For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 19, 2005
Press Briefing by Mike Green, Special Assistant to the President for NSA and Faryar Shirzad, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy NSA for International Economic Affairs
Aboard Air Force One
En route Osan, Republic of Korea
3:27 P.M. (Local)
MR. GREEN: The President met this morning with President Susilo Bambang
Yudyohono, of Indonesia - a strong leader and partner of the U.S. They
went over a number of issues in a very productive discussion. They
talked about avian influenza. This has been a key theme in all of the
President's meetings and was one of the central elements of the leaders
meeting for APEC.
Singapore and Indonesia and the United States agreed in this Busan
setting to strengthen cooperation on avian influenza and, in particular,
there are a number of things that the Singaporeans and the Indonesians
will be doing to strengthen our detection and containment and
capacity-building in Indonesia. And they've both asked the United
States to join in this endeavor, and we were very happy to do that.
President Yudyohono talked about his plans for reform of the Indonesian
military and of Indonesian government policies. And as you know, the
President is looking forward to find ways to expand contact and
cooperation with Indonesia on all fronts, including
military-to-military, and the two Presidents talked about how to move
forward on that. President Yudyohono made it clear that with more
engagement between the militaries, he would be able to bring up more
officers like himself, officers who study in the U.S. and are advocates
of change, reform and democracy. And the President said that we're
going to try to move forward on this based on full consultation with the
Congress.
They talked about the war on terror in some detail. President Yudyohono
gave an update on his actions. The Indonesians killed one of the top
terrorists in Southeast Asia, a man named Azahiri. And President
Yudyohono described how they've taken the tapes they have of suicide
bombers, Southeast Asians, and they've shown these to Muslim leaders in
Indonesia and that the Indonesian government is enlisting their help to
reach out and teach the true meaning of Islam to the youth in Indonesia.
And it's something where the Indonesian government feels they've made
some real successes lately and the President expressed his full support.
They talked a bit about energy, as well, and ways to strengthen
Indonesia's environment for investment, something President Yudyohono
said is important to him. And they also addressed the Aceh and Papua
issues within Indonesia, where President Yudyohono has made progress
with a peace agreement in Aceh, and he said he's moving out to do the
same in Papua. So it was a very positive meeting. President Yudyohono
gave a full detailed description of what he's trying to do, and in a
very confident, but modest, way said he's doing his best and appreciates
U.S. support. And the President said to him, you're doing a great job
and you have the U.S. support as you continue building democracy and
fighting terror and strengthening the economy in Indonesia.
MR. McCLELLAN: Any questions on the meeting, or do you want to go
straight to APEC?
Q Was there anything out of APEC that was either a surprise or -
MR. McCLELLAN: Faryar is going to brief on APEC.
Q Thank you very much, Mike.
MR. SHIRZAD: We just concluded today the leaders meeting of APEC. The
leaders of 21 economies met over yesterday and today. They focused
yesterday on the issue of economics and free trade. Today, the
discussions were largely focused on the issue of security. They met for
a two-hour session, in private, with senior officials from each leader's
government being able to listen in from a remote location.
We were extremely pleased with how the summit went altogether. The
Koreans, in particular, did an extremely good job as the chairman of the
process and we're grateful for their hospitality.
In terms of the meetings today, the discussions on security ranged over
a number of issues. There was a great deal of discussion on the war on
terror, with leaders sharing experiences and their own domestic
experiences, in terms of what they've done to deal with the challenge of
terrorism. APEC economies include a number of economies that are
predominately Muslim states or have large Muslim populations, so the
leaders of those economies talked at length about what they've done,
along the lines of what Mike was describing a minute ago, to bring the
Muslim populations on board to dealing with the broader effort and
bringing their populations on board in the war on terror.
They talked about the issue of energy security and the challenge that it
poses to their economies and the importance of providing adequate energy
supplies to deal with the challenges of development and poverty and
economic growth. They talked about disaster response, both in terms of
the agenda that came out of the response from the APEC economies to the
tsunami, but also in preparation for the potential of an avian influenza
pandemic. So there was a great deal of discussion among the leaders
about what they were each doing in their own governments to prepare for
the eventuality of a pandemic of this scale. And they talked about
areas where there could be increased cooperation among the APEC
economies, both in terms of prevention and preparation, as well as
response, that the economies work most effectively to deal with the
challenge.
They talked about corruption and the problem that corruption poses to
economies and the corrosive effect it can have in terms of democratic
institutions and the importance of dealing with the challenge of
corruption in government.
In terms of actual substance, the leaders, after their session on
security issues, then had a private lunch in which no observers were
allowed to participate or listen in, in any fashion, so I can't report
anything from the leaders' lunch. Then they had their group photo and
then they had the presentation of the declaration - which we were
extremely pleased included a stand-alone statement that the leaders
issued, urging ambition and forward movement in the Doha negotiations.
As you all know, the APEC economies constitute about a half of global
trade. They have, over the years, been a strong voice for advancing the
WTO agenda and, in particular, in recent years, in terms of getting the
Doha development agenda moving forward. And I think they've come
through again this year in a way that we're extremely pleased. In
calling for very high ambition along the lines of what the President
called for in his U.N. speech, in terms of moving the negotiations
forward in all sectors, including agriculture, so the Hong Kong
ministerial meeting of the WTO sets the stage for a successful
conclusion by the end of 2006 of the WTO talks.
The leaders also issued a number of other declarations, which are
enumerated in the fact sheet. I'll talk about a couple of them, just in
very brief. One was the APEC initiative on avian influenza, which
builds on the foundation of what the President launched at the U.N.
speech, in terms of the international partnership on avian influenza,
and bring those principles to bear and commits the APEC leaders to
following them through; but also includes several additional elements
which we found particularly important, including technical assistance
and capacity building commitments through APEC on the part of the
participating economies; a commitment to participate in a tabletop
exercise, which is essential to prepare the governments to deal with an
outbreak of - potential of an outbreak; as well as commitments to
undertake, for example, WHO international health regulations that are
designed to help countries prepare for and deal with a potential avian
influenza outbreak.
All in all, the outcome was something we were very pleased with. APEC
showed its ability to pursue a robust agenda that deals both with the
importance of advancing the economic objectives - of advancing the
prosperity of the people of the APEC region. But the APEC leaders also
put forward a substantive agenda that advanced the goal of security,
which we have felt is an inter-related and complementary objective that
APEC, as an institution, needs to take on and has take on, including
through this meeting today, done so.
There were substantive initiatives launched on anti-corruption,
protecting intellectual property, dealing with counter-terrorism,
nonproliferation. So all in all, we were very, very pleased; a very
substantive agenda and good meetings that the leaders had. So all in
all, a good outcome.
Q I had a question about Indonesia for Mike. I noticed the State
Department issued a travel warning on Indonesia. Is that related to
concerns about terrorism? And is there some concern that they talked
about that there isn't more progress more quickly on this issue?
MR. GREEN: Actually, the Indonesians have made some progress. They've
taken out two of the bomb-makers involved in the Bali blast. They
killed this terrorist leader, Azahari, who is, I think, the number two
in the organization that operates in Southeast Asia. They have started
regular meetings among the police and intelligence services among
Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, and they're going to have some
summit meetings, as well.
So the report that President Yudyohono gave was one of real progress.
But he was the first to acknowledge that the leader of JI and others are
still out there, and that they have more work to do. And that while
they're beginning to make some real success in Southeast Asia in getting
the masterminds and the bomb makers, they still have to deal with the
infrastructure of terror and the education of youth in places like
Indonesia, which is why they're doing a very smart thing, which is
enlisting the help of Islamic leaders in the region - and they're
signing on and starting to really take this on.
So, no, this is not a battle that's over; but just in the past month
there's been some really important progress in that region.
This by the way, if I could, was a major theme when the President met
yesterday with the Southeast Asian leaders who are in APEC, the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN. And we signed an
agreement with ASEAN, we call it the Enhanced Partnership, which sets up
a framework for cooperating with ASEAN on counter-terrorism, on
democracy building, and on trade and investment. And it's now set up a
framework to have the President and Secretary of State and others engage
with their ASEAN counterparts not only on a bilateral basis, but on a
multi-lateral basis, with ASEAN as a whole, to help ASEAN as an
organization strengthen its own internal counter-terrorism coordination,
as well. We thought it was a very important meeting and one that was
appreciated in the region, and I wanted to just flag that quickly,
because all of these are meshing together and themes like avian
influenza and counter-terrorism are being taken from the APEC
discussions to the bilateral discussions and then to these sub-regional
groupings, so that we have a lot of overlap and a lot of integration of
the efforts.
Q I have an APEC question. Thank you for doing this. Did the
President have an opportunity to talk with President Roh about what the
deal is with this troop reduction?
MR. GREEN: With the what?
Q With the supposed troop reduction.
MR. GREEN: This issue didn't come up in the meeting, and Foreign
Minister Ban Ki-mun and other senior members of the Korean government
have been very clear about this since the report started showing up in
the press. And they said that, as you'll see, that they're committed to
the mission, that they are putting forward - will put forward
legislation to extend their presence there. They're looking at new
kinds of missions they can do. They'll determine the kind of forces and
force structure based on the missions and the conditions on the ground.
And, in fact, they're saying the same thing that we and all the other
coalition members are saying about how we're going to determine our
force structure. The story that went out in the press we saw, but this
hasn't been a topic of discussion in the summit and the Korean foreign
minister and others came out very quickly to make it clear that they
have the same approach we do on Iraq. And, in fact, are moving out to
extend their deployment and look at new missions they can do to help.
Q Was Iraq discussed during the summit?
MR. GREEN: It was, but not in an operational way. President Roh
reiterated his government's commitment to success in Iraq; that they're
proud of the work that their unit is doing, and that they think it's
part of the new shape and direction of the U.S.-ROK alliance, one that's
not only based on keeping the Korean Peninsula safe and secure, but also
helping bring democracy and stability to other parts of the world.
So it was discussed in that sort of philosophical way, as they described
where the alliance should be going, and they agreed to set up a number
of consultations on the future role of the alliance - which is really
evolving beyond the peninsula, to the Koreans playing a key role in a
global way.
Q So when the President saw President Roh today, he didn't ask about
it, he didn't express his views about it?
MR. GREEN: That I don't know, because when they speak in these leader
sessions, they're on their own.
MR. SHIRZAD: We didn't see the two leaders speak about that, so we
don't know.
Q But the President hasn't been able to clarify this for you? You're
still relying on the Associated Press for your information about this?
MR. GREEN: You ought to look at the Foreign Ministry - if you look on
the Foreign Ministry web page, you'll see a very clear, and it was a
very swift clarification by the Koreans, because when they saw the story
they had the same reaction we did, which is: this doesn't capture the
policy of the Republic of Korea, which has been very committed to the
mission in Iraq.
Q Is that what they said to you, that they didn't feel the stories
captured it?
MR. GREEN: When the story came out, we talked to our counterparts on
the other side - they called us to say, this story doesn't capture where
we are, we'll put out a statement to make it very clear what our policy
is with respect to Iraq, and that we're committed to the mission, and
that we're, in fact, going to go to the national assembly to get
clearance to extend the troop deployment.
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END
3:43 P.M. (Local)
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