Transcripts
Press Conference with Ambassador Ordway
U.S. Embassy
Astana, Kazakhstan
February 14, 2007
Ambassador Ordway: Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m glad to greet you here, at our press confence, and I’m ready to answer your questions, unfortunately, in English, with assistance of our excellent interpreter.
Press: Radio Azattyk, I have two questions. NATO representatives have visited Kazakhstan a lot lately. Does this indicate a long-term diplomacy aimed at selling U.S. weapons or pursuing geostrategic goals, such as U.S. military bases in Kazakhstan. This is the first question. The second one . . .
Ambassador Ordway: Please, hold on. I will answer your first question. The answer to your first two questions are “no” and “no.”
First of all, you should remember that NATO is not just the United States; it’s an alliance with many other countries. One of the very long-term aims of the alliance is to build long-term partnership relations with our partner countries. In the military area, Kazakhstan is one of our premier partners and certainly the leading partner for cooperation in Central Asia.
The goals are not to sell arms or to establish military bases, but to establish security. For that it requires effective military forces that are subject to civilian and democratic control. We have, that is we, NATO, and Kazakhstan have a very effective track record of cooperation that is deepening and expanding every year. This is in the interest of NATO and it’s in the interest of Kazakhstan.
In terms of arms purchases, Kazakhstan has to make its own decisions as to where it is going to acquire the military hardware that it needs, and it has to make that on the basis of price and quality and availability and a lot of other factors. That will probably mean it’s going to buy military equipment from a variety of sources.
On military bases, I think we’ve said on many occasions, General Abizaid mentioned the last time he was here, that we are not having any discussions and don’t have any plans for bases in Kazakhstan. So certainly the NATO discussions did not in any way touch in any fashion on bases in Kazakhstan.
Press: Is the United States going to reduce funding for independent mass media, which are not under state control, or it will stay at the same level? And will reduction (if any) mean that the United Sates will terminate its activity in the area of human rights and democratic processes?
Ambassador Ordway: Our assistance programs in Central Asia in general are going to over the next few years have fewer financial resources. This has to do with a more difficult budget environment in Washington and very tough competition among a lot of high priority claimants on our foreign assistance resources, including Central Asia, which is a priority.
Each year we look at what we have available from Congress, and then we have to decide how we’re going to spread that around. The development of democratic institutions in civil society, including free competitive media, is and will remain an important goal, and we will have some resources to pursue those aims. There is no political message nor any intention on our part to diminish the priority we place in this area in the budget decisions that have to be made in a very difficult financial climate.
Press: Liter Newspaper. Which newspapers you read first thing in the morning, Mr. Ambassador? And what can you say about President Putin’s most recent address in Munich?
Ambassador Ordway: I can tell you what newspapers I quickly looked through this morning. At least the front pages. If I remember right it was Liter, Express K, Vremya, Argumenty i Fakty. I think that was what I had this morning for breakfast. There were a lot of calories in that breakfast.
I think that with regard to the remarks that President Putin made at the Wehrkunde Conference in Munich, I really had very little to add to what Secretary of Defense Gates said when he spoke the next day. As he said, we certainly have no desire and no intention to repeat the war, the Cold War, or to enter into any sort of confrontation with Russia which is one of our most important partners in the world. With Russia we have a number of areas where we have very close and important cooperation. In other areas we have some very strong disagreements and different points of view. We welcome open and rational discussion of those different points of view. And we have our own set of issues that we have with Russia’s position in the world. But that is not the point of having a relationship. It is to work where you can together and to try to identify and overcome where you have differences, and that’s what our intention is in the relationship we have with Russia.
Press: Channel 31. The United States was among the countries standing against Kazakhstan’s OSCE Chairmanship in 2009. The decision was postponed until 2007, which year has already begun, so can we count on a change in U.S. attitude, and what has to happen in Kazakhstan to resolve this issue in a positive way?
Ambassador Ordway: Our position remains exactly what it has been in the past. We would very much like to see Kazakhstan become the chairman in office of the OSCE. But our principal position is that any country that is determined has to exemplify the values of the organization across the board in all of the principal areas in which it concentrates. In the area of human rights and democracy, what we hope and we anticipate is that Kazakhstan will undertake quickly in the course of this year, early in the course of this year, some specific concrete actions that correspond to the vision and the plans that Kazakhstan and its leadership have been enunciating over the last year or two. If that happens, I think it will create a very good condition for the decision that has to be taken at the end of this year.
Press: Info-Tsess Newspaper. Can we expect any progress in Kazakhstan’s WTO accession, and what was agreed on U.S. poultry exports to Kazakhstan?
Ambassador Ordway: We’ve had, at the end of last year, we had some very good sessions that made a lot of progress in our bilateral negotiations on WTO. I think both our negotiators came away very encouraged by the outcome of those meetings. The next stage is each side has homework to do, it has things to prepare for the next round, and that process is going on right now. But all in all, I think that is going very very well. I’m unaware of any trade-related issues we have with chicken exports to Kazakhstan. Certainly not in connection with WTO.
Press: Any deadlines?
Ambassador Ordway: We always hope that it will get done quickly, and we hope that we will be able to wrap it up this year, but that depends on a lot of factors that are outside anybody’s control.
Press: Svoboda Slova Newspaper. Mr. Ambassador, Washington always emphasizes its commitment to the principles of democracy and stands against political repression, as well as human rights violations, for political reasons. Kazakhstan lately has been shaken by a chain of political murders and political persecution. However, Washington still hasn’t made clear what is the official U.S. attitude toward what happens in Kazakhstan. Does this mean that, when speaking of Kazakhstan, Washington’s priorities are economic and military interests over democratic interests? Thank you.
Ambassador Ordway: When it comes time to provide an analysis or an assessment of the situation, we look across the board at all the aspects of our relationship. We in general look to make progress where we can. In the case of Kazakhstan, we have a very good relationship, and we’ve made a lot of progress in a lot of diverse areas. But as you might guess from my answer about the OSCE chairmanship in the area of democratization, that progress has been much slower and has been the subject of a lot of private discussion and occasionally public remarks about that lack of progress. But we have an overall foreign policy that has a number of different elements. Each of the elements is important, but no one element controls the overall relationship, whether it is energy or human rights.
Press: Interfax Agency. Mr. Ambassador, Zhambyl oblast environmentalists have reported that the environment has been damaged in the south of Kazakhstan, near the Kazakhstani-Kyrgyzstani border, by aircraft flying to the Manas airbase when they drain fuel over Kazakhstani territory before landing. Your comments on this issue?
Ambassador Ordway: I really do not believe that the operations at Manas are essentially different than those of any other airport in the world. And at any airport, there are on rare occasions extraordinary circumstances that require pilots and planes to take measures to protect their safety or the safety of their passengers or people on the ground, but those are very, very rare occurrences. I don’t think that whatever very rare occurrence may have happened is substantially different than you would find at any busy airport anywhere in the world.
Press: You speak about specific cases?
Ambassador Ordway: You’re the one that mentioned the cases. I don’t have any specific information.
Press: It was environmental scientists who had records of fuel depletion before landing on the Kazakhstani-Kyrgyzstani border . . .
Ambassador Ordway: If that ever happens, it’s not a normal procedure. It’s an extraordinary emergency procedure. I have no list. I can’t confirm that that did or did not happen, or how often.
Press: Zhas Alash. Mr. Ambassador, there are rumors that Kazbat, the Kazakhstani peacekeeping battalion, will be deployed in Afghanistan. Have you had any meetings to discuss this issue?
Ambassador Ordway: We have had a lot of discussion with our colleagues in the government of Kazakhstan about ways in which Kazakhstan can do more to help support stability and development in Afghanistan. The development of a secure and prosperous Afghanistan is very much in the interest of Central Asia, including Kazakhstan. It’s something that our Kazakhstani friends have readily agreed to, that that is an important goal for Kazakhstan as well as for America.
Our conversations have in the recent past concentrated on areas such as humanitarian assistance and investment rather than the military sphere. So we don’t have any current discussions or intentions or requests to Kazakhstan for any military contribution in Afghanistan.
Press: Liter Newspaper. We know about the strained relations between the United States and Cuba. Does it affect your personal relationship with Cuban Ambassador to Kazakhstan?
Ambassador Ordway: Any time you have a country with which there are no diplomatic relations, it somewhat complicates the situation with your diplomatic colleagues because you're not supposed to engage in discussion of substance or business or the relationship. But we certainly know each other, we shake hands, we say hello. I even say hello to her in Spanish occasionally, so I don’t think there’s any personal element in this at all.
Press: Info-Tsess. Has the U.S. Embassy come to conclusions and put measures into place after a U.S. Embassy vehicle hit one of the cars in the president’s motorcade? And when will the troops be withdrawn from Iraq?
Ambassador Ordway: Let me take your second question first. We’ve said, the president has said on a number of occasions, that we would like to reduce our forces and eventually remove them as quickly as the situation would allow. The situation is very complicated, and it’s very difficult to predict exactly when that might be.
With regard to your first question, I think I’m going to award this issue a prize for the issue that is raised most frequently and for such a long time at my press conferences. Shortly after this incident, we reissued all of our instructions to all of our embassy employees that they are required to follow all Kazakhstani traffic regulations and obey all instructions from Kazakhstani law enforcement officials. I’m happy to report we’ve had no more cars go into the president’s motorcade since then.
Press: Svoboda Slova (Freedom of Speech) Newspaper. The court hearings on the so-called Kazakhgate were supposed to have begun in February, a in New York court. Do you know anything about this?
Ambassador Ordway: That gets the prize for the second most raised issue in my press conferences. I do not believe that that hearing is going to take place, but I have no particular information to offer on it. I think it’s been postponed again.
Press: Kazakhstan TV. I risk being criticized for another frequently asked question, but you speak very good Russian. When will you be able to address the audience in equally excellent Kazakh?
Ambassador Ordway: I think if you’d actually listen to some of the greetings that I did for the Kazakhstani National Day, I did those for TV channels in both Russian and in Kazakh. But maybe if 22 years from now, after having spent 15 years in a Kazakh-speaking environment, maybe I will speak Kazakh a well as I speak Russian.