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By David Charter and Roger Boyes
The world’s most powerful woman arrives in London on the first stop of her European tour
CONDOLEEZZA RICE was all smiles as she arrived in London yesterday to start her fence-mending first trip to Europe since becoming US Secretary of State.
Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, beamed as he stood alongside the world’s most powerful woman while she declared a “unity of purpose” over key challenges facing Western leaders.
They talked up the prospects of peace in the Middle East and Dr Rice pledged to return to London next month for the British-sponsored conference with the Palestinian Authority.
But Dr Rice’s buoyant public displays in London and Berlin masked the uncompromising message she delivered on two issues of paramount concern to Washington — Iran and China.
Speaking to journalists during her flight from Washington, Dr Rice said that the US was unwilling to join efforts by Britain, France and Germany to persuade Iran to abandon its suspected nuclear arms programme by offering it incentives.
Echoing President Bush’s State of the Union speech on Wednesday, she also declared: “The Iranian regime’s human rights behaviour and its behaviour toward its own population is something to be loathed.”
At a later press conference with Mr Straw, Dr Rice insisted that a military strike against Iran was “simply not on the agenda at this point in time”, but added that “nobody asks an American President to take any option off his table”.
She gave warning that the Iranians had been offered a diplomatic way of fulfilling their international obligations — by Europe — and “they ought to take it”.
On the European Union’s plan to lift its arms embargo against China, Dr Rice moved swiftly to close down questions, saying that the issue had not featured in her breakfast talks with Mr Straw and Tony Blair.
But US officials later cautioned strongly against the plan, which has caused deep concern in Washington. They explained that Congress was growing increasingly alarmed at the prospect of the US military one day having to come to the defence of Taiwan against a China equipped with European arms.
The first day of Dr Rice’s trip, billed as a grand diplomatic tour — Warsaw today, Tel Aviv tomorrow, Rome on Monday, Paris on Tuesday, Brussels and Luxembourg on Wednesday — to celebrate all that the US has in common with Europe and repair historic ties, scarcely managed to conceal differences of opinion.
From London she flew to Berlin for a 60-minute meeting with Gerhard Schröder, the Chancellor, aimed at rebuilding links with “old Europe” damaged by the Iraq war.
On the aircraft to Berlin, she told US reporters: “Iranians are continuing to play games with their enrichment programme.”
In the German capital she repeated her hardline message. There was still space for the European diplomatic pressure on Iran — but everything depended on Tehran’s credible compliance, she said. “Diplomacy can work if there is unity of purpose and unity of message. I really hope that the Iranians can live up to the opportunity that is being presented to them.”
Dr Rice said she hoped that President Bush’s visit to Germany on February 23 would “open a new chapter in US-German relations”. Herr Schröder, however, has again declined to send German troops to train Iraqi security forces in Iraq, or to boost Germany’s military presence in Afghanistan.
In the interests of transatlantic consensus, Dr Rice used her London visit to set out what the US and Europe have in common over Iran.
“We have complete unity of purpose on a number of areas. First, that Iran engages in activities that are destabilising to the region, particularly when it comes to support for terrorism. Secondly, we are completely united in our view that Iran should not use the cover of civilian nuclear development to sustain a programme that could lead to a nuclear weapon. Thirdly, we are united in our view that the Iranian regime should have transparent relations with its neighbours in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fourthly, we have all been concerned about the abysmal human rights record of the Iranian regime.”
She added: “I find there’s very little difference between us in the challenges we face in dealing with the Iranian regime. We have many diplomatic tools still at our disposal and we intend to use them fully.”
Asked whether the threat of military action remained, Dr Rice said: “We feel particularly in regard to the nuclear issue that, while no one ever asks an American President to take any option off his table, there are plenty of diplomatic means to get the Iranians to fulfil their international obligations.”
Dr Rice argued strongly for other levers of regime change, notably the spark of democracy lit by overseas voters. “I think the spectacle of Afghans voting in Iran in free Afghan elections and Iraqis voting in Iran for free Iraqi elections just has to have an effect on the Iranian people who have long been denied the right to do the same.”
Dr Rice said that she chose London as the first stop of her first trip “because we have no better friend, we have no better ally. We have done so much together and we still have so much to do together.
“We have watched remarkable events in Iraq, the Palestinian territories and in Afghanistan, as people demonstrate once again that the goal of freedom, the aspirations of freedom, is truly universal.”
Remarkably, Iraq was not raised in the London press conference. Iran seems to have eclipsed the one issue that caused the biggest trans- atlantic rift for a generation.
Top of the blotter for Dr Rice
# Throw an arm around historic US allies and bury the hatchet over the Iraq conflict
# Persuade Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg to overcome their refusal to send troops into Iraq to train Baghdad’s fledgeling security forces
# Urge Britain, France and Germany to be harder on Iran, though continuing to excuse US from nuclear negotiating table
# Warn EU leaders that their plan to lift Chinese arms embargo will earn them a big black mark in Washington
# Win recruits for President Bush’s second-term message of pushing democracy, expanding freedoms and ending tyranny
# Encourage Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas to talk, deal and compromise with each other
February 6, 2005 at 05:56 PM in US | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home