ROUNDTABLE WITH SECRETARY RICE ON A UNSC RESOLUTION ON IRAN AND SANCTIONING PROLIFERATORS
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
November 16, 2006
Excerpts
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QUESTION: On the other channel, you're going to see both the Russians
and the Chinese here. Still a Russian holdup? I mean, how -- what are
you going to do about it?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, the problem isn't the unwillingness to have
a Security Council resolution. There is willingness to have a Security Council
resolution. So on the strategy there is agreement. The question is what is
that resolution going to say and how broad is it going to be, and I think we
just have to keep working through it. But I think we will get a resolution
and we've just got to come to some conclusion about how broad it's going to
be.
QUESTION: Are you going to get a resolution that the Iranians are going to
take seriously though?
SECRETARY RICE: I think they have to take any Chapter 7 resolution seriously.
You know, Chapter 7 resolutions -- it's a small club. It now includes North
Korea, it includes for not much longer Iraq. It's a really small club. And
to be in that club has all kinds of collateral effects that I think the Iranians
will not be able to ignore. They already have banks leaving Iran and refusing
to deal with their accounts. I think that you will see that investment decisions
about Iran are affected by the fact that they're under a Chapter 7 resolution
with the potential for further sanctions. Whatever this initial list looks
like, there's always the potential for future sanctions.
So you know, I know that the Iranians have a tendency to say, oh, well, they
really don't care if they're under Security Council sanctions. Well, most people
try to avoid Security Council sanctions for a reason, and the Iranians have
done everything that they can to avoid Security Council sanctions. It shouldn't
surprise anybody that every time we get close to a Security Council resolution,
every Iranian diplomat in the world is on a plane somewhere to argue against
Security Council resolutions. So I guess they do care what happens.
QUESTION: It's still going to get read though as sort of like the incredible
shrinking sanctions. I mean, every time you get close to this, the menu gets
smaller, the --
SECRETARY RICE: I just think it's the wrong way to look at it. The fact of
the matter is, first of all, sanctions are there to try to convince people
to negotiate. They're not there just for the purpose of having sanctions. But
if they won't negotiate, then they will live under the specter of a Chapter
7, which is really, you know, opprobrium from the international community that
you've done something bad enough to be under Chapter 7 is pretty bad. And then
people start making decisions based on your status in the international system,
and that's not something that the United States will have to make a very big
deal of. People can read the tea leaves. People can understand that if this
continues and the Iranians continue to move down a nuclear road that it's entirely
possible that there are further sanctions. And they start to make decisions
accordingly. So to my mind, the important breakthrough was 1696 when it became
clear that the Security Council, in particular the P-5, would come back under
Article 41 of Chapter 7.
QUESTION: There was a line in your intervention this morning that interested
me and it was the one where you talked about the importance of other members
of APEC preventing their financial systems from being exploited by proliferators,
weapons proliferators which you didn't name but obviously the most conspicuous
one is North Korea. Was that directly aimed at -- primarily aimed at North
Korea and did you get much of a sense from the other members that they're interested
in doing that, in trying to shut down their banking systems to dealings with
North Korea?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, it wasn't aimed at North Korea. It was aimed at any proliferator.
And we know that we have a proliferation problem with North Korea. We also
have a proliferation problem with Iran.
QUESTION: And was there much -- did people respond to it?
SECRETARY RICE: I delivered the line and I left pretty soon after that. (Laughter.)
It's not as if people had much chance to respond. Look, Secretary Paulson has
-- and Stuart Levey, the Under Secretary, have made presentations to people
and the point is only the following. The international financial system has
to have integrity to it, and that means that it cannot be used and should not
be used for states that are engaged in illicit activities, most especially
states that are engaged in activities regarding terrorism or proliferation.
And both a formal and informal set of arrangements are emerging to deal with
the ability of states to use the legitimate international financial institutions
to do illegitimate business.
It's been -- it's far more advanced on the terrorist financing side than it
is thus far on the proliferation side, but when you talk about the building
of cooperative institutions you don't have to talk about the building of yet
another organization. Cooperative institutions also include having rules and
understandings about keeping track and monitoring and being vigilant about
your own financial institutions and systems so that those systems are not used
and those institutions are not used for illicit purposes.
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