Assistant Secretary Daniel Fried Press Roundtable. NATO HQ Brussels, Belgium

Secretary Fried: Good afternoon.

The NATO-Russia Council meeting is going on as we speak, so let me start by giving you a run-down of today’s events, characterize them for you, and then characterize as much of the NATO-Russia Council as I can.

Under Secretary of Defense Eric Edelman, General Obering, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, and I were in Moscow for the 2+2 talks between Secretaries Rice and Gates and their Russian counterparts last Friday. We came here this morning and briefed the Alliance on those discussions and the progress we had made on some of the strategic basket of issues on which the United States seeks progress with Russia. The discussions in Moscow, as we briefed the Allies, were actually more substantive and more productive than the media had generally reported. I’m happy to convey that, and we conveyed it to the Allies.

Most of the discussion this morning at the NAC covered missile defense and General Obering presented to Allies the proposal for a joint regional architecture in missile defense that we presented to the Russians, and for the first time we presented the Allies with a detailed proposal of what missile defense cooperation with Russia could look like.

As you know, since last April the United States has proposed a cooperative approach to missile defense with Russia, but until last Friday in Moscow we had not presented it to the senior Russian leadership. We did so then. We explained to the Allies what we had done.

We also will meet later today on, I will meet with most of the NATO Permanent Representatives to discuss CFE, an area of great concern here in Europe and an area in which I’m happy to say we also made some progress with the Russians based again on some new U.S. proposals to move this process from its stalemate forward.

Allies expressed considerable support for the constructive, Ally after Ally said it was a constructive and forward-looking U.S. approach. They expressed appreciation for the apparent constructive tone of the discussions in Moscow and some wry amusement that the reality and the reporting were at such variance, and we discussed why that might have been the case.

The NATO-Russia Council discussion, which is again underway as we speak, was also devoted to missile defense. It featured the briefing to the Allies by the U.S. of our joint architecture. We thought we would do it with the Russians present because there’s no secrecy about this. The Russians presented their own views including some differences with the United States about the nature of what we consider to be a growing problem and potential of the Iranian ballistic missile program.

The Allies who spoke when I was still present at the meeting universally supported the forward-leaning U.S. approach. This is with the Russians in the room. They regretted that Russia had canceled a theater missile defense program as part of the regular NATO-Russia Council program. But there was also a constructive tone in the room; Ally after Ally, at least as far as I was there, expressed support for U.S.-Russian cooperation on missile defense. Ally after Ally said this was a very good idea. This was important to take missile defense from an area of U.S.-Russian differences into an area of common strategic cooperation between Russia and the United States and perhaps in the future also the Alliance.

Now to be clear, nothing was decided here. I’m not announcing huge breakthroughs, I’m announcing a constructive meeting where Allies realized that the United States was quite serious about cooperation with Russia. I would characterize the Russian tone as reserved in substance but constructive in tone. There was certainly no threat to end discussions. Certainly no polemics and there were not sharp words exchanged.

Again, I really shouldn’t characterize the whole meeting because it’s still going on but I didn’t want you all to be late and my own time is limited because at 5:00 o’clock my meeting on the CFE begins.

With that, I am happy to take questions.

Question: We believe you that everything is going fine, but --

Assistant Secretary Fried: Well, I --

Question: -- but we don’t have any information to assess how things are going on. Could you please spell out a little bit what [inaudible], please? Thank you.

Assistant Secretary Fried: I can run through Moscow again, and I’m very happy to do so.

The senior missile defense experts, General Riley, the Deputy head of the Missile Defense Agency; Assistant Secretary John Rood the State Department’s lead missile defense negotiator; Eric Edelman and I all presented the ideas for cooperative missile defense architecture to the Russians.

The Secretaries of State and Defense confirmed that this was a commitment of the United States to seek this kind of cooperation and the Russians acknowledged that while we still had some differences we had made an offer which they would consider.

I do not wish to imply that the Russians have dropped their previous precondition that the United States stop its negotiations with the Poles and the Czechs. Indeed, I should emphasize that we made clear both to the Russians in Moscow and today at the NAC and at the NATO-Russia Council that we will continue our discussions with the Poles and the Czechs.

But in that context let me add something important that I hadn’t mentioned before. The Russians said they don’t share our views of the Iranian threat, and they said why would you proceed with missile defense if there were no Iranian threat? Our response was well, we believe that Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile program is a real challenge. But in fact our missile defense program is threat-based. That is it is undertaken in response to a threat. If that threat went away, or more realistically was greatly attenuated, then obviously we would be much freer to make programmatic adjustments. And we made clear that our program with the Poles and the Czechs is threat-based. We made this clear. The Russians said they found this an interesting concept, but that’s as far as the discussions went.

So I’m really telling you there was progress and a positive tone and we all agreed to keep working both at the experts level and the Foreign and Defense Ministers will meet again in six months.

Question: The remarks earlier today by the Russian military staff seemed to contradict what Putin was saying yesterday. He seems to be saying there’s nothing new in the U.S. proposals on missile defense.

Assistant Secretary Fried: This was General Baluyevski you’re talking about?

Question: Right.

Assistant Secretary Fried: I can’t characterize his views, but it is you who said his statement was inconsistent with the statement by President Putin so I’ll leave that to the Russians to sort out.

It is an objective fact that the U.S. put new proposals for cooperation on the table. We have since April signaled, in fact stated publicly that we wanted to cooperate in missile defense with Russia, but what’s new is that we rolled out a joint regional architecture for such cooperation. The Poles and the Czechs expressed support for that. They thought it was a good idea. Allies generally, in fact I can’t think of any exception, supported it. So you had, I will posit that the atmosphere at NATO is radically different about missile defense now than it was in the spring, principally because Allies realize that the United States is very serious about a multilateral approach to missile defense including with NATO and including with Russia. We haven’t just engaged in some general talking points on that issue. We’ve thought this through and rolled out some specific ideas. So it is a fact that the ideas are new.

It’s also true that the Russians have not accepted this yet and they may not, I’m not predicting what they’re going to do, but they did acknowledge in Moscow that we had come up with new ideas and you have heard them acknowledge including publicly that the Americans are putting new ideas on the table.

Question: I’m going to ask you to repeat yourself a little bit. Could you reiterate that it is not an option for the United States to actually freeze or suspend the bilateral negotiations with the Poles or the Czechs --

Assistant Secretary Fried: I’m happy to answer that.

Question: And can I have just a small additional question after you answer?

Assistant Secretary Fried: I’m happy to answer that. We told the Russians in our discussions last week and Secretaries Rice and Gates said publicly and reaffirmed today that we are going to continue our discussions and negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic.

I did say also that the operationalization of the missile defense system could be and probably should be threat-based. But that’s different from the negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic. Those will go on.

Question: And the additional question concerns an issue which is very hot in the Czech Republic. There is a visiting group of Iranian parliamentarians in the Czech Republic and there’s a lot of political noise. Is there anything that you’ve heard of, is that something you don’t even know about? Is that something that’s irrelevant completely, or is it something that is relevant? In the Czech Republic they say we’re negotiating with the Americans and not the other coming parliamentarians from Iran.

Assistant Secretary Fried: I’m not going to tell the Czech Republic or the parliament of the Czech Republic with whom it should or shouldn’t meet. That’s none of our business. We’ve appreciated our partnership, our friendship, our alliance with the Czech Republic very much. We appreciate the constructive spirit with which the Czech Republic has been negotiating missile defense with us. We hope that the Czech message to the Iranian parliamentarians will be - there is a better future for Iran than a future of isolation, and that the American offer to sit down and talk to the Iranians if they meet the UN’s conditions and suspend their enrichment - is an important one and they should take it up.

Question: You spoke about threat assessment and Russia’s system [inaudible], but mainly about Iran. If that threat, the nature of it would change, maybe your plans would change. And we’re only talking about Iran now. This is a rogue state in a more general sense. Doesn’t movement on Iran mean [inaudible] may change?

Assistant Secretary Fried: Iran is the principal threat at the moment. They have a nuclear weapons, we judge that they have a nuclear weapons program, and in that we’re joined by other European countries. France especially has been vocal since you’re from AFP. We also judge that they have a ballistic missile program and it was very interesting because the Russians acknowledged that although our assessments of Iranian missile technology and programs differ, the Russians did acknowledge that the range of Iranian missiles keeps getting longer and they will be in range a lot sooner than the United States.

You’re asking a hypothetical question but a fair one, actually, which is are there other threats in the region. We have often said there are -- If you look 20 or 30 years out there could be other problems in the region.

When I said the operationalization of missile defense could be threat-based, I meant it. It means that the first threat that we consider to be, potential threat that we consider to be realizable is from Iran and others are further out, and of course we’re not on autopilot here. If that changes we would adjust our plans.

But in terms of negotiations with the Poles and the Czechs there’s every reason to continue these. They’re going well. These are complicated issues technically, but we’re heartened by the progress we’ve been able to make and we’re going to deal with it in a systematic way.

Question: I have three quick questions. First of all, could you elaborate for us a little bit what the new elements are which you put on the table for the Russians?

Assistant Secretary Fried: On missile defense.

Question: On missile defense.

Secondly, you mentioned there was progress on the CFE aspect of things. Can you tell us a little about where that progress has come?

Thirdly, you mentioned that the Russians have pulled out of what [inaudible] of the theater missile defense cooperation they had with NATO on their regular [inaudible]. What happened there?

Assistant Secretary Fried: With missile defense, as I said, the principal new element is the American presentation of a somewhat detailed joint regional architecture of missile defense. We rolled that out in Moscow last week. We repeated it today at the NATO-Russia Council, that is we gave the presentation where we explained what the effect would be if we actually brought the Russian assets such as the radar that President Putin brought into play as it were, in Qabala, and the analysis shows that both Russia and Europe would be far more protected against ballistic missile threats from Iran and that region than they would be if we were working without any coordination. That’s the bottom line.

Cooperation pays in missile defense. We think it is practical and it is dramatically beneficial. That was the thrust of the presentation. That’s new.

With respect to CFE, that is a very complicated issue but we’ve been consulting with our NATO allies for some time. We put some new ideas on the table. A way to break the impasse which has blocked ratification of the adapted CFE Treaty. We put some ideas on the table. The Russians acknowledged that these were quite interesting. They said they wanted to work from them. We’re quite heartened by that because as you know President Putin has said that Russia will suspend its obligations in, that is in other words pull out of the CFE Treaty regime after December 12^th if, well, if there’s not considerable progress made toward resolving these problems.

So since we certainly support the CFE regime since it is very important to the Europeans, we put some creative ideas on the table, ways to get this process moving, and we hope for some intensive diplomacy and movement ahead before December 12^th.

With theater missile defense there is a NATO-Russia work program on theater missile defense that’s been going on for some time. It involves tabletop exercises and other studies and there was another computer-supported tabletop exercise that was planned for later this year, November, I believe, and the Russians canceled it last week. Many allies, again, I left in the middle, but every Ally that spoke, I believe that’s right, every Ally that spoke expressed regret that the Russians had canceled that program and every Ally that spoke said they hope this was not the last word, that we should be in a cooperative spirit. Certainly I think that cooperation on theater missile defense which has been an agreed element of the NATO-Russia work program should go ahead regardless of our differences over missile defense otherwise.

Question: If I can press you a little more on the architecture. You’ve told us a little bit about what the effects of it would be, you described that there is an architecture, but you haven’t actually given us detail of what the architecture would look like. I know you said it was very detailed, but I’d appreciate some of the detail so we can understand it better.

Assistant Secretary Fried: I’m happy to try with the caveat that I am not a missile defense technical expert and there are people who hopefully will be joining us later far more adept. It might be an amusing exercise to see what I say, and ask the same question to General Obering and get what I guarantee you will be a better answer, but I will try.

General Obering’s presentation had to do with the linking up of radars and the communication between command and control facilities, an integration of the two systems although obviously the launch of missiles would be a national decision on the Russian side and national in NATO, whatever is worked out with NATO on the Western side. But an integration of the two systems.

Again, I should caution that I am not the person to give you a precise technical answer, but this was, General Obering laid out a two-phase process by which greater and greater integration of the two systems, greater transparency, deconfliction, would allow for much greater capacity.

The Russians, in fact President Putin in a sense has made this possible by putting on the table, as it were, making the offer of use of the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan and the radar near [inaudible] in Southern Russia.

Now to be fair, the Russians regarded their offer as a substitute for what we were doing in Poland and the Czech Republic. Our view is that everything ought to be on the table. The Czech radar, the land-based interceptors in Poland, the Russian assets. The Russians have a very extensive ballistic missile defense system around Moscow which can actually cover quite a bit of European Russia. We studied what the Russians have and determined that if you bring lots of assets together including possibly NATO-based, NATO-supported mid-range defense systems, the THAAD, other systems, you have quite a large area, much larger areas of Europe and European Russia covered than would be the case if we were not working together.

I hope that’s helpful. Again, to get more ask General Obering and to the degree his answers conflict with mine, he’s right and I’m not.

Question: Did the offer include a proposal that Russian technicians would be based in the bases? And how do you react to it? And how [inaudible]?

Assistant Secretary Fried: We talked about transparency. We are not in a position to offer something with respect to an installation on Polish or Czech territory. That is something that we’d have to consult with the Poles and Czechs first. We talked about the possibility of transparency and liaison officers in general. We said it would be, we are in a position to offer things with respect to our own facilities and command and control elements. We made that clear to the Poles and Czechs in meetings this morning. You’ll have to ask them for their reactions, but I will say that our meetings were very good this morning with Minister [Rashjakovski] and the Czechs. So we were not offering something that is not ours to offer but we were talking about transparency. Obviously liaison officers could be part of that.

Question: Is there a consensus among the alliance about the [inaudible] positions on whether Iran [inaudible]?

Assistant Secretary Fried: There is a dramatically different atmosphere in the alliance about missile defense than there was this spring. I’m confident simply asserting that as a fact judging, comparing my memories of the debate in the spring which was let us say rambunctious, and the discussion today.

The issue of an allied assessment of our threat assessment did not come up directly but in the NAC session in the morning there was, I think -- no one challenged it and said they had a different assessment. Everyone took this in. I think generally delegations agreed that the Iranian program is of concern. I wouldn’t say there was something more specific, but then again we didn’t ask for that. We simply said here’s the reason we’re concerned, here’s some of our data. It was new. That is it was in more detail than we presented before. I think it would be fair to allies simply to say they’re going to study this, take a look at it, but there were no heated differences.

Some allies are more concerned than others about the Russian reaction, but the tone is dramatically different. Again, that is principally a result of Allied realization that the Americans, we are utterly serious about cooperation with Russia and equally serious about a greater role for NATO in missile defense. In other words multi lateralization and cooperation, and I think allies have responded quite well to that.

Question: I just wanted to run through once more what you’re saying about the system is threat-based and what that would imply. Suppose Iran were to suspend uranium enrichment, which it’s clearly not going to do, but let us suppose it did that now. What would the impact be for the missile defense system? What would the consequences be in operational terms?

Assistant Secretary Fried: It’s a fair question but our position is that the negotiations with the Poles and the Czechs will continue. That remains our position. But we don’t feel the need to spend money at as quite a fast a rate for a threat which is attenuated. Now that’s a general principle. I can’t, I don’t want to hide behind the phrase it’s a hypothetical and we don’t answer hypotheticals because your question is actually a fair one and a logical one. But the actual putting into action the system is something which I think you could argue quite fairly ought to be based on the actual threat, not the projected threat. Based on the projected threat, it’s fair that the Americans and NATO and hopefully with Russia would prepare for missile defense. That’s certainly logical right now given the speed and extent of the Iranian program. And threat-based I think means you don’t stay on auto pilot. You use your brain and judge things as they actually emerge. That’s sort of a logical position to take. We explained this to the Russians and of course we also want the Russians to help us attenuate the Iranian threat using diplomatic means and sanctions but through the UN process.

Question: And was there a response from the Russians to that particular point, that they might consider something of a diplomatic process?

Assistant Secretary Fried: They seemed interested in the concept. They had several times said to us things like well, we know this is directed against us because you’re going to do this if Iran stopped altogether. We said actually, we really are serious when we say this is a threat-based system and we would be affected if Iran gave up its enrichment and worked with the international community and had a different approach to things. That’s a logical position but we hadn’t put it quite that way to the Russians before and they’re thinking about what that means. We also expressed that at NATO today and I think allies generally thought well, this is a reasonable approach by the Americans. Again, a radically different atmosphere in NATO than the one after Putin’s Wehrkunde speech and in the early phases of this debate I’m very happy to say.

Question: In other words it seems that Washington believes that Moscow could have some leverage on Tehran knowing the interest of Russia to not have this anti-missile system of yours, not being deployed in Poland and Czech. The only solution for Moscow now is to negotiate with Iran a way out of all of this. Is this not your --

Assistant Secretary Fried: No, actually not. Our major offer to the Russians was work with us on missile defense. If you’re worried about a missile defense as some sort of threat to your security, become part of the system and then you will be far more confident that it’s not directed against you because it will be an integrated system. So that was our major message to Moscow.

Question: That the major message was?

Assistant Secretary Fried: Well, it’s not a minor message, it’s also important. Our real concern is not Russia. Missile defense is thoroughly incapable, our missile defense plans are completely incapable of working against the Russian missiles. They are intended against the major problem we see developing which is Iran, and if that problem went away or were attenuated we’d obviously draw conclusions. It’s no secret that we’ve asked for Moscow’s help. Quite apart from a missile defense context, we’ve asked for Moscow’s help with Iran.

Question: So it was not a subliminal message from you to --

Assistant Secretary Fried: A subliminal message? We’re Americans. We don’t do subliminal messages. We do pretty clear ones, for good or ill and the clear messages were work with us on missile defense and we’re serious about cooperation, one; and two, we are designing missile defense and advancing a missile defense program in response to what we see as an Iranian ballistic missile and nuclear weapons threat and we want your help and the help of all responsible nations to work with Iran so this problem is attenuated and goes away.

Question: The European Union has decided not to stay in the sanctions against Iran. It doesn’t seem to be very happy either with the idea of your plans in Czech Republic and Poland. Do think this is a mistake? Do you think that the European Union should do something else against this threat?

Assistant Secretary Fried: We believe that Iran needs to get very strong messages from the world community to change the course that it’s on. When the Security Council has acted it seems to have gotten Iran’s attention which is a good thing. We hope the Security Council can act again. But because of the slow nature of the Security Council’s actions, we have also been working multilaterally with Europe and Europeans. Chancellor Merckel and most notably President Sarkozy have been both articulate and strong on the question of the challenge that Iran poses, and European countries have been leading efforts and advocating efforts to put more financial and other economic pressure on Iran so they understand their defiance of the Security Council has costs. We would like to work with Europe.

Again, multilateralism is a good thing when it produces action. It’s the preferable way to go.

Very good. And you may get a chance later to tackle some of my colleagues, figuratively.

Moderator: We understand the NRC just ended so if we can bring General Obering here we will do so. Just stand by and we’ll let you know.

Assistant Secretary Fried: All right. Most excellent. I’ll stay here to see how his account squares with mine, or doesn’t. I suspect it will, but I will not be the judge. You will.