Besides the content below, isn't Elaine Sciolino, who contributed to this article, the very latest kidnap victim in Iraq?
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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday during an exchange with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany at a news conference that touched on Iraq, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort.
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Rice Gets Pledge From Schröder to Do More to Help Iraq
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: February 5, 2005
ERLIN, Feb. 4 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, pressing her effort to improve relations with Europe, drew a promise on Friday from Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of Germany to do more to help with Iraq and a warm endorsement of President Bush's call for democracy in Iran.
Earlier, she sought to assuage fears that the United States intended to attack Iran, a day after she rebuffed a European request to join negotiations over the country's nuclear program.
Mr. Schröder, one of Europe's most implacable opponents of the Iraq invasion two years ago, appeared with Ms. Rice at a convivial news conference after an hourlong meeting here on Friday. He said he, like Mr. Bush, was ready to move beyond the debates of the past and work together on several matters, particularly the Israeli-Palestinian peace effort.
Ms. Rice said, "Now is the time for our diplomacy to put our alliance to work in the service of great goals and great opportunities that stand before us."
Mr. Schröder said that what Iraq needed was "democracy and stability" and that Germany, which has begun training Iraqi police officers in the United Arab Emirates, was "ready to help" if the Iraqis asked for it. The Germans have ruled out any military mission, training or otherwise, on Iraqi soil, however.
Earlier on Friday, the first full day of her weeklong trip to Europe and the Middle East, Ms. Rice conferred in London with Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Minister Jack Straw of Britain. There and in Germany, she sought to ease concerns that the United States had any intention of attacking Iran.
Military action, Ms. Rice said in London, "is simply not on the agenda at this point in time." Asked repeatedly if the Bush administration favored "regime change" in Iran, the term that presaged war in Iraq, she just as repeatedly declined to say that Washington opposed or endorsed such a policy.
Instead, she listed a series of grievances the United States has against Iran, including a poor record on human rights, its suspected nuclear arms program and accusations that it supports militant groups that carry out attacks on civilians and oppose steps toward peace by Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
All those matters, she suggested, could be dealt with through steps short of using force or seeking the violent overthrow of the Iranian government. "We have many diplomatic tools still at our disposal, and we intend to pursue them fully," she said.
Ms. Rice's visit to Europe coincides with what many diplomats here say is a period of intense concern and confusion about American intentions.
Much publicity has been given in the European news media about an article in the magazine The New Yorker last month suggesting that the United States was planning for attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, and about a comment from Vice President Dick Cheney that Israel might well carry out such attacks on its own.
Mr. Bush's State of the Union message, which declared that the United States would support efforts by the Iranian people to bring about greater democracy in their country, stirred renewed anxiety in many countries that the administration would seek a violent overthrow of the Shiite theocracy in Tehran.
Many European commentators, going further, have said that such bellicose talk would undercut the effort to negotiate a dismantling of Iran's nuclear program, which the United States has said is geared toward creating weapons.
Even Ms. Rice's aides seemed taken aback on Thursday when she called Iran's human rights record "something to be loathed" in her initial comments.
In his comments on Friday, however, Mr. Schröder dismissed the idea that talk of bringing about democracy in Iran was unhealthy or damaging to negotiations with Iran on nuclear matters. "Not at all," he said with a laugh, when the question was raised at his news conference. "No, no, absolutely not."
The chancellor then said he had "listened to the president's address very eagerly" and "taken from it that his heart is very keenly with the democrats, irrespective of what country we're talking about."
"I couldn't agree more, actually," he said.
But he added carefully that there should be a discussion about what "tools" would be used to achieve reform in Iran.
A senior State Department official traveling with Ms. Rice, amplifying her comments further, said Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice had lately "made it more explicit that we support the aspirations of the Iranian people to control their government."
Another administration official suggested that Ms. Rice was trying to reassure Europe, warn Iran, establish her identity as different from her predecessor, Colin L. Powell, and not least, send a positive signal to the administration's conservative wing, whose members advocate at least raising the possibility of "regime change" over Iran.
"Sometimes a mixed message is the message you are trying to send," he said, noting that European anxieties needed to be assuaged at the same time that the Iranians needed to be told of American seriousness toward Iranian conduct.
In Tehran on Friday, Ms. Rice's sharply worded remarks were castigated as fresh proof of the Bush administration's enmity and set off suspicion of the Europeans in their negotiations with Iran to halt its uranium enrichment activities in exchange for potential rewards.
In the Friday Prayer sermon at Tehran University, Ayatollah Ahmed Janati, the head of Iran's powerful Guardian Council, declared that Iran was under threat not only from the United States but also from Britain. "The people and the government should take these threats seriously," he said.
He spoke of a conspiracy by the British officials involved in the nuclear talks to make Iran give up its nuclear technology gradually for little reward. "They are masters of deception, cunning and trickery," he said, calling Britain "the father of the Great Satan," the term used by Iranian hard-liners for the United States. "If they can, they will just give us a candy as sweetener."
Elaine Sciolino contributed reporting from Paris for this article. |
