Secretary Rice's Participation in NATO Ministerial and Visits

MODERATOR: Good afternoon and welcome to the Foreign Press Center for this afternoon's briefing on Secretary Rice's participation in a NATO ministerial in Bulgaria and travel to Greece and Turkey. This afternoon we have two briefers, both Deputy Assistant Secretaries in the Bureau of European Affairs. First, Kurt Volker will open with a few remarks, then we'll have Matt Bryza give some additional remarks on the stops in Greece and Turkey and then be happy to take your questions.

Kurt.

MR. VOLKER: Thanks very much. Very glad to be here and glad to be joined by Matt and by Jess.

I thought I would give a quick overview of the Secretary's current trip and then discuss a little bit more the participation in the NATO ministerial in Sofia. I'm going to ask Matt Bryza who's here to talk about the stops in Greece and Turkey. The Secretary left earlier today in order to go, first, to Greece, where she's going to have meetings there. Then she'll go on to Turkey. That’s Tuesday in Greece, Wednesday in Turkey. Thursday is when the NATO ministerial takes place. That is the foreign ministers’ meeting at NATO. I'll come back to some of the details on that. There's a transatlantic dinner that evening involving the foreign ministers of all the NATO and EU countries and then it continues briefly the following morning, and she flies back on Friday.

I'd like to pause there and let Matt say a few words about the first couple of stops, and then I'll come back and talk a bit more about our objectives at the NATO ministerial.

MR. BRYZA: Great. Thanks, Kurt, Jess, and thank you all for being here. Secretary Rice is on her way right now to Athens. I'd like to note that U.S.-Greek relations are strong, are stronger than they've been in a decade and a half, if not longer. Secretary Rice is going to build on all the hard work she already put in with former Foreign Minister Moliviatis, now with current Foreign Minister Bakoyiannis, and the general focus of the trip will be, well, the core issues that form our strategic partnership with Greece. One, the Balkans, working together to stabilize, bring peace to the Balkans or ensure peace, particularly with a focus on Kosovo. We'll talk about democracy in our cooperation in the broader Middle East and Greece's own ambitions to play a more prominent role.

They will also talk about Greek-Turkish relations and, more broadly, our shared effort to help Turkey anchor itself even more deeply in the European family. And I have in mind, of course, EU accession but also the question of Cyprus, as well as the issue of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey, so that gets to Turkey, the second stop.

In Ankara, the Secretary will also look at the strategic elements of a strategic partnership between the U.S. and Turkey. Certainly, Iraq will be high on the agenda. Our continuing commitment to eliminate the PKK terrorist threat, working with the Government of Turkey in Turkey, in Europe as well as with the new government of Iraq in Iraq. She and the leaders will focus on Turkey's 150 years of modernizing reform, which we view as providing an inspiration for other reformers in the broader region. The point is that Turkey provides not a model, but an example, of a secular democracy with a predominantly Muslim population, which makes Turkey unique as a country in Europe and the Middle East.

I've got a broad range of other topics with Turkey, also the Cyprus question, Turkey's EU accession ambitions, a broad range of economic cooperation, and in both places we will talk about our emerging effort to help Europe secure its own energy security through diversification of energy supplies, especially from the Caspian region into the rest of Europe.

Thank you.

MR. VOLKER: I'll just pick up there briefly on what we expect to talk about at NATO and the transatlantic dinner and then we can go to some Q&A.

NATO has had three really fundamental historic successes in its 58-year history. Obviously, playing the role that it did in ending the Cold War; in helping to advance and secure freedom and democracy in Central and Eastern Europe through a process of enlargement, which is still ongoing; and thirdly, in transforming itself from being a static defense alliance anchored in Europe, to one that is projecting security in a much wider area.

If you look at two of the snapshots in time -- if you look at 1994 and 2005 -- in 1994 NATO had never conducted a military operation. It had no partners and it had a very Euro-centric focus. If you look in 2005, NATO had 16 members in '94, it had 26 in 2005. It had partners throughout Europe and Eurasia -- about 20 partners in Europe and Eurasia. It also had partners in the Northern Mediterranean and had begun a program in the Persian Gulf. And it had eight military operations going on simultaneously. That is a tremendous transformation of NATO over a period of 11 years, and that's a transformation that's continuing and will continue for some time to come.

Some things that you can learn from that transformation are that the area of NATO's geographic activity has expanded considerably from being European-centric to Afghanistan and Pakistan; training Iraqi military leadership; Northern Mediterranean, Darfur, Louisiana. Secondly, if you look at the nature of the operation that NATO is undertaking, they cover a very wide spectrum from very high-intensity military peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan to very straightforward airlift operations transporting humanitarian assistance in Pakistan or in Louisiana.

So for NATO to carry out these roles today and to be in a position to carry them out in the future, as our leaders turn to NATO to find a place that can deliver solutions to security challenges in the world, NATO needs to invest in itself. Our leaders need to invest in NATO, to make sure it has the political will and the capacities to play this kind of role well into the future. That's what NATO -- that's where NATO is in its development right now. We have a summit meeting in Riga in November of this year. And we hope that that will be a critical moment in marking progress in this continuing transformation of NATO.

What the Secretary of State is doing this week in Sofia is helping to lay the groundwork for this work that will continue right up until the Riga Summit and beyond. So that's the first step is to see that we are building a stronger and more effective NATO for the future. The second part of this is if you take a set of observations about, as I said, membership and partnership and operations, you see that NATO needs to develop in many ways, and I mentioned the capabilities, but the other part of that is the partnerships and the relationships and the future of NATO enlargement. We see that NATO already is operating in Afghanistan and doing so together with countries like Australia, for example, and we believe that this is a trend that's going to continue well into the future, as NATO takes on operations of this nature.

So we would expect to see that NATO would be working together with countries like Australia or Japan or South Korea or others in parts of the world where we have a common interest in promoting security and advancing freedom and democracy. And we'd like to see NATO develop ongoing relationships with countries like this, so we can plan ahead to make sure that we're able to work together, have the right interoperability, have the right kind of political dialogue in advance of a crisis, so that we can work together abroad.

And then finally, as I said, the enlargement process of NATO has not burnt itself out, but very much the opposite. We believe that NATO enlargement continues to provide an avenue for encouraging countries that want to strengthen their democracies and their economic reforms and reforming their defense establishments to provide an anchor for them to do so.

Three countries are currently in the NATO membership action plan: Albania, Croatia and Macedonia. And they've made clear that they would like invitations to NATO at the first available opportunity. We believe they all have work to do, and we want to continue to work with them. We do not see NATO membership invitations taking place this year, when our leaders gather in Riga. But rather, we are hoping that we can build a consensus within NATO that when we meet again in 2008, that that will be the time to take those decisions. And if so, we can use the time between now and then to help the countries that are interested in building the strongest candidacies possible for NATO membership.

There are two other countries that are interested in NATO membership as well: Ukraine and Georgia. Ukraine is currently in the intensified dialogue that NATO has on membership issues; Georgia is not. The next phase, after intensified dialogue, is the membership action plan. We believe that Georgia has made tremendous progress in its democratic economic defense reforms, anti-corruption. The logical next step for Georgia is to take part in the intensified dialogue, and we certainly support their being granted that next step at the Sofia ministerial or soon thereafter. And we will look ahead to decisions about membership action plans for Ukraine and Georgia when the time is right. But we don't expect such decisions to come right now. That's the overview of the NATO agenda, as we see that.

I should mention that the transatlantic dinner is a bit of a unique event because it pulls together the foreign ministers -- and only the foreign ministers, not staff -- of the countries that are members of NATO or the European Union. So it is a larger group than just NATO; it is 32, larger than just the European Union also. And it's an opportunity for the ministers to speak among themselves about what is foremost on their minds. From our perspective, we've always tried to keep this the most informal and flexible gathering possible, without trying to set a formal agenda. This, we hope, gives the ministers an opportunity to exchange their views at a strategic level about the challenges we face in the world and try to build a stronger consensus about how to deal with them. That is what we have Thursday night in Sofia. We expect that on their minds will be some of the most topical issues that we're dealing with today: Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Russia. So that is what we would anticipate would be discussed, but we don't want to predetermine what the ministers may choose to talk about.

Finally, in Sofia, we close out with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission and meeting of the NATO-Russia Council. And I believe the Foreign Ministers of both Ukraine and Russia will be present for those meetings. I'll stop there and I think we'd be very pleased to take any questions you have on any parts of the trip.

MODERATOR: If you would, wait for the microphone and identify your news organization. Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Thank you. My question is to Matt Bryza. Matt -- sorry, I'm Yasemin Congar with Millyet CNN, Turk. You mentioned PKK in your brief remarks. And as you know, Turkish Army has been amassing its force in the border areas recently. And Turkish Chief of Staff said that a cross-border operation might be necessary, if there is a hot pursuit opportunity. As you know, Iraqi President Talabani said that they would not support such a cross-border operation. And he also said while he was meeting Ambassador Khalilzad that the U.S. would not support this either. Would the U.S. support a possible cross-border operation by the Turkish forces in Iraq?

And then I have a very quick second question. Secretary Rice said on Friday that the U.S. Government is sharing information and intelligence with Turkey about PKK. Does that intelligence include actionable intelligence? Thank you.

MR. BRYZA: Thanks, Yasemin. You ask tough questions. This is not the appropriate place to talk about perspective military actions. We're not engaged in any sots of discussions about possible incursions into Iraq by Turkey. We are working very actively with the Government of Turkey, as well as with Iraqi authorities, as I said, to address the PKK problem. Long before anybody talks about military actions, there are many steps that should be undertaken that we are working on, in fact, to deal with this problem, including on the ground in Iraq. But not only. There's a lot we are doing already in Europe, law enforcement and counterterrorist operations, targeting the operatives and the financial support networks of the PKK in Europe, and we're also changing the political climate, or we're trying to change the political climate, in Europe to make clear that supporting a terrorist organization, any terrorist organization, but the PKK, in particular, is not okay.

I'm sorry. Your second question, Yasemin?

QUESTION: Is the intelligence (inaudible) problems --

MR. BRYZA: Yeah. Yeah, well, obviously, I can't answer that. We don't comment on intelligence matters. But we do have very strong information sharing with Turkey. And I would just add one more comment, which is that Foreign Minister Gul has been generous in his comments talking about the extent to which our cooperation against the PKK has improved, and I think he's right.

Umit.

QUESTION: Umit Enginsoy, Turkish NTV. To Matt, a follow-up, Iraq President Talabani has voiced concern over the Turkish troop movements near the border near an area where Iraqi-Kurds are in northern Iraq. Do you share Talabani's concern on the Turkish mass movement there or the Turkish move? Just that -- I'm not asking about incursion, but just about Turkish troop movements.

And Mr. Volker, this time at NATO, will you be discussing your wish for more NATO involvement in Black Sea? If so, in what way?

MR. BRYZA: Thanks. Of course -- well, I've heard reports. I heard a report just now from Yasemin in the same report about the Turkish troop movements. I haven't been able to confirm anything therein, haven't been involved in any of those discussions. President Talabani's views are his own.

I would just go back to the point that we have a lot we need to do together with Turkey with Iraqi authorities to combat the PKK problem that fall far short of military actions. Thank you.

MR. VOLKER: If I -- just to comment on the Black Sea question. There's nothing particular on the agenda for this NATO ministerial addressing the Black Sea per se. Clearly, with allies like Turkey and Romania and Bulgaria all present, it's certainly a topic that people may wish to discuss a bit. But there is nothing specific on the agenda that we expect to come out of this.

I did mention Georgia in my opening remarks, and I do think that Georgia, on the other side of the Black Sea, is a good example of what we mean when we think about promoting democratic, economic development in the Black Sea region and something that I think would come up as part of the NATO discussions, but nothing particularly in a military area or any specific agenda item.

MODERATOR: Let's go to our colleague in New York, if you'd go ahead, please.

QUESTION: Nevena Mandadjieva, Bulgarian News Agency. My question is for Deputy Secretary Volker. Secretary Rice is expected to sign an agreement on the military bases that will function in Bulgaria. Could you comment on the role that they'll have to play in the political and military strategy of the United States?

And the second question. Could you comment on how far is Kosovo from reaching its final status and what are the final steps to be done in order to reach this status of Kosovo case? Thank you.

MR. BRYZA: Okay, thank you very much. First off, we do expect to sign an agreement with the Government of Bulgaria on defense installations in Bulgaria. This is a codification of the defense cooperation that's been growing between Bulgaria and the United States for some years. Bulgaria is, of course, now a member of NATO and is a place where we have had operations in the past. I remember in particular refueling operations of aircraft leaving Bulgaria and helping to refuel aircrafts that were operating in Afghanistan. And because of the geographic location and because Bulgaria is a good NATO ally that we work with very closely, and looking at the geographic location and the nature of the challenges that we expect to face over time, we thought that formalizing this kind of defense relationship would be a very useful step for both of our countries. And that is what we'll be doing with that agreement.

In Kosovo, the process is now well underway with the UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari leading a set of negotiations there. The U.S. is deeply engaged through our envoy Frank Wisner. We are identifying a number of issues that we think are important in the final status of Kosovo and trying to negotiate with all the parties toward a solution to these issues. And these include things such as the protection of ethnic minorities, the protection of religious patrimony, the democratic institutions and strengthening of democratic guarantees for all people living within Kosovo. We strongly support Martti Ahtisaari's leadership of this process and we hope that he's able to bring it to a conclusion later this year.

MODERATOR: Another question from Bulgaria. Wait for the microphone.

QUESTION: I keep in touch with my country every day, and --

MODERATOR: Wait for the microhone, please.

QUESTION: Ganka Slovova Gabrovska, Dnevnik newspaper, daily newspaper Dnevnik. And so the media describes the (inaudible) Ms. Rice's (inaudible) agenda there. We missed some information on the government level about the -- these three American bases. They will be Bulgarian-American in Bulgaria, but do Ms. Condoleezza Rice will sign the government contract on this visit in Sofia and anything more about her agenda? Do Bulgarian nationals traveling to the United States -- will you be soon waived of the visa requirement, et cetera?

MR. BRYZA: Right, okay. First off, this is clearly --what we're talking about is a Bulgarian defense installation and what we have negotiated with Bulgaria is an agreement between our governments on U.S. access and use of this facility in cooperation with the Government of Bulgaria. And yes, our intention is that that agreement would be signed during the course of her visit this week.

Concerning the Visa Waiver Program, the U.S. Congress has set requirements for what it takes for participation in the Visa Waiver Program and these include some very specific criteria, such as what is the refusal rate of people seeking visas, do we believe that they would overstay, what is the actual overstay rate of people who come to the United States, do they leave on time with their visas or not. And there are some other specific criteria that have been developed.

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe have made tremendous improvements measured against these criteria but have not made sufficient improvements to be included in the Visa Waiver Program at this time.

What the United States has done is set out a roadmap with each of these countries to work with them on ways that we can try to help facilitate their own national efforts to improve their performance according to these criteria so that they'll be much closer to joining the Visa Waiver Program.

That's going to take a long time. Fixing these issues is really something that has a lot to do with economic disparities between our countries and opportunities for travel and opportunities for employment within the United States and also within the European Union. And we look at countries like Bulgaria as a potential EU member. We see them as potentially later on as part of the Schengen agreement and all of these will have an impact, but it will take a great deal of time before we're at a point where Bulgaria will have satisfied these criteria.

Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Dimitris Apokis, Investor's World, Greece. One question on Greece to Matt Bryza. Does the Secretary during her visit to Greece will discuss -- can you tell us a few things about the Cyprus issue, because Mr. Talat, for example, today made the statement that he is arriving to start negotiations from scratch, as he said, on Cyprus? And can you elaborate a little more on the energy issue, a very important issue in the discussions with Greece?

And one technical question. According to some information, the Secretary of State will not meet the opposition leader, George Papandreou, in Greece, and is there an explanation for this? Because George Papandreou, as we all know, is a well known person in the U.S.

MR. BRYZA: Right. Thanks, Dimitris. On George Papandreou, by the way, the schedule is being developed on the ground there. Yeah, we deeply respect George Papandreou. He has countless friends in Washington. He's proven to be a partner and he's an important political leader in Greece today, but I can't speak here on the ground. That's why we have an advance team which is working, of course, with the Government of Greece as well.

On Cyprus, I hope there will be an opportunity to discuss together how -- in both capitals, how best to reenergize the negotiations that are led by the United Nations Secretary General. Secretary General Annan is in the lead. The key to restarting the negotiations is to convince him -- the parties need to convince him -- that they are operating in a spirit of goodwill. That they're both committed to a just and lasting and comprehensive settlement that will produce a unified bi-zonal, bi-communal Cyprus, and that's our policy. That's what we've supported for years. I haven't seen Mr. Talat's statement today. It's an interesting statement.

I think it's probably important for all the parties to proceed from what has already been agreed which is not a final agreement, and I'm talking about the Annan plan. The Annan plan has been rejected by the Greek Cypriots; it was accepted by Turkish Cypriots. It provides a framework from which to begin and it needs to be renegotiated, but I hope that the parties won't wander too far from the framework that has emerged through years, four years, of painstaking negotiations. But it's the sovereign right of the Greek Cypriot community to have rejected it.

On energy, now what we are hoping to do is to work with countries and companies operating in the region, stretching from the Caspian Sea into the heart of Europe, to increase commercial competition for Eurasian -- for European energy markets and we're focusing on both oil and gas, but make the point that the gas market in Europe isn't functioning like a normal free market at this point. Gas is purchased in Central Asia or in Azerbaijan for a relatively low price, maybe 55 to $65 per thousand cubic meters, ends up being sold in Europe for anywhere from 265 to $275 per thousand cubic meters. Now that reflects a massive market distortion, because the cost of moving that gas from point A to point B isn't $200 per thousand cubic meters. So we would like to increase commercial competition, increase transparency through the increase in competition and provide European consumers the ability to negotiate cheaper, more competitive prices for the gas that they will consume.

And as the EU has said in its green paper, as Mr. Barroso said when he was here speaking at Georgetown University, the Caspian region provides one of the hopeful places from which more gas sources can be sent to Europe. Thank you.

MODERATOR: In back, a question from AP. Wait for the mike a second.

QUESTION: Can I pick up on your remark about the Annan plan needing to be renegotiated? Could you elaborate a little bit? The Greek Cypriots didn't like the plan.

MR. BRYZA: Right.

QUESTION: So should the plan change or should the Greek Cypriots change, or should both happen. (Laughter.) Or do you want them to swallow now what they wouldn't swallow before?

MR. BRYZA: Well, it's not our call. It's up to the parties.

QUESTION: Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but I am interrupting. Secretary Rice there is there to push or settle -- she wants a settlement in Cyprus, right?

MR. BRYZA: Yep.

QUESTION: I know it's not your plan, but it's your diplomacy.

MR. BRYZA: Right. It's not our call as to which plan the parties use. Secretary General Annan is in charge of the negotiations. It's up to the parties to convince him, the Secretary General, that they have sufficient goodwill to reengage in good-faith negotiations. It's not for us to determine whether or not the Secretary General decides it's the Annan plan or nothing. What we're saying is the Annan plan got the parties close, got them into the neighborhood, and if the parties decide to change the landscape of a neighborhood a bit, that's up to them. We would comment that it would be wise to stay in that neighborhood though, and not begin totally from scratch, notwithstanding what Mr. Talat's reported to have said.

MODERATOR: Yes, sir, in the second row.

QUESTION: Rusen Cakir from Vatan Turkish daily newspaper. Mr. Bryza, I want to ask about Iran and we think that Iran would be one of the main topics of the visit of Secretary Rice, is it true? And what do you suppose is the American position vis-à-vis the Iranian attack against PKK these days? And the last one, what's the feeling of the United States administration about one high-level visit from Iran to Turkey like Ali Larijani or somebody like that? Thank you.

MR. BRYZA: Thanks, Rusen. Yeah, in terms of attacks against PKK, I mean, the PKK is a terrorist organization, so I don't specify or differentiate between counterterrorist attacks by one state or another against PKK. Of course, Iran is on the agenda of all senior level discussions involving our top officials, so I would be surprised if Secretary Rice and Foreign Minister Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan and President Sezer did not discuss Iran, just as a natural course of events at this point.

In terms of high-level visits by Iranian officials, I don't know what's in the books, what's in plan. On the Turkish side, we have every reason to believe -- my own consultations I just had when I was in Turkey lead me to believe that the government of Turkey stands with the international community in pressing Iran to abide by its obligations, not to pursue weapons of mass destruction. The Turkish Government for quite some time was clear that it was supportive of the EU-3 process and has maintained the international consensus and that's what we can ask for, that Turkey remains together with us, supporting that international consensus. Thanks, Rusen.

QUESTION: Taku Sadahiro with Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese newspaper. Mr. Volker, you mentioned NATO's plan to strengthen its ties with countries, including Japan. Could you elaborate some more, are you planning to upgrade the partnership or do you have some concrete joint program in mind?

MR. VOCKER: I would say that it derives from a recognition that Japan and other countries like Australia are democratic countries that share the same values as NATO, are serious contributors when it comes to dealing with crises, challenges around the world and that we are, in fact, already seeing greater cooperation between NATO and Australia, Japan, other countries, as it is. We anticipate that this will continue in the future just given the nature of events and we think we should start to plan ahead. And this could take a number of different forms and these are to be discussed among the members of NATO and with the countries concerned -- Japan, Australia, others -- as a set of options, things that we could consider and look at.

I'll give you some illustrative examples of things that would be possible. The first one is what is known as a troop contributors forum, a troop contributors committee, so that if there are countries that are taking part in the NATO ISAF mission in Afghanistan, those are both NATO countries and non-NATO countries, and we have already the ability of NATO to pull together a group of the countries that are participating together in this operation.

A further example would be certification of military forces as interoperable with NATO military forces so that there's some understood standards, understood doctrine, understood readiness of forces to be able to pick up, deploy and work together from the beginning. And that takes some peacetime preparation or some advance preparation to know that, say, Japan's forces or Australia's forces are certified by the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Jones, as being ready immediately to take part in a NATO operation if the North Atlantic Council and the government of that country so decide.

You could take a further example of when you have a crisis situation such as Darfur or something else; you may want to pull together a meeting at NATO with a group of countries that are interested in trying to contribute to a solution to that issue and would want to speak among themselves about how they could do that, NATO and non-NATO countries alike, focusing on countries that are democracies and then have the capacity to be strong security contributors.

So those are some examples of the kind of things that we have in mind. This is currently at a discussion stage and I think Secretary Rice will be discussing it with her NATO allies. And you know, she did, I believe, when she was in Australia and had a meeting with her Japanese and Australian counterparts discuss it there as well and it's something I think we'll stay in consultations about for a little while to come but we would hope that we would have agreement on some proposal taking this forward by the time of the Riga summit in November.

MODERATOR: Yes, sir. Mr. Goyal.

QUESTION: Raghubir Goyal, India Globe and Asia Today. Sir, of course there is no doubt about Secretary Rice's performance. She's a great Secretary and she has done a great job in a short time. My question is here that how forcefully she will discuss about this Iranian recent call end of Israel and also more attacks, terrorism attacks and supporting terrorism relations. A little while ago, there was more bombings in Egypt and that was after the call from Usama bin Laden. So where are we heading as far as this terrorism and Usama bin Laden and also Iranian policy on supporting terrorism and Hamas and others?

MR. BRYZA: Well, thank you first off for the compliment for Secretary Rice. I guess it won't be newsworthy if I share your acclaim. Certainly though, the forum that we've created -- this transatlantic dinner that I mentioned which puts the NATO and the EU foreign ministers together by themselves so they can talk, I think is a very innovative format and I think it is illustrative of a bigger point.

And the bigger point is that we need to be working very closely with all of our European allies and partners to deal with the global challenges that we face together. We're a single democratic community, we face common challenges and we need to deal with these things together. And that applies to counterterrorism, it applies to extremism, it applies to Iran and the challenges that poses, it applies to support for terrorism, including state-sponsored support for terrorism. I have no doubt that these issues which are paramount in our minds right now will also be paramount in the minds of the ministers when they gather in Sofia and I expect that they will indeed be discussed.

I also can say that of course the immediate issue that we focus on with Iran is its efforts to acquire a fuel enrichment cycle, which we are convinced means it seeks to acquire nuclear weapons. But that's not all we talk about when we talk about Iran and we do talk about the support for terrorism, the human rights situation and our belief that greater democracy and openness is the long-term solution that can bring Iran back to being a constructive part of the international community.

QUESTION: Thank you. My question is for Mr. Bryza. Speaking of democracy -- I am Washington correspondent for Zaman newspaper of Turkey -- Mr. Bryza, there are rising concerns in Brussels on the role of Turkish military in politics and judiciary. Do you share those concerns? Are there any specific human rights and democracy items in Secretary Rice's Ankara agenda?

MR. BRYZA: Thank you, Mr. Aslan. The Turkish military is one of the most popular institutions in Turkey, as we all know, and it has developed a unique political role in the Turkish Republic, with the Turkish Republic having been founded by one of the great generals of all time of European history, Mustafa Kamal Ataturk. So the situation in Turkey in terms of the role of the military is quite complicated. Yes, the EU has mandated reforms, political reforms that include a reduction in the role of the Turkish military in politics. That's the EU mandate. We, of course, support this whole process of Turkey in advancing these reforms that will anchor it more deeply in Europe and lead to its full membership in the European Union.

Turkey, as I said in the beginning, Turkey is unique in both Europe and the Middle East simultaneously as a secular democracy with a predominantly Muslim population. Turkey's democratic political institutions have evolved in their own specific way, based on Turkey's own historical experience and that's just the way it is. It's not for me here to criticize the particular way Turkish democracy has evolved. Turkey is a democracy, but as it aspires to membership in the European Union, it must adhere to the criteria established by the European Union, including with respect to strengthening the role of, or altering the role of the military -- reducing the role of the military in politics.

In terms of specific human rights and democracy questions in Turkey, I would anticipate Secretary Rice will have a discussion about the general course of implementation of the EU-mandated reforms. Again, because we are so supportive of Turkey being fully anchored in Europe and being a member of the European Union, we acknowledge some of the recent economic reforms that have transpired, particularly the social security law which is a useful step ahead. A lot of work remains to be done.

We think one of the great strengths of Turkey is, well, with all its historic traditions dating back to the Ottoman period of tolerance cultural and religious and there's more always that can be done. And so I wouldn't be surprised if the Secretary spends some time talking about the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the situation of the religious school, Halki, which we would very much like to see reopened, and the general course of religious freedom, which again, we argue, should be a good news story in Turkey, should be a strength of the Turkish experience.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Hasan Hazar of Turkiye Daily. Mr. Bryza, the United States always supports Turkey's EU process, so what kind of role will be discussed about this issue during the Secretary's trip of Greece and Turkey?

Secondly, so what kind of more NATO role involvement in Iraq in the near future? Thank you.

MR. BRYZA: Thank you very much. In terms of -- your question to me was about what will generally be discussed about Turkey's EU membership aspirations.

QUESTION: The Secretary during this trip.

MR. BRYZA: Yeah, during this trip. Okay. I would guess Secretary Rice again would mention the need to accelerate reforms, democratic and market economic reforms. But there is a perception, maybe unfair, maybe fair, in Brussels and among some member states that the reform process slowed in Turkey in recent months. So our point is, well, let's dispel those perceptions whether they're fair or unfair and accelerate the process. And we will -- I also anticipate in the context of Turkey's EU aspirations that we will discuss, or the Secretary will discuss with her interlocutors the question of Cyprus and the reality that Turkey undertook certain obligations last October, most notably to implement the Ankara protocol, extending the EU-Turkey customs union to the Republic of Cyprus. That's an obligation. It's unclear when that obligation needs to be fulfilled. It needs to be done, though, in due course, quickly, as quickly as possible.

And to get to the point where it can be implemented, which means that Turkey opens up all of its seaports to Greek Cypriot shipping, there probably needs to be some interim set of measures to make that politically easier or more realistic. Foreign Minister Gul has a proposal, the so-called comprehensive proposal. That proposal is highly ambitious, hasn't been accepted by the other side yet, so it seems to get from where we are today to fulfillment of Foreign Minister Gul's vision, there could be or maybe should be some interim measures that are taken. And I hope the Secretary will have a chance to explore some of those, just as we explore them at my level when I'm in Ankara, when I'm in Athens or in Nicosia or in Brussels. Thank you.

MR. VOLKER: Concerning Iraq and the NATO training mission, right. Where we are right now is that NATO is conducting a training mission in Iraq for Iraqi military leadership. This has been a matter that was agreed by consensus in NATO and agreed between NATO and the Government of Iraq. We have the welcome development over the weekend of substantial progress towards the formation of the next Iraqi government. There are still a few procedural steps as the prime minister-designate needs to select a cabinet and gain parliamentary approval for that cabinet.

Well, the first thing that we would hope is a renewed engagement between NATO and the new Iraqi government when it's in a position to do that. The second thing is that the NATO training mission has not yet been developed to the extent that we hoped for as part of the original planning within NATO. And if that is supported by a new Iraqi government, we'd like to see NATO invest a bit further in the training mission and that would be liaising with Iraqi security forces directly for force protection, possibly providing NATO forces for force protection and filling out the ranks of those that are there to do the training.

We at this point don't see a scope, or don't see a change in the scope, of the NATO role in Iraq and that would only be something that would come up in the context of a request from the Iraqi government, which right now is only in the stages of forming itself. So our focus is on making the training mission that's there work as effectively as possible.

QUESTION: This is for Matt. Kasim Cindemir, Turkish daily Hurriyet. This is like a follow-up of an earlier question. How concerned is your government about the rising tensions in Turkey between the governing party and the secular institutions of the country?

MR. BRYZA: Thanks, Kasim. That's a matter for Turkey and Turkish citizens to work out through the electoral process, through domestic politics. It's natural that there is tension in the Turkish political system. That's how it's designed and I guess I'll leave it at that, Kasim. It's a natural course of events in Turkish politics. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Any other questions?