Daily Press Briefing
Statements made by
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesperson
(excerpts)
(Paris, May 30, 2006)
[Please note that only the original French text issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs may be considered official.]
INDONESIA/EARTHQUAKE
Yesterday evening, Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy made the following statement:
A cargo plane leased by the Foreign Ministry will be leaving Vatry airport tonight for Solo Surakarta, Indonesia.
It is carrying about 40 tons of humanitarian supplies provided by the Foreign Ministry’s Action Humanitaire delegation and several public and private bodies (the Véolia and Aquassistance foundations, the NGOs Tulipe, Secours islamique and Secours catholique, and the Carrefour group).
It includes six water purification stations, water tanks, 25 emergency medical units, 140 tents, 1,000 cooking kits, 2,000 blankets, children’s health kits and clothing, and various food products.
The possibility of other shipments from France is being studied on the basis of requests from the Indonesian authorities.
Blaise Compaore, president of Burkina Faso, is paying a working visit to France from May 29-June 4. He is accompanied by four members of his government: the foreign minister, the defense minister, the finance minister and the minister for local administration and decentralization. President Compaore will be received by President Chirac on June 2.
During his stay, he will travel to local communities in the Franche Compté and Aveyron regions that have partnerships with Burkina Faso. Indeed, decentralized cooperation has been particularly dynamic between France and Burkina Faso since the latter began its decentralization process. During his stay in Paris, the president will discuss the political situation in West Africa and Central Africa. He will meet with cooperation and development minister Brigitte Girardin, and they will review the draft partnership framework document between the two countries that establishes the main orientations of bilateral cooperation for 2006-2010, amounting to about 60 million euros per year. He will also meet with business leaders at a luncheon hosted by MEDEF International.
On June 2, Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy will attend a high level meeting on HIV/AIDS at UN headquarters in New York. It will be chaired by his Swedish colleague, Mr. Eliasson, the president of the UN General Assembly. Several heads of state and government will speak at the meeting, as will UN secretary-general Kofi Annan.
On this occasion, the foreign minister and his Brazilian counterpart, Celso Amorim, the Norwegian minister of peace and international development, Erik Solheim, and the Chilean health minister, Lidia Amaralese, will co-host a working lunch in conjunction with the executive director of UNAIDS, Peter Piot, to discuss the International Drug Purchase Facility (IDPF).
During the press conference that will follow, the four ministers will present the political agreement giving rise to this facility and, in the presence of President Sepp Blatter and Pele, will announce a partnership with FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) on the occasion of the World Cup.
A press conference launching a public awareness campaign with respect to this facility, supported by numerous partners, will be held on June 7 at 11:30 A.M. at the Foreign Ministry in Paris.
We deplore the Israeli incursion into Gaza, a territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority. We call on the Palestinian Authority to take all necessary measures to stop the firing of rockets into Israeli territory. We call upon the two parties to put a halt to all violence and to restore calm and restraint.
Q - Israel invoked the right to intervene preventively. What is France’s interpretation of this justification to intervene in Gaza with such violence?
We note first of all that this Israeli incursion was the first land operation since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza last year. As we say in the statement I’ve just made, Gaza is a territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority. We therefore deplore this Israeli operation. I’m not going to get involved in a discussion on what motivated it. What’s important is for the Palestinian Authority to take all measures to avoid the firing of rockets from Gaza into Israeli territories and for both sides to show restraint.
Q - An Israeli minister announced that he was asking three Hamas deputies and one minister, the minister of Jerusalem, to resign from Parliament and from the government under the threat of expulsion and a ban on their living in Jerusalem. Do you have any reaction?
We saw that announcement and are waiting to see what happens. On the French side, we are very attached to the compliance with texts governing the status of Jerusalem and are equally concerned with the protection of the civil rights of Arab residents of Jerusalem. We remain opposed to any measure that prejudges the final status of the city, which should result from negotiations between the parties. […]
Q - Has anything been decided in Brussels about aid to the Palestinians?
The Council will meet in June. It was decided last time that the Commission would make proposals. It is working on them in conjunction with other bodies or organizations, notably the World Bank, since one of the ideas is that the fiduciary fund would be run by the World Bank. We are waiting for the Commission’s proposals. Technical meetings have taken place. We hope all this moves rather quickly because it is urgent to establish this mechanism.
Q - In other words, thus far all European aid remains blocked?
Not everything is blocked; Many things were in fact already under way just before the suspension. We mustn’t have too dark a vision of things. A lot of the aid was already en route. What’s being suspended for now is a hundred million euros. Once again, we shouldn’t assume that no aid will be disbursed in 2006; that would be wrong.
Q - In spite of that, there’s been talk about this fund, and about a solution, for weeks now. We can deploy emergency means for Indonesia, which of course are well deserved, but for a situation like Gaza, there’s no way to deploy emergency means while we await the Commission’s decision one way or another?
We are well aware of the urgency of the situation. Most recently, there was a World Bank report in early May that described the situation and showed how things were indeed very troubling in different areas, including health and education, and we are convinced of the need to do something. Once again, the EU had already disbursed a certain number of credits before the suspension. Humanitarian aid isn’t affected by this suspension. Moreover, we are pressuring the various parties to consider these humanitarian aspects. When the foreign minister went to Israel, for example, he pleaded with the Israeli government to disburse frozen funds. You saw that the Israelis decided to unfreeze part of those funds. But we agree on the fact that it is urgent to put this mechanism into effect. It was France that proposed it. But the EU must make more specific proposals now, and it must be done quickly.
We were saddened to learn of the death of two British journalists in Iraq. We convey our sincere condolences to the families of the victims.
These tragic events illustrate once gain the insecurity in which journalists carry out their work in Iraq, even when they enjoy the protection of the multinational force.
The French authorities strongly renew their recommendation to French nationals, including journalists, not to travel to Iraq.
Q - As far as you know, are there still French freelance reporters in Iraq? Can you give us an idea of how many French nationals are currently working in Iraq, apart from diplomatic personnel?
I believe there still are a few French reporters in Iraq. We strongly recommend—and have done so several times—that they do not travel to that country or, if they absolutely must, that they take all possible measures to protect themselves. You know we’ve made this recommendation to journalists on several occasions and the foreign minister has done so himself. We reiterate this advice and these recommendations to journalists and to other French nationals. As for the number of French nationals, I don’t have the exact figure in mind, but it’s about a hundred, including diplomatic staff, who represent about half that.
Q - The minister had convened the directors of the major French newspapers and publications to urge them not to send correspondents to Iraq. Despite that, are there major papers that done so?
First of all, we didn’t convene them, we invited them to a meeting at the Quai d’Orsay. By the same token, we are not in a position to force editorial boards to do anything. We note that the situation is insecure and we tell journalists that the risk may not be worth it and that in the current conditions, it isn’t prudent to send journalists to Iraq. If certain editorial boards decide to go ahead anyway, which has happened and may still happen, we then advise them to stay in contact with the French authorities, to stay in contact with the French Embassy in Baghdad, and to take protective measures, which we know are never entirely satisfactory but can at least guard against certain types of risks. But once again, our general recommendation is not to stay in Iraq.
Our feeling is that our message has been well understood by editorial boards. We feel they’ve largely taken account of our message.
Q - Despite that, does France maintain its position that there was never any ransom paid for the three journalists that were released, and that there’s no connection with the fact that journalists in Iraq who are taken hostage are very expensive to free, quite apart from the risk to their personal safety?
We’ve already discussed this point on several occasions, including very recently, and have denied that any ransom was paid.
Q - You deplore the death of two of our colleagues. But yesterday, the American army carried out massacres against the Iraqis in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a scandal that the whole Anglo-American press is talking about, but not the French. You haven’t said anything about the massacre of an Iraqi family, 24 people, who were assassinated last year.
It seems to me that the French press does write about this. Officially, we can simply note that the Americans have initiated an investigation and we hope all light will be shed on these events.
Q - Do you have any reaction to the repression of homosexual demonstrations in Moscow this weekend?
We followed the unfolding of the demonstration during which a certain number of foreign nationals, among them several French citizens, including elected officials, were the victim of brutalities.
Our consul came to the site to help our nationals who were the victims of violence and accompanied one of them to the police station where he filed a complaint. We hope all light will be shed on the circumstances in which these attacks occurred.
We deplore these acts of violence and note that sexual orientation remains a private matter. No one should be the victim of violence because of his choices in this area.
Q - Do you have any comment on the yesterday’s massacre of Afghans by the Americans in Kabul?
A certain number of violent acts took place yesterday in Kabul. Naturally we regret the death of several civilians and we express our condolences to the families of the victims. We hope that in the circumstances, restraint will be shown.
As for the French, about 70 French nationals felt endangered and contacted our Embassy. They were housed by the French battalion of ISAF, the international force on the ground. Since then, apparently, the Afghan police have regained control of the situation, and that is where we stand right now.
Q - Can you indicate when the French Command will take over the international force in Afghanistan? I thought it was June 4.
France has already commanded ISAF in the past. What’s slated for this summer is for France to take command in the Kabul region. That’s not the command of the entire force, but of the forces in the Kabul region.
Q - How long will this international force remain in Afghanistan?
The force is there within the framework of a UN mandate, it is under NATO command, and a decision has to be made by the international community to put an end to this assistance force. But we see that in the current circumstances, it remains quite useful.
Q - What is the impact of yesterday’s events on the French mission in the Kabul region?
That’s a question for the Defense Ministry. Obviously, we take all security-related developments into account. That is also ISAF’s role. As I recall, its role isn’t to maintain order as such. Public order falls within the sphere of the Afghan authorities and the Afghan police. But of course, when there are such developments, we must take account of them militarily, and I think the Defense Ministry will be called upon to do so.
Q - Can you give us any information on Ms. Colonna’s discussion this morning with her Belarusan counterpart? What can France continue to do to help people in this situation?
What’s important is that this is the second time that we’ve received Mr. Milinkevich in Paris at the ministerial level. The foreign minister himself received him early last January, and this time Ms. Colonna is meeting with him. It shows very clear support for democratic developments in Belarus. We hope to foster these democratic developments. Mr. Milinkevich is one of the main opposition figures. I believe that the meeting itself was something important and highly symbolic. The EU foreign ministers also received Mr. Milinkevich a few weeks ago. We will see how the EU can provide aid and support for the democratic developments under way.
What’s also important is for Belarus to evolve democratically and become a full-fledged member of the European family. The current situation is keeping Belarus in a minor role, in a way. But it could resume its position provided there are democratic developments in accordance with European criteria.
[…]
./.
Embassy of France, May 30, 2006