

MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS  HON ALEXANDER DOWNER, MP



TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE



DATE: 9 July 2003

TITLE:   Doorstop re Proliferation Security Initiative Meeting, Brisbane

ALEXANDER DOWNER:  I’m  really  here  just  to  say  a  little  bit  about  the  Proliferation  Security  Initiative.   This  is  an   initiative  which  has  been  underway  for  only  a  very  short  period  of  time.   There  are  11   countries  involved  at  this  stage  -  the  United  States,  Australia,  Japan,  some  of  the  major   European Union countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany.

What we’re looking at is making sure that the international regimes against the proliferation  of weapons of mass destruction can be properly enforced.  We’ve been very concerned over  the  years  that  chemical  and  biological  as  well  as  nuclear  agents  can  be  transferred  from   country to country illicitly, contrary to obligations under international law.

And we want to see whether we can strengthen these regimes in a manner which is obviously  consistent  with  international  law,  but  provides  the  world  with  a  greater  degree  of  security   from the proliferation of dreadful weapons such as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

This  is  the  second  meeting.   The  first  took  place  in  Madrid  in  June,  last  month,  and  this   meeting’s focusing on essentially two things.  First of all, intelligence cooperation.  Of course,  we do have a good degree of intelligence cooperation, but are there ways we can enhance very  substantially our intelligence cooperation, we can focus our intelligence better on these issues  than has been the case up until now?

And  secondly,  we’re  looking  at  operational  matters.   Well,  now,  in  practice  and  consistent   with our international legal obligations, what can we do to intercept this type of illicit trade?   And so they’re issues we don’t have easy answers to at this stage, but they’re issues that we’re  looking at today and tomorrow.  And then, no doubt, after this meeting there’ll be a further  meeting  in  a  month  or  possibly  in  a  couple  of  months  because  of  August  being  the  holiday   month in the Northern Hemisphere.

So, we really are giving this process quite a lot of momentum.  It’s quite an important issue  for  us  as  a  country,  because  we’ve  traditionally  been  an  upholder  of  the  international  non-proliferation regime.  I, as a foreign minister, brought to the United Nations the nuclear test  ban treaty - the CTBT - back in 1996.  We’ve been a champion of non-proliferation.  But we  do want to make sure non-proliferation works, that we get outcomes and these meetings are a  way  of  looking  for  better  ways  of  achieving  outcomes  in  enforcing  the  non-proliferation   regime.

REPORTER:    Do you think we’ll see a new convention coming out of this meeting?

DOWNER:





Not out of this meeting, but it’s possible that a new convention could be developed in time, no  decision’s  been  made  on  that.   That  is  a  possibility.   Now,  you  know,  what  sort  of  a   convention it would be if there were to be a convention, who would sign it and so on, well  they’re, you know, questions one just can’t answer at this stage.

And,  of  course,  the  threshold  question  is,  are  the  existing  conventions  sufficient  -  the   chemical  weapons  convention,  the  biological  weapons  convention,  the  nuclear  non-proliferation  treaty,  the  Comprehensive  Test  Ban  Treaty  and  so  on  -  are  all  of  those   international conventions, well, all of those come  under  the  auspices  of  the  United  Nations,   are  they  sufficient  and  is  the  problem  here  just  enforcement  of  those.   Or  do  we  need   something new?

I think, you know, we’re probably going to come down a bit more on the side that they are  sufficient and we need to work out ways of cooperating to enforce obligations.

REPORTER:    So Australia won’t need any new laws?  Or will you be pushing for…

DOWNER:  Not at this stage.  We’re not looking at new laws.

REPORTER:    What about conventions in international waters?  Is there a need to look at that?

DOWNER:    Well, there is, of course, a great body of international law on, in particular under the Law of  the Sea convention, passage through international waters.  But, there again, there are certain  circumstances where vessels can be intercepted, particularly vessels which are carrying illicit  cargo.   That  is  that  the  documentation  on  the  vessel  about  the  cargo,  is  different  from  the   actual cargo itself.

And  secondly,  vessels  which  are  flagrantly  breaking  international  law  by  carrying  materials   between  countries  which  already  have  obligations  under  existing  international  conventions.    So there are ways but, you know, these need to be worked through a bit more and that's one of  the things that lawyers are looking at during the course of these meetings.

REPORTER:    And what could Australia’s role be in that, sort of, international water policing?





DOWNER:    Well, again, it’s too early to say what our role would be.  I mean, we obviously have a very  sophisticated  intelligence  services  in  Australia.   So  I’m  sure  that,  quite  apart  from  anything   else, we’ll be able to make a valuable contribution in the area of intelligence.  But over and  above  that,  whether  there  would  be  some  sort  of  collective  effort  to  put  together  military   capabilities to intercept or whether this would be done on a country by country basis, those  decisions are a long way off.

That’s the sort of, you know, I know that’s a headline grabbing point.  I’ve been in politics  long enough to know what the media would like as a headline - that is a good headline.  But





it’s really a long way down the track.  If that sort of process is going to emerge, it’s far too  early to predict that.

REPORTER:    But there are defence officials here, are there not, looking at military capability?  I mean, how  far advanced is it?  What type of things are they discussing…

DOWNER:    Yes.  Not advanced at all…

REPORTER:    What type of things are they discussing?

DOWNER:    Looking at what sort of capabilities exist, how useful are those capabilities in interceptions if  you want to use those capabilities to intercept.  Looking of course at experience.  We've had a  lot  of  experiences,  part  of  the  Multinational  Interception  Force  in  Iraq,  in  the  Persian  Gulf.    We've had ships in or did have ships in that force for quite some years, I guess, for 11 or 12  years.

So looking at how the MIF used to work in relation to Iraq, though in that particular case that  was the enforcement of UN sanctions so, you know, you're not really talking about that.  But  in any case, looking at all these sorts of issues.  But no, nobody's making any commitment to  anything at this stage.

REPORTER:  Is it the government's view that this threat should be dealt with decisively?

DOWNER:  Yes it is the government's view that the threat of the spread of the most dreadful weapons in  the history of humankind be dealt with.  And it's one thing to have international conventions  and get countries to sign up to these obligations, it's another thing to make sure they live up to  those obligations.  It is not consistent with international law for countries which have signed  the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to export and import illicitly nuclear materials for use in  nuclear weapons programs.

We want to make sure, absolutely sure, that those obligations are lived up to because if not,  then we're going to have a very, very much more dangerous world.  A world which will be  threatened to a very much greater extent than the current world is, by nuclear and chemical  and biological weapons.

I think that's an enormous issue.  Now Australia has, ever since I can remember, so you know,  going back to the 1960s, been very active in this agenda.  And these meetings, the fact that  we're hosting this meeting in Brisbane is just an illustration of how we continue to be active in  that non-proliferation agenda.

REPORTER:  How crucial is China for making this work?

DOWNER:  China  isn't  participating  in  this  meeting  but  we  are  developing  outreach  programs  to  other   countries and China is obviously an important component of that.  I see China's role as crucial





to  the  success  of  the  non-proliferation  regime.   Of  course  it's  a  country  which  is  one  of  the   five  official  nuclear  weapons  states,  so  it's  important  that  it  continues  to  uphold  its   obligations.

I'm  not  accusing  it  of  not  upholding  them  but  it's  important  that  it  continues  to  uphold  its   obligations.   It's  also  a  neighbour  of  North  Korea's  so  China,  potentially,  can  be  a  critical   player in stopping as best it can through its territory and its territorial waters, any illicit North  Korean trade.

REPORTER:  And will you raise this China issue … will the federal government raise this China issue when  you're in South Korea and Japan next week?

DOWNER:  I'm not sure I can answer that question.  I don't know.  I haven't seen Mr Howard's briefing  notes.  But of course, why not?  And we'd be happy to.

REPORTER:  South  Korea,  of  course,  isn't  a  member  of  this  forum.  They're  another  neighbour  of  North   Korea  and  have  obviously  a  serious  interest.   Why  aren't  they  here?  And  do  they  have  any   reservations about this type of …?

DOWNER:  I'm not sure that they do.  I hadn't heard they have any reservations.  No, no, there's a different  issue.  South Korea has been opposed to the imposition of sanctions or a blockade enforcing  UN sanctions against North Korea but this has got nothing to do with that.  That's an entirely  unrelated issue and in any case, the UN Security Council isn't on the threshold of introducing  sanctions.

This  is  really  a  group,  a  pretty  ad  hoc  group,  of  very  like-minded  countries  on  this  issue.    They're  countries  that  naturally  work  together  in  these  areas,  or  have  particular  expertise  in   these  areas.   Of  course,  South  Korea  does  in  relation  to  North  Korea  have  a  good  deal  of   expertise but this isn't just about North Korea.  And it's important to understand that there's …  North Korea obviously is a major concern.  But this isn't a meeting that's about North Korea  alone, this is about the broader issue of proliferation.

REPORTER:  Just in relation to North Korea.  Do you anticipate that the Australian public would fall in to  any  attempt  by  Australia  to  address  that  issue  directly?   Would  fall  behind  any  Australian   efforts to address the situation of North Korea?

DOWNER:  Well I think the Australian public are rightly, but to an appropriate degree, concerned about  the situation in North Korea and they'd obviously hope the Australian government could make  that  problem  go  away  as  quickly  as  possible.   That,  I'm  sorry  to  have  to  confess,  is  a  very   difficult thing to do.

First of all, we've got to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but secondly,  and it's obviously part and parcel of the first point, we've got to make sure that North Korea  doesn't continue to trade in nuclear materials, which we suspect it's done in the past.  And the  public  would  be  supportive  of  the  stopping  and  proliferation  of  these  weapons  that  kill   hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people with one strike.







REPORTER:  The Prime Minister's referred to Australia's graduated response.  What does that mean?

DOWNER:  You mean in relation to the Proliferation Security Initiative?  Well, you know, we've started  off  with  these  conventions,  these  UN  conventions,  which  we  put  an  enormous  amount  of   energy into. And now we want to see that these conventions become truly workable and that  we  have  ways  of  stopping  the  illicit  trade  in  these  types  of  materials  that  could  lead  to  the   production of nuclear but also chemical and biological weapons in parts of the world where  they may be used and cause mass casualties.

So, you know, we are doing more than we've done in the past.  This is a whole new approach  to  addressing  this  issue.   It's  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  general  issue  that  has  been  an   important part of our international agenda as Australians for the last 20 or 30 years.  But this  is a new way of looking at trying to address this problem.

REPORTER:  Does it mean you meet military threats with military response?

DOWNER:  Well,  you  wouldn't  always  need  to  meet  a  military  threat  with  a  military  response  but  you   have to look at every case as it arises, case by case.  How you meet problems of the Second  World  War  isn’t  necessarily  a  guide  as  to  how  you'd  meet  the  problems  of  Vietnam,  which   isn’t necessarily a guide to what to do about East Timor back in 1999.  And so the list goes  on.

I  mean,  every  situation  is  different  in  my  experience  and  there's  a  phrase  I  learnt  from   somebody - I've forgotten who told me this, but when I first became the Foreign Minister -  never make foreign policy by analogy.  It's very good advice.  No two situations are the same.

REPORTER:  Time  Magazine  is  reporting  US  intelligence  as saying North Korea and Iran are together in  the nuclear field.  What's your response to that?  Is that correct?

DOWNER:  Look, I can’t confirm that.  I think I could say this to you.  I have heard it said before that  there are some links between the North Koreans and Iran's nuclear program.  But I absolutely  can't confirm that, I am uncertain as to the veracity of that.  I haven't seen the Time Magazine  report but I understand that somebody in Time Magazine is quoted as saying also that Iran in  effect has a nuclear weapons or a military nuclear program already.  I think that is unlikely,  actually.  I think that's an overstatement.  I don't think it has yet.

I think, just on my own part, the concern about Iran is similar but rather different and that is  that Iran has made a decision to enter the nuclear fuel cycle.  Lots of countries have done that  which  aren't  nuclear  weapon  states.   They  haven't  been  fulfilling  all  of  their  obligations  in   terms of allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspections.  So that is, of course, an  area of concern which has been expressed by the IAEA in recent times.

Now,  does  Iran  intend  eventually  to  develop  nuclear  weapons?   When  I  was  in  Iran  a  few   weeks ago, they denied that to me.   They  said  they  didn’t  have any intention of doing that.   Well,  I  don't  know.   I  really  just  don't  know.   I  think  I  could  go  this  far:  they're  building  a





nuclear fuel cycle which would give them in time the capability to develop nuclear weapons,  but I'm not sure they've made a decision to go down the nuclear weapons path.

REPORTER:  Are you questioning the US intelligence reports then in Time?

DOWNER:  Look, you know, getting into what I think about Time Magazine and so on, some particular  character talking to Time Magazine - and this is the trouble - I mean, all sorts of people say  different things to different media and, you know, one's always asked to comment on this.  I  can only tell you what my overall impression of this issue is.  And I know a lot about it, been  to  Iran  several  times,  just  been  to  Iran  recently.   I've  been  talking  with  everybody  from  the   President of Iran downwards about their nuclear program, so I'm pretty focused on the issue.

REPORTER:  Minister, are you concerned about the debate in the Solomon's parliament, how that's going at  the moment?

DOWNER:  No.  My reports on the debate in the Solomon's parliament … the report that I've had on the  debate in the Solomon's parliament have been pretty good.  I mean, it hasn’t been unanimous  support.  I gather the former Prime Minister Mr Sogavare has taken a slight at Australia.  But,  well, you know, that's politics.  I'll live that.  He's an opponent of Prime Minister Kemakeza.    I understand from our High Commission though that there's been overwhelming support for  Prime  Minister  Kemakeza's  invitation  for  Australia  to  intervene.   And  I  don't  actually  have   concerns, no.  I appreciate one or two people will come out and take an oral shot at Australia.   So, that's life.  You don’t run for cover every time somebody criticises you.

REPORTER:  On  a  point  of  clarification  on  the  Solomon's,  does  Australia  require  the  parliament  to   (indistinct)  approving  us  coming  in  or  are  we  simply  satisfied  with  the  Governor-General   doing it on behalf of the Cabinet?

DOWNER:  No, it's not under those things - this is what we want.  We want a formal invitation from the  Governor-General,  which  we  have  now  received  on  the  basis  of  a  decision  by  the  Solomon   Islands  Cabinet.   And  it's  all  happened.   Also,  an  invitation  has  gone  to  the  Pacific  Island   Forum to forum island countries to participate as well.  So that's good.

Secondly, in the parliament we would obviously like the particular plan that Prime Minister  Kemakeza  has  put  to  the  parliament  to  be  endorsed  by  the  parliament.   That  would  be   important and we'd be pleased for that to happen.

But  thirdly,  we  do  need  some  legislative  amendments  to  provide  appropriate  protection  for   any  Australian  and  Pacific  island  police  and  defence  personnel  in  Solomon  Islands.   And  I   know  that  the  Solomon  Islands  government  supports  that  and  they’re  prepared  to  introduce   the  legislation  into  the  parliament.   I  think,  in  the  next  few  days  they’ll  be  doing  that.   My   advice  is  that  the  parliament  is  likely  to  pass  this legislation with a fairly sizeable majority.   We'll just have to wait and see though.  Things in life are unpredictable.

The trouble is if the legislation doesn’t pass the parliament, then in those circumstances we're  going  to  find  ourselves  without  the  legal  (indistinct)  for  the  police  and  the  military  that  we





would like.  So, that would be a complication.  If we get to that point, well, we’ll have to have  a look at what it would really mean.  But we really want to see the legislation passed …

REPORTER:  Any closer to a timetable as to when our troops and police …

DOWNER:  I think we are still moving quite successfully towards the end of this month.

REPORTER:  Another clarification, Minister.  Are you saying the government and the Opposition are now  of  the  same  view,  that  it's  too  early  to  be  talking  about  military  interceptions  of  Korean   vessels?

DOWNER:  I haven’t heard what the Opposition said and I try to focus on the Labor Party every so often  but I can't … I have to do my work, not just focus on the opportunist burst from the Labor  Party on all manner of issues.

It is too early at this stage to say that any hard and fast decisions have been made on whether  you  would  intercept  North  Korean  vessels  and  how  you  would  intercept  North  Korean   vessels.  It's what we're doing, we're working through all of these issues, seeing what the legal  basis for stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is.

I  would  only  say  one  thing  about  the  Opposition,  the  Australian  Opposition,  I  would’ve   thought  that  they  would  be  against  the  proliferation  of  nuclear,  chemical  and  biological   weapons programs and I can’t believe it, don’t believe that they would somehow be opposed  to  this  initiative.   That  would  surely  be  one  step  too  far  by  the  federal  Labor  Party.   But,  I   have to say from experience, you’d never want to overestimate them.

REPORTER:    Is the economic impact of cutting off this weapons trade … I mean, North Korea earns about  a billion dollars every year out of missiles, is that economic impact being considered in these  talks?  And how you might supplement that?

DOWNER:    Well, I hope North Korea might consider the economic impact of what would happen if some  of the illicit ways they raise money disappeared.  And in their case there’s quite a simple thing  for them to do, they can abandon their nuclear program, they can become part of the family of  the  international  community,  they  will  get  trade,  they  will  get  aid,  they  will  get  increased   living standards.  That will be very good news for the ordinary people of North Korea.

They can do all of those things, or else they can go down the path of trying to earn money out  of  illicit  trade  and  trade  in  lethal  weapon  systems,  and  in  those  circumstances  they  have  to   understand that we actually are not in favour of that and we’ll try to stop it.

REPORTER:    Should the Australian public prepare itself to see vessels patrolling waters and…

DOWNER:    Far too early to say that.  I don’t think they need to prepare themselves for that at this stage.





REPORTER:    What sort of impact is this going to have on diplomatic efforts on the Korean peninsula?

DOWNER:    Well, that’s actually a good question.  I don’t think it would have too much impact one way or  the other.  I think, in the end, what we’re looking for there is the North Koreans agreeing to  another round of talks, perhaps chaired by the Chinese possibly in Beijing.  Talks that would  not  just  involve  North  Korea,  China  and  the  United  States  but  possibly  South  Korea  and   Japan.  I’d hope that the North Koreans could see the point of doing that instead of having this  continual stand off with the international community.

I was in Phnom Penh a couple of weeks ago at the ASEAN regional forum meeting.  Every  single  country  at  the  ASEAN  regional  forum  condemned  North  Korea  for  going  down  the   nuclear  path  -  every  single  one.   They’ve  got  to  understand  they’ve  got  the  whole  of  the   world offside here and there’s not much point in them continuing down this sort of path if it  doesn’t lead anywhere useful for them.

REPORTER:    Are those talks set in stone with the …

DOWNER:    They’re not, no.  Are they set in stone?  No, they’re not.  No, we’re just hoping that they will  come together and happen, but they’re not … it’s not decided yet.

REPORTER:    Would this be the first time that South Korea and Japan will have been involved in (indistinct)  talks?

DOWNER:    Yeah, it would be.

REPORTER:    And will you make discussions next week about those talks with those countries?

DOWNER:    Well,  I’m  not  going,  only  the  Prime  Minister  is  going.   Will  he?   He’ll  certainly  talk  these   issues  through.   This  is  obviously  going  to  be  a  very  important  agenda  item  for  the  Prime   Minister’s visit, yeah.

REPORTER:    Could the (indistinct) laws be changed to counter the international security treaty?

DOWNER:    I  don’t  think  so,  not  over  …  you  mean  out  of  this  type  of  process,  these  meetings?   No   indication  of  that  at  this  stage,  no.   I  think  that’s  a  little  unlikely.   I’d  better  not  rule  it  out   completely - but I can’t imagine it at this stage.

REPORTER:    Minister,  the  Section  98  Agreement  with  the  International  Court,  is  Australia  going  to  still   sign that, do you know?

DOWNER:





We’re involved in negotiations with the United States over that Section 98 Agreement, those  negotiations,  though,  aren’t  complete.   We’ve  said  that,  in  principle,  we’d  be  prepared  to   negotiate  such  an  agreement,  but  the  negotiations haven’t concluded at this stage.  So there  are still quite a lot of outstanding issues that need to be resolved.

But we’ll see. I think that since you asked that question you must have heard something about  it, and I can say that there is some focus on it at the moment, in that we’re likely to enter into  another round of discussions with the Americans fairly soon.



REPORTER:    Might something be resolved, perhaps later this year?  Any idea of …

DOWNER:    Could be, yeah, could be this year, yeah.  It’s possible.

REPORTER:    The  Solomon  Islands  (indistinct),  the  country  says  that  it  wants  aid  from  you  or  Japan  or   Taiwan  about  the  PIF  Scheme  of  the  (indistinct).   Is  there  any  same  idea  in  Australian   government?

DOWNER:    Well,  yes,  I  think,  you  know,  well,  let’s  just  take  Japan  and  the  European  Union,  these  are   major  aid  donors.   And  the  European  Union  has  a  particular  association  with  Solomon   Islands, after all the Solomon Islands was - up until not all that long ago - until the 1970s, a  British colony.

So,  we  would  hope  that  the  European  Union  would  maintain  and  perhaps  increase  its  aid   programs to Solomon Islands once there’s greater stability there and we’re having talks with  the  European  Commission  about  this,  and  those  talks  are  going  quite  well.   And  the  same   applies to Japan, I mean, you know, there’s been quite a long standing Japanese aid program  to  Solomon  Islands.   We’d  obviously  not  only  hope  that  that  would  remain  but  that  Japan   might even be able to increase its aid program once there’s greater stability in the Solomon  Islands.

REPORTER:    Out of your … the Pacific (indistinct) in this scheme?

DOWNER:    Well, I mean, that’s a matter for the Japanese government, not a matter for me.  Okay, I must  go.



REPORTER:    I was just going to ask you to finally succinctly articulate your position on Australian boats  potentially patrolling waters in an interventionist role.

DOWNER:    Far too early - far too early to draw any hard and fast conclusions about that.  It’s conceivable  that something like that could emerge, not just with Australia doing it, but with a number of  countries doing it.  But it’s far too early to draw that conclusion, it may not turn out that way  as well.  We have an open mind as this process develops.







REPORTER:    Would it be an option of last resort?

DOWNER:    Well, I mean, let’s just talk it through and see what we can come up with.  Okay.



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