Transcripts
Press Conference with Ambassador Ordway
Kazakhstani Press Club
Almaty, Kazakhstan
May 10, 2006
Moderator: I’d like to welcome the U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan. Our press conference will follow a question and answer format. Please, first question.
Kazakhstan Today. We all know about a recent incident with a U.S. diplomat and we would like to know what kind of action was taken. In a similar case in the U.S., Mr. Morozov hit a policeman with his car and was dealt with very harshly, criminal charges were filed. We would like to know what measures were taken against the mission employee.
Ambassador: I can say that this incident was unintentional and did not involve any damage to life or property. We very much regret the fact that this driver drove his car into the area that had been cleared for the presidential motorcade. We also regret that, through a series of misunderstandings, he did not clearly understand what the law enforcement authorities wanted him to do at various points after that.
We have informed all members of the embassy of the requirement that they obey all of this country’s traffic laws and regulations. We have told them that they are to obey all instructions of the traffic police and others in authority on the roads. And we have told all of our employees that they are absolutely required to follow those instructions. We regret that this took place at all.
Kazakhstan Today. Can we continue on this theme? Some media reported that Kazakhstan’s MFA sent a note of protest. Is this true?
Ambassador: We did receive a note and we have responded to that.
KTK TV: What was the answer to the protest and what was said about the misunderstanding of employees of diplomatic representative offices? The arresting officer Serik Narbayev said he was hanging onto the car and was being squeezed against a bus. I would like to know in more detail where the misunderstanding comes in.
Ambassador: He does not speak Russian or Kazakh. He misunderstood the initial directions of the traffic police of what he was supposed to do with his vehicle. He then stopped the vehicle, there was an exchange of documents, those documents were returned to him, and he thought he was free to go. That in fact was not the case, he then had to stop again, and there was another longer exchange with law enforcement authorities.
KTK: Can you say what the answer was?
Ambassador: We normally don’t provide the details of our correspondence. We certainly made the point that we would try to take measures to try to ensure that nothing like this happened again.
Interfax: During Vice President Cheney’s trip, there was an unflattering portrayal of democracy in Russia. Some Russian media immediately drew analogies to Churchill’s Fulton speech. How do you evaluate Mr. Cheney’s comments, and does this say anything about relations between Russia and the White House?
Ambassador: First of all, let me say that the vice president’s speech obviously speaks for itself and I can’t really provide any additional insights into it. I recommend anyone who’s interested to go ahead and read the speech in full. We continue to look at Russia as a strong partner, a very friendly nation with whom we have good relations, and we want to continue in that fashion. At the same time, with any two nations, you’re going to have differences of view, and it’s very useful to set out very clearly what your viewpoint is, and what your expectations are. I think that’s what the vice president did in this speech.
Inform Bureau, Channel 31. Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan literally yesterday were accepted into the U.N. Council on Human Rights. Meanwhile, the United States did not put itself forward as a candidate. Can you explain Washington’s position on this issue?
Ambassador: As you probably know, we did have some very serious concerns and reservations about the establishment of this council. And we announced that, with this in mind, we were not going to be candidates this year, that we wanted to give it a chance to operate and see how it would actually perform in practice. We would then look at the situation and then decide whether we would want to pursue our candidacy next year or the following years.
We all hope that this new council will be a significant improvement over its predecessor and will engage seriously on the issue of human rights around the world.
KTK TV. Excuse me for going back, but I would still like to get a clarification. Going back to the incident, I would like to know now, beside oral statements, if any other measures were taken regarding Henry Lee Richard? Where is he now, and what’s he doing?
Ambassador: There’s been no change in his status.
Panorama. I have two, non-automobile questions. (Laughter). Recently the head of the European Union expressed concern and, as far as I understand, approached the U.S. about Russian plans to turn the export of energy resources from the West toward China. There’s a similar situation with Kazakhstan, how does the American side feel about Kazakhstan’s plans to export oil and gas to China? Does this cause any concern?
And if you would allow me to pose my second question right now. Glancing at the situation developing around Iran, a perception is forming that the U.S. could go, shall we say, rather far in relation to Teheran. If the military option happens, is the safety of U.S. companies operating in Kazakhstan’s oil and gas sector being taken into account? It’s hard to imagine they could feel calm in the event of an armed action.
Ambassador: On the first question, we very much favor energy resources from Kazakhstan reaching world markets. We think that clearly there is a role for having a variety of export routes, including export routes through China. I recall at a press conference last year saying that we support it and think that the oil pipeline is a good idea. We still do.
Now the issue is what to do about gas. We think again that having varied options for export that lead to world markets would be an excellent path for Kazakhstan.
On the issue of Iran, all of us, and not just in the United States, have a great deal of concern over the prospect that Iran could acquire nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. There’s pretty clear unanimity in the international community that we should do whatever we can to prevent that from happening. Our emphasis is on achieving this through diplomatic means. All of our current efforts are aimed in that direction. I don’t think it’s particularly useful to speculate about possibilities that we are not at this point even paying much attention to or focusing attention on.
Andrei Sviridov, independent journalist. Mr. Ordway, I would like you to know that there’s another viewpoint besides the lunacy instigated by some or the majority of pro-administration media on the incident on Furmanov Street. There’s the view that your employee conducted himself like a free man, and not like our Kazakhstani drivers who are scared to even stop on this street or drive along it. And secondly, did you know that if a certain segment of the population of Kazakhstan is outraged by this, that say, a certain attaché hit our president, even if unintentionally, then another part of the population would cry out, “Damn, too bad he didn’t ram him.” Just so you know that there is such a point of view in Kazakhstan and I personally share it.
Moderator: What is your question? (Laughter)
Ambassador: People can have their own opinions, I for one would like to restrict myself to facts. The fact is that he went out of the driveway of the building where he lived, and he saw an empty street. He proceeded to turn into what he thought was an empty street. We all know in fact that it was empty for a reason, and it wasn’t empty for very long. He very quickly found out that he was someplace where he wasn’t supposed to be. But when he started he didn’t realize that. Also, I think that - we regret this incident, it’s unfortunate that it happened, but it in no way is any sort of official indication of the respect for the relationship the United States has with Kazakhstan. It certainly doesn’t even relate to the intention of this particular embassy employee when he turned onto Furmanov Street.
Aina Plyus. Mr. Ambassador, lately the prestige of the United States of America, as the upholder of democracy, is diminishing before the people of Kazakhstan. The intentions of the U.S. presidential administration appear to be to work more and more with the authoritarian regime of Nazarbayev, than with Kazakhstan’s civil society, social organizations, NGOs, movements. How can the policy of the United States of America be explained? How can you explain the sharp shift in the policy of the United States of America?
Ambassador. I’m not sure I agree with every particular point you raised in your question. Let me just speak for a minute about how our concern about the development of democracy in a civil society relates to our overall policy in Kazakhstan. We have very clear views and very clear positions in this area. We expressed those views both privately and publicly. It is one important element, but only one element, in the broad spectrum of relations we carry on with Kazakhstan, its government and its people.
We also are involved with, have dialogue with, and have concerns about things ranging from cooperation in security and anti-terrorism to infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
The point is, we’d like to see progress in all of those areas. We see more progress in some areas than we do in others. But we’re not ready to write off Kazakhstan, its government, or its people because we’re not getting sufficient progress in one area. We want to continue to have a balanced relationship in which we can continue to make at least some progress in all these areas. If we evaluate the relationship with Kazakhstan, we look at the balance of all those interests across the board. I would hope that as people in Kazakhstan look at the United States and its relationship here, they, too, would look at how we are achieving what we want to do, or what Kazakhstan wants to do in this relationship in all the areas where we’re engaged, and not just one area.
But I also don’t want to go too far, I do want to say that we expect, and will continue to work for progress in each of those areas. We are not going to give up in any of those areas, including democratization and developing civil society and respect for human rights.
Epokha. Mr. Ambassador, in the course of the U.S. vice president’s visit there was a meeting with leaders of the Kazakhstani opposition, but Galymzhan Zhakiyanov, for well known reasons, didn’t make it. What did Mr. Cheney think about this, and what do you think?
Ambassador: We expressed our regrets, both at the time of the meeting and later to Mr. Zhakiyanov, that he was unable to participate in that meeting. On Saturday Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher and Elizabeth Millard, who is Special Assistant to the President with the White House, met with Mr. Zhakiyanov here and expressed our regret personally. He too expressed his regret that he was unable to participate, and we passed that message back to the vice president and his staff. We have made our regret clear to the Kazakhstani authorities as well.
Kazakhstan Today. Mr. Ambassador, one way or another, you stay current with events going on in Kazakhstan. Have you noticed that lately in Kazakhstan’s media market certain changes are taking place. Without in any way asking you to interfere in the internal affairs of Kazakhstan, I would like your opinion of what’s happening today with the national television and radio company “Kazakhstan” and the “Khabar” agency.
Ambassador: I think like a lot of other people in Kazakhstan I’m following reports in the media about this with a great deal of interest and look forward to seeing how this develops. We certainly hope that the media situation in Kazakhstan will develop so that it has accurate and competitive media that have a high degree of professionalism and offer an opportunity for all points of view to be covered in the course of news and other programming. One can only hope that whatever changes there are will lead in that direction.
Reuters: Was the OSCE chairmanship raised during the meeting with Mr. Cheney and does the United States have a position on whether you can support the 2009 chairmanship of Kazakhstan?
Ambassador: The issue did come up in the discussions. We said what we have said in the past on this point, that we are happy that Kazakhstan is interested in this position, that any leader - that any chairman-in-office of the OSCE - has to reflect the fundamental values of that organization. We hope that Kazakhstan will clearly demonstrate that before a decision is made before the end of this year. We have had no further decisions in that regard.
Panorama. My question touches Kazakhstan superficially, but rather strongly, and I posed it at a press conference last year. Unfortunately, I have to return to it. Despite the fact that American troops have been in Afghanistan for a rather long time, the relevance of the problem of the flow of drugs from there isn’t going away. The head of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs was in Almaty at the end of last week and talked about this. How can this be explained? Is this a question of ineffective operations or basically an unsolvable problem? Could you explain somehow the American point of view?
Ambassador: It’s a very difficult problem to deal with. The fact that the flow of narcotics continues is not due to a lack of seriousness on our part, or lack of effort. In fact, if anything, it is getting more public attention in the United States these days. There has been considerably more attention devoted to this issue. This is a problem that is not unique to Afghanistan or this part of Asia. We must, and we will continue to pursue our efforts and to try to identify new and more effective ways to counter the trade in narcotics.
One element is to try to cut off the flow of transit narcotics through countries of the region. We will have an assistant secretary of state who is responsible for this matter here in Kazakhstan this week. She will have a number of meetings in Astana and will be prepared to discuss this with Kazakhstani law enforcement officials about how we can cooperate in this very important area.
What is the name of the official?
Ambassador: It's Anne Patterson, the Assistant Secretary for International Law Enforcement and Narcotics.
Delovaya Nedelya. Can you comment on the work of FBI specialists in the investigation of the murder of opposition leader Sarsenbaiuly and whether they are also helping investigate the death of Nurkadilov.
Ambassador: The FBI continues to participate in the investigation of the Sarsenbaiuly murder. We continue up to this point to be satisfied with the professionalism and the conduct of that investigation. We believe that there is still more work that needs to be done and we are prepared to continue to participate. We are not participating in the investigation of the death of Mr. Nurkadilov. We are concentrating all of our efforts on the murder of Mr. Sarsenbaiuly.
Mr. Ambassador, Iranian authorities are making statements that their nuclear program will be used to develop peaceful atoms, to meet the demands for energy needs of the country. What do you think about the prospects for building an atomic energy station in Kazakhstan?
Ambassador: We certainly have no objections at all to Kazakhstan building a nuclear power plant, and we’d be prepared and have offered to be as helpful as we can, should Kazakhstan decide that is the course they want to pursue.
What kind of assistance is Kazakhstan considering?
Ambassador: One of the things that we have talked about is that when you have a nuclear power plant it is important to have very good technical and safety regulations of that facility. We think that we can have an exchange of expertise on how that can be accomplished. Of course, the United States is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of nuclear power plants. We would be very pleased to try convince whoever is doing the purchasing that an American nuclear power plant might be a very prospect.
Delovaya Nedelya. Excuse me please, does the U.S. embassy have information about the fate of the Kazakhstani woman who was sentenced, I think, to 40 years in the U.S., is her case being re-examined and where is her punishment being carried out?
Ambassador: Is this the case in Texas? I have no further information than the last time I addressed this.