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TRANSCRIPT: WHITE HOUSE DAILY BRIEFING
Wye talks on Mideast
White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart briefed.
Following is the White House transcript:
(begin transcript)
Office of the Press Secretary
October 21, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY JOE LOCKHART
The Briefing Room
LOCKHART: Good afternoon. Let me make a couple of announcements first, before we get started and take questions. The President this afternoon will participate at 3:40 p.m. in an event in the East Room on breast cancer awareness. This is an event the First Lady is hosting, and the President will participate along with the First Lady.
Secondly, we can announce that the President has just declared a major disaster exists in the state of Texas. He has ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the area struck by severe storms, flooding, and tornadoes beginning October 17th. The President's action makes funding available to affected individuals in 20 counties, and I can report that the chief of staff here, Erskine Bowles, is on the phone as we speak letting Governor Bush know the President's intentions.
Q: Joe, will the President go back to Wye? And if so, what can he accomplish there?
LOCKHART: I don't have a definitive answer for you. The President just a few moments ago received an update from his National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger. The National Security Advisor is now conferring with the Secretary of State out in Wye.
Q: Where is he?
LOCKHART: He is here.
As we've indicated, the President will look to a recommendation from his team and will travel there if he thinks it will be productive for him to travel.
Q: Did he tell the President that the Israelis have said they are willing to leave this afternoon without an agreement? Does the President consider that a threat to walk out without accomplishing anything? Would that alone prompt the President to go out?
LOCKHART: No, I don't know that we've been informed of that fact. I know that there has been some press reports. What I can say to that is that there is nobody that's there that's being held there or is there against their will. We are working on important issues, but as we've said, the parties themselves need to make some tough decisions to move the peace process forward.
Q: Will you tell us what the President -- they talked about putting a text out this afternoon to both sides. Did that not exist before? Is this something the President discussed with Netanyahu last night?
LOCKHART: Well, I think you can assume that these ideas have been discussed in various meetings throughout the last day or so. The text, as Mr. Rubin announced out at Wye, is -- our intention is to circulate it to both parties this afternoon and then to see how we can move forward.
Q: This is a U.S. text on a security agreement?
LOCKHART: This is a U.S. text on the areas and the subjects that we need to address in order to move, to reach an agreement in the interim phase, to move forward to final status talks.
Q: There have been extensive reports, Joe, that the CIA would play a very important role in implementing any kind of security agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What precisely, or not so precisely, will the CIA role be?
LOCKHART: I'm not in a position, as you know, to comment on the substance of the talks or any role that might be played.
Q: But can you tell us that the CIA will play a role?
LOCKHART: I'm not in a position to comment on that.
Q: Is the message from here, don't expect to see the President until you're ready to sit down and talk about every item on this text? Is that the message?
LOCKHART: I think if you look at the last four, five, six days, the President has been very closely and personally engaged in trying to build an atmosphere where the parties can make the tough choices they need to make to move forward. I think with the circulation of a text, the parties need to work through the issues that remain, the obstacles that still remain, and we'll make a decision sometime later today whether we think it's productive for the President to travel.
Q: Joe, last night it looked like the reports were that an agreement was imminent and today it looks like the whole thing is falling apart. Are you -- what is the accurate assessment right now about where the talks stand?
LOCKHART: I think the best advice I can give you is don't trust all the reports.
Q: Joe, should we -- the fact that the President is not there right now should not be interpreted as the talks are falling apart?
LOCKHART: No, I think it should be interpreted as there is different kinds of work that's going on there. Right now the focus, rightly, is on the text and working through the issues. The text will codify some agreements that have been reached and focus attention on the significant gaps that remain. I think if you -- and I think that's where the proper focus is now. We have used -- the President has been personally engaged, taking advantage of his unique position here. We will assess later in the day whether we think it's productive for him to travel.
Q: If he doesn't go today, how should we interpret that -- that there are problems?
LOCKHART: I think you should exercise as much caution as you can in reading too much into every hourly act or rumor that is generated from the talks.
Q: Would you describe the President as discouraged that is has now gotten to this point seven days into the summit?
LOCKHART: Well, if I answered that question exactly how you have asked it, it would presuppose something that I'm not willing to accept. There is reason to be discouraged; there is reason to be encouraged. The President is determined. He has invested a lot of time and effort into this because it's important for the people of Israel, it's important for the Palestinians, it's important for America that we do what we can to move forward, to make these tough choices, to put this process back on track.
Q: Rubin spoke of the President making some sort of statement. Is that -- is he going to speak about the Middle East at this breast cancer event?
LOCKHART: I don't think so, no.
Q: Do you know what he was talking about? He said that the President was going to speak later today.
LOCKHART: No, I think -- he was asked if there -- was the President going to travel to Wye and what was his schedule, and he said he knew he had -- because I had informed him we were doing an event at 3:40 p.m. But I don't expect at this point that he'll address it.
Q: Since you have announced that the President is going to go to California this weekend, certainly time is running out. I mean, there are only a few days left now between now and the weekend when he has a schedule. So, I mean, we are at the point where it's either reach an agreement now or if it's not done by today or tomorrow or Friday at the outside, then it's over, right?
LOCKHART: Well, I'm not willing to accept the speculating for today, tomorrow or Friday. As we've told you, we're looking at this day by day, meeting by meeting. And we are at Wednesday afternoon. And it is not useful in any way to speculate about what happens Saturday morning.
Q: Is the U.S. commitment then open-ended, Joe?
LOCKHART: The President has said and told you from the outset that his commitment is doing what he can to move this process forward. And he will continue to work in a way that is productive. And we'll continue to work on that as long as we believe that both sides are serious about reaching agreement, and we still believe that.
Q: Is it then possible, Joe, the President could cancel the California trip or postpone it again?
LOCKHART: I think I just made clear that it wouldn't be useful to speculate on three days from now, so I think I won't.
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Q: Joe, let me come back to the Mideast again. The official Israeli spokesman coming out, holding a news conference saying the Palestinians aren't responding to us on X and Y and Z; you had the Palestinians firing back, calling -- whatever happened to the blackout, the brownout or whatever?
LOCKHART: If you measure success by being in day seven and this is the first day we've had a substantive conversation whether it's working or not, that's not too bad. Let me say to that issue, though, I can't comment specifically about what might have been put on the table or might not have been put on the table, but I can tell you that serious work has been done on that subject.
Q: Why are public statements like that unhelpful?
LOCKHART: Well, they may well be unhelpful, they may not be. Certainly, I don't think it's helpful for me to comment on whether they're helpful or unhelpful. Did I follow that?
Q: Joe, this morning you said in the gaggle that at this point there is no deal. Once this written text is -- now is there a deal?
LOCKHART: No, this is a text -- this is a working document that does a couple things -- seeks to codify some things where there may be agreement and focus attention on the tough decisions that still need to be made, where significant gaps remain. So it is a working document that moves toward what would be a deal or an agreement.
Q: You wouldn't call it an outline or a framework or anything that the parties might say is on the table?
LOCKHART: I think we'll prefer to call it a text and we'll move forward as appropriate with it.
Q: Joe, is the United States still insisting on a comprehensive interim agreement, or would a partial agreement be sufficient at this point?
LOCKHART: Well, our objective from the beginning has been to reach an interim agreement so they can move forward to the final status state. And that objective hasn't changed.
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Q: Joe, to look perspectively at Wye for just a moment, what conditions would have to exist there for the President to return?
LOCKHART: I think what's going on now, or what will be going on in the afternoon, is a discussion of the text. We'll need that process to proceed, and we will look later on in the afternoon to make an assessment if the President's presence there can help move this process that's now been going on some days toward more progress and making the decisions that we've outlined.
Q: But what sort of conditions might those be, Joe? What sort of position would the parties have to be in in order to make another presidential visit worthwhile?
LOCKHART: It's impossible to quantify conditions. We have to make our best judgment of what's in the best interest of the process, what's in the best interest of pursuing peace in the region. We have invested the President, personally, a lot of time in this because he cares very deeply about it -- both personally and because it is so important to the people involved and to our people here in the United States. And we just will have to make our best assessment of how we can best move that process forward, whether that's letting the parties sit and work through the text or whether that means having the President travel out there and become personally engaged again this afternoon.
Q: Does it have to do with whether the parties, themselves, will want him to come? Are you looking for them to ask him back?
LOCKHART: No, I think it has to do with a variety of things that both Mr. Berger and Secretary of State Albright will be assessing in consultation with the President, and we'll make a decision later on this afternoon.
Q: The President was there until about 2:00 a.m. Was he surprised today when things appeared to suddenly go wrong?
LOCKHART: Well, I don't think that we spend that much time worrying about the hour-to-hour developments or how they're reported. Having sat in the room yesterday and having watched report after report about what was being done on the South Lawn to prepare for the signing ceremony was about as relevant as, I think, some of the things that we'll talk about for the next hours.
I can't discount everything that gets reported, but I certainly can't endorse everything that's reported. This is tough going. The President has said that these are not easy decisions. We are doing what we think is in the best interest of the process. We will continue to work at this as long as we think both parties are working seriously toward an agreement.
Q: Are you going to make the document public?
LOCKHART: I don't think so. I can check on the ground there, but I think at this point our goal is to circulate with both parties the text.