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MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS  HON ALEXANDER DOWNER, MP   TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE   DATE:   22 September 2006   TITLE:  Post United Nations General Assembly Press Conference  MR DOWNER: I had a meeting this afternoon with the Foreign Minister of the Solomon Islands at their request. I was happy to see him, but I made it absolutely clear to him first of all, and the Prime Minister and I have said before, that we were outraged at the way the Solomon Islands treated our High Commissioner and it is not the Pacific way to deal with each other in that sort of offensive manner and secondly, I said to him that we were never compromised on the integrity of RAMSI, the Regional Assistance Mission in Solomon Islands.  It was not acceptable to us or to the other members of the Pacific family to have RAMSI salami-sliced so that parts of it can be taken out which address issues like corruption.  We are deeply concerned about corruption in Solomon Islands.  It’s a country that not only needs rebuilding at the grass roots level but needs to root out corruption and RAMSI can help the Solomon Islands achieve those objectives. And any plans to try to cut out bits of RAMSI or reorganize RAMSI will eat into the credibility of RAMSI and we won’t allow that to happen.  And I think he took the message away.  He understood.  JOURNALIST: Where was the Prime Minister?  Was he there?  MR DOWNER: He wasn’t there.  The Foreign Minister met me.  JOURNALIST: Do you regard that as a snub, because I understand you were supposed to meet him?  MR DOWNER: Well, I am the Foreign Minister of Australia, so for a Foreign Minister to meet me is not going to be interpreted by me as a snub.  No, no, not at all.  I mean that’s fine that it’s either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Minister is my natural interlocutor with every country.  So it’s totally appropriate.  JOURNALIST: What was the result of your other bilateral meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister?  MR DOWNER: I had several other bilateral meetings but a lot of them won’t be of such interest to you.  But I had a bilateral meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister and I made it clear to him that we expected Iran to abide by the demands of the international community, of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which we’re one; of the United Nations Security Council and I hope that Iran would get into negotiations with Javier Solana, the EU’s High Representative on foreign policy soon, those negotiations being been put off and put off.  After responding rather robustly - and it was certainly a robust



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meeting - he did say that they were looking for discussions to take place in the next week or  so between Solana and the Iranian negotiator.  So I hope so and I hope we can find a way  forward consistent with international law and consistent with the demands of the United  Nations Security Council.  Let’s hope that can be done.  I also did talk to him about Israel and  I explained to him that it was very important in future that the President of Iran cease to make  these sorts of extravagant and outrageous statements about wiping Israel off the map.  They  are incredibly and dangerous things for the President of a country to say and that there would  never be peace in the Middle East until two things were done; first of all the Palestinians had  their own state, and we strongly support that, and secondly that Israel is able to exist within  secure borders which will have to be negotiated.  But going around as the President of a  significant country making statements about wiping another country off the map is completely  unacceptable to the great mainstream of the international community.  So I had a good and  forceful meeting.

JOURNALIST: Just on the discussion with the Iranian, do you get any sense that there  may be a deal in the works with Iran, that there may be progress possible from the discussions  here?



MR DOWNER: It’s hard to tell.  My own judgment is that they’re reflecting on what  might be the best way forward and debating it amongst themselves.  There are probably  divisions within their bureaucracy and amongst Ministers about what to do, whether to take  up the offer that’s been made by the P5 plus one, or the E3, whichever formula you wish to  use but by the West, or whether just to hold out.  And the final decision will be made by the  Supreme Leader, by the Ayatollah.  It won’t be made by anyone else, would be my very firm  view.  And his disposition has clearly been a hard line disposition for the time being. But,  we’ll see what happens in these negotiations.  I think the danger for the West is it gets into  eternal negotiations, that in fact stringing out the negotiations becomes the main game,  whereas the West has got to make it clear that this negotiation process has a finite time span.   But it’s worth a try.

JOURNALIST: Would a temporary suspension be an acceptable first step, do you  think?

MR DOWNER: Yes, a temporary suspension would lead to, in my view, the United  States entering into the negotiations.

JOURNALIST: Have you been told that by them while you’ve been here?

MR DOWNER: That’s the impression I’ve had from the Americans.

JOURNALIST: In their discussions?

MR DOWNER: Indeed.  I think the American position if I interpret it correctly - and  you can check this with the Americans - but I think I am interpreting it correctly from what  they’ve told me, which is that they will sit down with the other parties and the Iranians in  circumstances where Iran temporarily suspends its enrichment, with the view to a negotiation



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which would lead to an alternative solution to Iran resuming enrichment.  So I think they  would be prepared to do that.

JOURNALIST: Did you see Ms Rice here?

MR DOWNER: I had dinner with her last night.

JOURNALIST: So you have discussed this …

MR DOWNER: I discussed all sorts of things with her last night.

JOURNALIST: Did you discuss an alternative?  I know there was some talk of  Australia imposing foreign trade sanctions.

MR DOWNER: Well we wouldn’t do that just on our own.  There is an issue here about  whether if this negotiating process I’ve just been talking about collapses, what next?  And I  think the obviously most desirable path forward would be for the Security Council to impose  some reasonably robust sanctions which would particularly, I suspect, focus on financial  sanctions.  If the Security Council failed to reach agreement there might be a resort to some  sort of a coalition of the willing on financial sanctions and, as I said a couple of days ago,  Australia would be prepared to consider participating.

JOURNALIST: How far off do you think we may be from getting to that state?

MR DOWNER:  A couple of months.  Because if there’s to be a negotiation with the  Iranians and that doesn’t lead anywhere, then there will be a negotiation within the Security  Council on what to do.  I can’t see any conclusion being arrangement within a couple of  months.  I suppose it’s possible, but I think that’s unlikely.

JOURNALIST: Just on RAMSI.  What part of RAMSI do the Solomons want to reject?

MR DOWNER: Well the Foreign Minister didn’t suggest any changes to RAMSI but  the Prime Minister has been arguing for changes to RAMSI of one kind or another  particularly localizing as quickly as possible positions in the Finance Ministry relating to  administering of the Government’s funds and there are other changes they are looking at that  he’s been enthusiastic about from time to time, including in the legal area.  Now I make the  point here, none too subtly, that RAMSI can be of big assistance to the Solomon Islands  government in addressing the issue of corruption but watering down its capacity to do that is  going to be unacceptable to us because the biggest problem we’ve got with RAMSI isn’t  helping with the improvements in the health service or the education service, getting kids  back to school, getting roads repaired and so on. All that is being done.  Lots of good things  are happening at that level.  The biggest problem is dealing with the corruption and the bad  governance that led to the collapse of the country in the first place.  So we do need to address  those issues and that is going to require a fair bit of lively talk between Australia and the  Solomon Islands.  I’m prepared for that and prepared to live with that because I think we need  to get a good outcome.



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JOURNALIST: It is possible to ever wipe out the corruption?  It seems to be endemic  in the nature of the Solomon Islands.

MR DOWNER: Well I hope so.  You’re talking about an interesting but I hope so.

JOURNALIST: You’d do better appointing an Australian Attorney-General, I think.   Would you be happy with that?

MR DOWNER: Well I think it would, if I may so, depend entirely on who it was.   There are 20 millions Australians and I couldn’t recommend all of them for that position.

JOURNALIST: Have you got anything to say about the level of contentiousness that’s  been apparent at this session?  Do you think it’s sort of …  It kind of seems to be more intense  than in the past.

MR DOWNER: Well I thought the behaviour of President Chavez of Venezuela was  puerile and unhelpful and it is not the way you should behave addressing a world forum.  If  you treat the United Nations with respect - and you can have your disagreements with the  United Nations, and everyone knows I have real frustrations with its inaction on so many

issues - but you should treat the United Nations with respect because you are treating its 192  members with respect. But to use the podium of the United Nations General Assembly to  make puerile and uncalled for personal attacks on people, albeit President Bush who no doubt  is pretty used to being attacked by people, being a politician in a democracy, I just think it  reflects very badly on President Chavez and it just reminds us that in the Security Council  ballot between Guatemala and Venezuela we will be voting for Guatemala.  We don’t have a  long history of relations with Guatemala but …

JOURNALIST: Minister, wasn’t the extraordinary thing about the Chavez speech the  reaction from the delegates?

MR DOWNER: Some of them.  Well it’s had this before.  That isn’t so different.  I can  remember speaking - I’m becoming an old man at this now - but speaking a few years ago  here I was sandwiched between Dr Mahathir and Robert Mugabe.  But sandwiched between  those two, and Mahathir, in a rant against the West, and Mugabe ditto, got standing ovations

from a significant number of delegates.  It’s true, there are countries, governments - and not  necessarily the people by the way - but there are governments that are very hostile to the  West.  There are all sorts of reasons for that - wealth distribution issues, historic issues, all  kinds of explanations.  But I think the United Nations General Assembly should be a dignified  forum and I think we’ve seen, particularly from President Chavez, but also from President  Ahmadinejad, pretty undignified behaviour and I think in future we would expect leaders to  do better than that.  I heard a little bit of what, since I mentioned him, President Mugabe had  to say too.  It was, again, a rant against Britain and British colonialism and so on.  What about  focussing on the poverty and the human rights abuses in their own countries rather than  getting into personal abuse and rants.  I mean we can do without the rants and the histrionics.   Chavez and Mugabe and so on, they can leave that to their rallies of hand-picked followers  back home.



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JOURNALIST: What about the speech by the Iranian President?  Where you surprised  by that at all?

MR DOWNER: Well I wasn’t surprised but I mean it wasn’t quite as base as President  Chavez’s speech but as I said to the Iranian Foreign Minister today we’re all living in the one  world and we’ve got to try and find solutions to some of these problems.  Getting up in the  global forum and ranting against each other isn’t going to win you any friends and it’s not  going to solve any problems.  I mean a lot of governments, a view I strongly hold, a lot of  governments have attitude.  Not many governments have policies and I’m very interested in  the people who make speeches which articulate policies to solve global problems, be they  terrorism or climate change or the threat to biodiversity albeit the very big issue of poverty.  I  look for people to talk about how they think those things can be solved rather than politicians  just standing up there posturing and pushing attitude rather than policies.

JOURNALIST: On the issue of a replacement for Mr Annan, have your thoughts been  clarified and do we have a view of Prince Zeid of Jordan?

MR DOWNER: I’ve never met him so I don’t know him, and so I don’t have a view on  him.  My view is that Ban Ki Moon is looking pretty strong, the South Korean Foreign  Minister.  And he’s a good friend of mine.  I admit that we not only know each other very  well but we’ve played golf together from time to time and so I know him very well.

JOURNALIST: The Americans have been touting other names of course and you get a  sense they look favourably upon …

MR DOWNER: That’s right.  What will actually happen is that the Security Council  will put forward a name to the General Assembly and we will have the privilege of either  voting for or against that person.  So of those candidates available …  If Ban Ki Moon gets

the job, I think he would do a good job.  And he’s a good friend of mine and a lot of  Australians know him pretty well.  I was talking to Gareth Evans yesterday and he knows him  pretty well, so I think it would be good for us but we know Surakiart, of course, though his  chances are clearly going to be somewhat affected by the political developments in Thailand  and he’s gone too.  I mean he’s obviously not the Deputy Prime Minister any more.  I had a  meeting lined up with today or tomorrow and that’s been cancelled.  I’m not sure, I think.   We’ll see.  There’s another straw poll I think next week.



JOURNALIST: With regards to Thailand have you had an update on the situation there  in the last couple of days.

MR DOWNER: In the last day I haven’t, no.  I’ve had a long analysis from the  Ambassador on the situation, but it’s pretty much as reported in the media and I don’t have  more to add than that.

JOURNALIST: So the travel warnings stay as they are now?



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MR DOWNER: No the travel warning is going to be downgraded on the grounds that  it’s probably not such a problem for people going to Thailand.  It looks as though the security  situation is pretty stable.



