implementing the Dayton Accords, which is to say that there's no forward movement. There should be forward movement. There's about a year here when they can make the progress they need to make to get to where after a year they can really finish building the peace.

The problem now is that there's no progress being made, because of this stand-off, this tit-for-tat, this escalation, which we've called on the parties to cease.

Q Do you have any problem that Admiral Smith went to Han Pijesak the other day, I guess to ask the Bosnian Serbs not to escalate. But Han Pijesak is where apparently General Mladic hangs out. You know, it's their headquarters.

MR. DAVIES: So you're saying guilt by geographic proximity here? I don't understand the point. He did not pay a call on General Mladic or meet with General Mladic, nor would he. He was doing his job of meeting with the parties to try to implement the military aspect of the Dayton Accords. So what he did was perfectly appropriate.

Q He was in the same town and almost in the same location as General Mladic. Doesn't this create a question about carrying out the other aspects of the Accords?

MR. DAVIES: Roy, I don't think so. I really don't think so. I don't think it does.

Q (Multiple questions)

Q Same question. Han Pijesak is in the American sector, and it has long been known to be one of the main headquarters of the Bosnian Serb army. Has General Mladic been in the American sector since the Dayton Accords were signed? Is he there now?

MR. DAVIES: I don't know the answer to that. I don't know. I just learned something for Roy. We can check it out. I don't know where he's been, and I don't know that that's all that material here. It's not up to us to enforce --

Q (Inaudible) military to arrest him if he's in the American sector.

MR. DAVIES: It's not up to us to enforce those provisions of the Dayton Accords. It's up to the signatories of Dayton to follow through on their commitments, which include delivering up indicted war criminals to the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. We've called and continue to call on the parties to do so.

There's been some progress on that front, but obviously not as much progress as we'd like to see.

Q Did you request of General Tolimir that they turn over General Mladic?

MR. DAVIES: I don't know the substance of their discussions. I really can't help you.

Q (Multiple questions.)

Q About the Syrian Foreign Minister --

MR. DAVIES: Roy, I'll come back to you.

Q With respect to (inaudible).

MR. DAVIES: I'm not going to speculate on what I'd expect him to do in a given meeting. I don't have his agenda in front of me for these meetings. I'm not going to get into that.

Q The Syrian Foreign Minister called on the U.S. to normalize - -

MR. DAVIES: I'm sorry, it's not a Bosnia question?

Q No, is not Bosnia; about the Middle East.

MR. DAVIES: Okay, I'm going to stick with Bosnia for just a minute.

Q The Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev was in Belgrade and signed a military cooperation agreement between Serbia, or the Federal Yugoslavia, and Russia. What do you make of that at this time?

MR. DAVIES: I don't make anything of it. I don't have any detail on the nature of the agreement that was signed. I'm sorry.

Q (Inaudible) meeting between President Milosevic and Dr. Karadzic in Belgrade?

MR. DAVIES: I can't confirm that.

Q It was today.

MR. DAVIES: I don't have anything on that.

Q Taiwan issue.

MR. DAVIES: Are we still on Bosnia? We're on Bosnia over here.

Q Do you have any further information on the two photographers that were taken into custody by Bosnian Serbs, and are they considered a risk?

MR. DAVIES: The only thing I've got to perhaps offer there is that I think there was a wire service item that ran just recently that indicated that, no, they're free. I don't have all the detail on it, but it's my understanding that they're not in custody.

Q (Inaudible)

MR. DAVIES: That's what I've heard. I don't have it in front of me, and I don't know what the precise facts are. But I heard good news coming out here on the fly, and that was the news I heard. We can try to get more for you.

Q I mean, does that raise another issue then in terms of how safe is it for peacekeeping forces over there? I mean, for journalists, but --

MR. DAVIES: I think it absolutely raises the freedom of movement issue. No question about it. Reporters, as with all others, should have freedom to move around the country and do their job. No magic there.

Any more Bosnia?

[...]

(The briefing concluded at 2:00 p.m.)

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