Bureau of International Information Programs
U.S. Department of State, Washington File, USA
June 17, 2003

The World Economic Forum meeting scheduled for June 21-23 in Amman, Jordan, will provide a “welcome and timely opportunity” for U.S. officials to meet with government and private sector representatives and discuss Bush administration initiatives to promote economic reform, educational opportunities and expanded trade and investment in the region, Under Secretary of State Alan Larson says.

Briefing reporters June 17 at the State Department’s Foreign Press Center in Washington, Larson said that Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick would attend the Amman meetings along with seven or eight other senior U.S. government officials.

High on their agenda will be discussion of President Bush’s broad goals for the region — first outlined in a May 9 policy speech — that include building a U.S.-Middle East Free Trade Area within a decade. The president also outlined proposals to help countries in the region provide broader and better education to more of their citizens, especially women and young people, and to supporting local efforts to strengthen legal and political institutions.

Other topics on the Forum program include reconstruction efforts in Iraq, Larson said, adding: “We think it will be a good opportunity to raise support for the task at hand, which is helping the Iraqi people reclaim their future.” He also noted that the United States is working with the United Nations and the World Bank to organize a June 24 conference in New York that will focus on ways to mobilize resources to meet Iraqi reconstruction needs.

In a separate briefing, Ambassador Paul Bremer, the top U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, announced June 17 in Baghdad that he and several Iraqi representatives would be attending the Forum meetings.

The Geneva-based World Economic Forum is a non-profit organization generally known for its meetings of high profile corporate and government leaders each January in Davos, Switzerland. Planners of the organization’s “Global Reconciliation” summit in Jordan say they hope the meetings of more than 1,000 world leaders in business, government and civil society will build on current efforts to bring peace to the Middle East.

Asked to comment on the Bush administration’s most recent initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Larson said Secretary Powell would likely “take every opportunity” in the region to discuss the “road map” for peace. He also underlined that one of the ways the United States hopes to help the Palestinian people is by expanding their economic opportunities and their ability to trade with their neighbors and with the rest of the world.

“Finding ways to expand trade among the countries of the region is something that makes sense to us,” Larson said. “We need to determine whether it makes sense to the countries of the region.”

Overall, Larson said, the U.S. trade agenda calls for moving “in a graduated way” towards freer trade both within the Middle East and between the region and the rest of the world. It also involves working with countries individually to determine how best to help them meet their goals. “It depends on what the leaders in the region want to do,” Larson said.

To illustrate, Larson cited a number of different trade-liberalizing efforts in the region. He pointed to Saudi Arabia, which has declared an interest in World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, and said the United States is prepared to provide technical assistance to help speed along the process. The United States is negotiating a free trade agreement (FTA) with Morocco and exploring the possibility of an FTA with Bahrain. Other countries, Larson said, might prefer to negotiate an investment treaty with the United States. He noted that in the case of Jordan, a bilateral investment treaty served as a stepping-stone to a full free trade agreement with the United States

Asked to comment on developments relating to Iraq’s debt situation, Larson said no decisions would be made until the relevant data had been collected and analyzed. He predicted, however, that upon completing the review countries would determine that “it will be necessary to have significant debt relief” for Iraq. “That is, at this stage, only an expectation, but it is a strongly held expectation,” Larson said. He noted that major creditor countries have indicated they do not expect Iraq to make debt payments before the end of 2004.

Following is a State Department transcript of the Larson briefing:

(begin transcript)

FOREIGN PRESS CENTER BRIEFING WITH UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR ECONOMIC, BUSINESS AND AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS ALAN P. LARSON

TOPIC: PREVIEW OF WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM EXTRAORDINARY ANNUAL MEETING, JORDAN, 21-23 JUNE 2003

THE WASHINGTON FOREIGN PRESS CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C. 2:00 P.M. EDT, TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2003

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. We are pleased to be able to welcome to our podium today Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs Alan Larson, who will provide for us a preview of the World Economic Forum’s Extraordinary Annual Meeting, which will be taking place in Amman, Jordan, on June 21 to 23.

Secretary Larson.

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Good afternoon. It is a pleasure to have a chance to bring you up to date with some of our plans and expectations for this important meeting in Amman, which will be attended by Secretary of State Powell, as well as U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador Zoellick.

This is an Extraordinary Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, but for the United States it provides a very welcome and timely opportunity to meet with the private sector from the region, as well as government leaders, to discuss the importance of political and economic reform, the opportunities to promote new forms of economic growth, trade, and investment; and to help build up the human resources of this very important region.

In his speech at the University of South Carolina in May, President Bush outlined our thinking about the new Middle East Partnership. He highlighted the way in which we hope to work with the countries of the region to promote economic opportunity, to promote justice, and to expand the educational opportunities of the people of the region.

In their meetings in Jordan, Secretary Powell and Ambassador Zoellick will have an opportunity to lay out the President’s vision in more detail. A number of other representatives of the administration, including people like myself, will have an opportunity to talk about parts of this economic plan, economic strategy, as we participate in various workshops and seminars that will be held.

Our initiative places considerable importance on working with the countries of the region to empower women and to create better opportunities for young people. One of the ideas that the President set out in his speech was the proposal for a Middle East finance corporation that could help small- and medium-size business gain access to capital and generate jobs.

We have declared our willingness to work with countries to strengthen their commercial codes in accordance with international standards, to provide a better framework for business formation, for protection of property rights, so that the Middle East could become more of a part of the global economy.

We’re prepared to work with countries to promote transparency and to help them improve their capacity to participate effectively in the trading system. We are promoting programs to encourage political participation and strengthen the rule of law, strengthen the free and open media. One of the things that we are working on with Bahrain is a regional forum on judicial reform, which will be led by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

We’re also working with countries like Qatar on initiatives related to education. We have media and media law programs underway in several countries. And we’re also working with parliamentary bodies — as well as nongovernmental organizations — to strengthen their capabilities to play an important part in political life.

Through the education programs of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, we’re working on literacy programs for women in Yemen, scholarship programs to keep girls in school in places like Egypt and Morocco, and we’re working on book translation and distribution programs elsewhere in the region.

I think you’ve all heard about some of the ideas we have to promote freer trade in the region. We are prepared to work with countries that are not already members of the World Trade Organization to prepare the way for their accession to membership. We are prepared to negotiate bilateral investment treaties with countries that don’t yet have such treaties and are interested in having a secure foundation for foreign private investment.

We are aiming to conclude our free trade agreement with Morocco by the end of this year, and we have indicated that we are exploring a free trade agreement with Bahrain that, if both sides agree, and if we get the requisite positive signals from the Congress, we might proceed with next year.

There will be a discussion at this particular World Economic Forum meeting on the subject of Iraq reconstruction. There will be both government panels and private panels. And we think that it will be a good opportunity to raise support for the task at hand, which is helping the Iraqi people reclaim their future.

We do think that this is something that the entire international community will want to be involved in and should want to be involved in. In that regard, we also are working with the United Nations and the World Bank on a conference in New York on June 24th that will be one of the first opportunities for the international community, or parts of the international community, to get together and begin the process of assessing the needs and mobilizing the resources that can help us meet those needs.

With those opening remarks, I would be happy to answer any questions you have about the meetings in Jordan over the next weekend and our goals for those meetings. The meetings themselves begin this Saturday afternoon in Jordan and will continue through Sunday and Monday.

MR. DENIG: I would remind you to please use the microphone; identify yourself and your news organization.

We’ll start up front here.

QUESTION: My name is Adu-Asare, a reporter for AfricaNewscast.com. I got in here late, but I’ve been wondering if Africa will be on the agenda at the meetings?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Well, Africa is definitely on our agenda. I think Africa, as such, is not the main focus of this meeting. It really is focused on the Middle East. Now, there will be senior representatives at the ministerial level from countries like Egypt, which are both a part of Africa and a part of the Middle East, as well as representatives from parts of North Africa farther to the west. But the principal focus of this meeting is on the more traditionally defined Middle East.

QUESTION: My name’s Andrei Sitov with the Russian News Agency ITAR-TASS here. Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask you to clarify something you said recently at the Congress hearing about Iraq and Iraqi debt and Russia.

The essence of the exchange you had with one of the lawmakers here was, basically he said, “Why don’t we give the Russians a break and why don’t we support their claim for Iraqi debt in full?” And basically, your answer as I read it was, “No, they don’t need a break first of all, and second of all, they will not get a break because even if they go to the Paris Club, that will automatically mean that that debt will have to be reduced, rescheduled.” Thank you.

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Well, I’m going to keep the focus here on the World Economic Forum and meetings coming up. I think in that context I can at least give a partial answer to your question.

What we have said about Iraqi debt is that in the first instance, it’s important to get the data right. And that sounds like a pretty boring answer, but in fact, it’s one of the first things that is necessary every time there is a major country that is in debt difficulties. The second thing we’ve said is that many of the major creditor-countries have agreed that it would be unreasonable to expect Iraq to make payments on its external debt before the end of 2004. And I think that is a reflection of reality and it represents a contribution on the part of the international community. The third thing that I’ve said is that I do expect that when the analysis of the numbers has been completed and the analysis of Iraq’s capacity to pay has been undertaken, that it will be necessary to have very significant debt relief for Iraq. And that’s, at this stage, only an expectation, but it is a strongly held expectation.

Now, I think the question that you’re referring to was, frankly, a somewhat garbled question, because the issue is really Iraq’s debts and how much Iraq owes various creditor-countries, including Russia. And I do think that the arrangements that ultimately are worked out are likely to be worked out in the Paris Club where Russia, as you know, participates.

QUESTION: But you also said that in Paris Club it would automatically mean reducing the debt, which —

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Well, no. What I said was that there is an arrangement, a longstanding arrangement by the way, in the Paris Club that is designed to translate ruble-denominated debt, which is not, at this stage, worth 100 percent on the face value. And so all I was doing was referring to a longstanding convention or arrangement in the Paris Club that I think was part of the arrangement when Russia joined the Paris Club in the first point.

I wasn’t making new policy. I was just referring folks to an existing arrangement.

Yes, sir.

QUESTION: I’m Phil Kurata from The Washington File. Do you expect any announcements of specific new initiatives to be announced in Amman, and could you preview what they might be?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: The primary purpose of this meeting is not to make new announcements. There may be some, and if there are, I’m not going to preview them, but I will let them come out of the meeting itself. But I think the way I would encourage you to look at this meeting is as follows:

When President Bush made his speech in May, it really was an offer. It was an offer of ways where the United States was prepared to help countries move in a direction if that was the direction that they wanted to move in.

This meeting is an opportunity to sit down with leaders from the region, both from government and from the private sector, and discuss the extent to which the President’s vision does reflect an offer that they would like to take up; that it does reflect a direction in which they would like to go.

Now, as I’ve indicated in my initial summary remarks, in many respects, it is a direction that countries want to go because we do have ongoing, cooperative programs with a number of the countries in these areas. But in other respects, it’s a genuine question that we are interested in hearing some responses to. For example, the initiative on trade, the notion of trying to move in a graduated way to more open trade within the region and between the region and the rest of the world — that’s an approach that makes sense to us. We will want to ask and find out whether it’s an approach that makes sense to leaders from the region.

QUESTION: So is the meeting mostly consultations?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: I consider this an opportunity for consultation to expand on the President’s vision, to expand on the areas in which we are prepared to work with countries, to hear the ideas and suggestions and reactions from leaders in the region, both from government and the private sector.

QUESTION: Giampiero Gramalia, Italian News Agency ANSA. Mr. Secretary, two questions. First, will Israel be present at the meeting in Amman, and there will be somebody designated to represent Iraq in the meeting in Amman? And second question, when you are talking of free trade and free trade area, what’s your priority? Establish a series of bilateral agreements between United States and each country or some country of the region or create a free trade area between the country of the region?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Israeli officials will be present at the meeting. And since it is, in one sense, a private meeting, I’m hesitant to say, “This is the Israeli representative.” There will be Israeli representatives who will be attending the sessions.

I would make the same comment, I guess, with respect to Iraqis. The program that I have seen suggests that there will be a number of Iraqis who will be present, some from the private sector. There is the expectation, and I quickly say, “These things change,” because sometimes people who are expected to come aren’t able to come. But one of the lists of participants I have seen has the CEO of the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Mr. Ghadban, for example — just to give you one example of a senior Iraqi official who the organizers believe is going to be there.

You know, on the issue of your second question, I think it depends on what the leaders of the region want to do. I mean, we have made clear that we are prepared to work with countries wherever they are at in their own thinking about trade. There are some countries from the region that — Saudi Arabia is one of the most notable examples — that are not yet a member of the WTO. But Saudi Arabia has declared its strong interest in becoming a member. They have a working party. They are making progress. And we are prepared to work with countries like Saudi Arabia and other countries from the region that are not yet members of the WTO but want to be members, to assist them, to provide any technical assistance that they may need.

There are other countries in the region like Morocco that have had a strong interest in having a free trade relationship with the United States. And we are pursuing those types of arrangements with Morocco, and we have been exploring them with Bahrain. Other countries may be in a somewhat different place — perhaps to some extent “in-between,” and they may want to have a trade and investment framework agreement with the United States, which is an agreement that we believe can serve as a stepping-stone towards a free trade agreement. It doesn’t need to but it has — it’s a very intensive type of trade and investment relationship.

There are other countries that may be more interested in the investment issue, and so we could explore a bilateral investment treaty. That’s what we did with Jordan, in the first instance. Before we had a free trade agreement with Jordan, which we do now, we had a bilateral investment treaty. Those are all examples of things that we can do with countries bilaterally.

Now, we have felt very strongly that intra-regional trade in this part of the world is not as developed as it could be and that the region has suffered from this. So finding ways to expand trade among the countries of the region is something that makes sense to us. We need to determine whether it makes sense to the countries of the region. If it does, then we could, perhaps, find ways of facilitating it.

QUESTION: Reha Atasagan from Turkish Television, TRT. As you know, we have a customs agreement with EU, but the Turkish Government is willing to be a part of expanded trade. In the area, there was a project with the free trade agreement: Jordan, Israel and Turkey was still a project.

Do you have any offers? I know you are going to meet with our Foreign Ministry Under Secretary Ziyal. Yes. So could you elaborate?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Yeah, and I already have. I am very much looking forward to meeting with Minister Ziyal. Together, we chair the

U. S-Turkey Economic Partnership Commission. As two people who are trying very hard to help expand and develop the economic relationship between our two countries, we have a lot to talk about. I do think in the area of trade, one of the things to talk about with Minister Ziyal is the way to expand our trade relationship.

We welcome the fact that there is the Customs Union with the European Union. In fact, we spent a lot of time encouraging the European Union to open up that possibility. But one side effect of that is that our bilateral trade between Turkey and the United States is somewhat stunted by that because Turkey sometimes has better opportunities in Europe than it does here. And European companies, or EU companies sometimes have better opportunities to sell into Turkey than we do. So we would like to find ways to address that.

One way could be to cooperate more closely in the Doha Development Agenda at the WTO talks that are underway. One way could be to build on the investment relationship, where I think that Turkey remains a country that is capable of attracting ten times more investment, ten times more private investment than it is now. But there are certain things that the two countries have to work out to make that happen including addressing some of the investment disputes that exist now.

There is another issue, the one that you touched on, namely what sort of role could Turkey play in promoting regional trade? Regional trade with Iraq, because Turkey has suffered greatly over the last ten years by virtue of the fact that it’s had a bad neighbor in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Now, it has the potential of having a much better neighbor. And how can that work to the benefit both of Turkey and Iran?

And then there is the possible role that Turkey could play as a trading partner with those who are involved directly in the Middle East peace process. I think it’s tremendously important that the Middle East peace process is being worked on so hard by countries in the region.

You know, after the Sharm el-Sheikh and Aqaba meetings, I think we have seen some of the countries of the region take a real accountability and ownership over this process and make sure that through difficult moments that it proceeds forward. It will be interesting to consider the sort of role and contribution that Turkey can play in this regard including the economic contribution.

So this is a rich agenda. And that’s why I’m looking forward to meeting with Minister Ziyal.

QUESTION: Samir Nadir with Radio Sawa. Mr. Secretary, what is the expectations from the meetings in Jordan? Like, what do you expect to come out from it regarding supporting the peace process, like, especially, the Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas? Will there be any commitments to provide assistance to them?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: I think we will talk about the economic portion of that relationship. I am sure that Secretary Powell will take advantage of his opportunity to visit the region to work directly on the political aspects of the roadmap. But I am not here to speak about that. I am just commenting that he will take advantage of every opportunity of being in the region to do that.

I think on the economic dimensions of the roadmap, we all appreciate the fact that it will be important going forward to help the Palestinian people expand their economic opportunities and find ways of building better lives for themselves and their children. Some of that will come about through economic assistance. And we have been involved in that, the European Union has been involved, a number of donors have been involved.

Some of what needs to happen to improve prospects and opportunities for the Palestinian leaders lies in the areas of trade and investment, areas we were just talking about, with respect to the possible contributions of the Turkish Government. And I think these will be very much on our minds.

I hope, depending on the participation in the meeting, which is something that does shift as people have opportunities or conflicts — I hope to meet, myself, with some of the Palestinian representatives, and have an opportunity to talk about the economic dimensions of what needs to be done moving forward.

MR. DENIG: Any final questions?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: Very good. Thank you very much. Good to see you all.

QUESTION: What is the number of the U.S. delegation?

UNDER SECRETARY LARSON: I don’t have a headcount at this stage. But, in addition to the two cabinet officers, there will be at least seven or eight senior U.S. officials, officials at the Under Secretary, Assistant Secretary, or Deputy Assistant Secretary level. And as I indicated, we’ll be both supporting the Secretary of State and the U.S. Trade Representative, as well as participating in a number of these workshops, panels and events that are already being organized.

Thank you.

(end transcript)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)