The following are excerpts from remarks
by Secretary of State John Kerry in Cairo on Sunday, June 22, 2014, after a
meeting with the Egyptian Foreign Minister. On Monday, after Kerry had departed, an Egyptian court sentenced three journalists from Al Jazeera to prison terms of 7-10 years.
* * *
I came here today to reaffirm the strength of the important
partnership, the historic partnership between the United States and Egypt, and
also to consult on the critical situations that we face in the region –
obviously, particularly Iraq, Syria and Libya. After three difficult years of
transition, the United States remains deeply committed to seeing Egypt succeed.
We want to see the people of Egypt succeed, and we want to contribute to the success
of the region.
As President Obama told President al-Sisi after his
inauguration, we are committed to working together to fulfill the full promise
of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, and to support the political and economic and
social aspirations of the Egyptian people as well as their universal human
rights. I reiterated that message in each of my meetings today as part of a
broad and a very constructive discussion of the issues, including
Israeli-Palestinian relations, Egypt’s return to the African Union, and
confronting the shared threats of terrorism and extremism.
I want to thank President al-Sisi for a very candid and
comprehensive discussion in which we both expressed our deep concerns about a
number of issues, but most importantly our mutual determination for our
countries to work together in partnership in order to deal with the challenges
that we face.
I emphasized also our strong support for upholding the
universal rights and freedoms of all Egyptians, including freedom of
expression, peaceful assembly and association. We also discussed the essential
role of a vibrant civil society, a free press, and rule of law, and due process
in a democracy. There is no question that Egyptian society is stronger when all
of its citizens have a say and a stake in its success. And I welcome the recent
statements from President al-Sisi and his call for review of human rights
legislation.
We discussed the economic challenges of Egypt and I made
clear President Obama’s and the United States’s commitment to be helpful in
that regard.
We also discussed, as I said earlier, the grave security
situation in Iraq. Over the next week, I will make the same case with other
leaders that I made to President al-Sisi today. ISIL, or DASH as many people
call it here, its ideology of violence and repression is a threat not only to
Iraq but to the entire region. This is a critical moment where together we must
urge Iraq’s leaders to rise above sectarian motivations and form a government
that is united in its determination to meet the needs and speak to the demands
of all of their people.
For Egypt, this is also a moment of high stakes as well as a
moment of great opportunity. Perhaps the greatest challenge that the new
government faces is providing economic opportunity for Egyptians who seek and
deserve a better life, including the millions of young people who have played
an instrumental role in their country’s historic political change. Together
with our international partners, including friends in the region like the
Saudis, the Emiratis, the United States will contribute and work towards the
economic support and transformation of Egypt, and work to help provide
stability and an economic transformation for all Egyptians.
Egypt and its people have made clear their demands for
dignity, justice and for political and economic opportunity. They just had a
historic election for president, and there will be further elections for the
parliament. And the United States fully supports these aspirations and the
efforts of the government to help fulfill its obligations in that regard. And
we will stand with the Egyptian people as they fight for the future that they
want and that they deserve.
So we have a lot of work to do together. We know that. We
talked about that today. And I think we really found ourselves on a similar
page of changes that have yet to be made, promises that have yet to be
fulfilled, but of a serious sense of purpose and commitment by both of us to
try to help achieve those goals.
All of the things that are happening here are happening at a
moment of extraordinary change in many parts of this region, and it is
imperative for all of us to work cooperatively to try to address these
concerns. Likewise, we talked about the challenges of Libya and the challenge
that many countries face in this region of the spillover effect of terrorism,
extremism that is playing out in various countries. That is true in Libya and
that is true in Iraq. And both Egypt and the United States share deep concerns
and a deep opposition to the challenge that these threats of radical ideology
and extremism and what they present to everybody.
So we will continue to work. We will work hard to augment
what is a longstanding and deep partnership between the United States and
Egypt, recognizing that we both have things to do that we can do better and
that we both will work to do so. But we will do so with a common understanding
of the mutual interests that we share in standing up to the greatest threat of
all to this region, which is the threat of these terrorists who want to tear
apart rule of law and tear away an existing governance. And neither of us have
an interest in allowing that to happen. . . .
Toward the end of the session, a question was posed by Mohamed Wadie from October Weekly
Magazine:
Mr. Secretary, I’d like to ask you about what’s your comment
on the disastrous situation in Iraq and Libya that have led many people to
accuse the American administration of being responsible for this situation through
its role in exchanging old regimes in the region. People think that led to
division of the Arab armies, terrorism, and sectarian disputes and may lead to
division of the Arab countries on sectarian basis.
Secretary Kerry:
Let me make this as clear as I know how to make this clear.
The United States of America was not responsible for what happened in Libya and
nor is it responsible for what is happening in Iraq today.
What happened in Libya was that a dictator was attacking his
own people and was threatening to go door to door to kill them like dogs. And
the United Nations joined together in a resolution that they would have a
mission to try to protect those people. And the people rose up and the people
marched all the way from Benghazi, all the way to Tripoli, and they, in their
own voices, in their own actions, decided they wanted a different life. And
today, the United States is working with Egypt, with Tunisia, with Algeria,
with Morocco, with Europe, with other countries in order to try to help Libya
to be able to pushback against extremists who don’t want them to have that rule
of law and that kind of life.
Let me be also clear about Iraq. What’s happening in Iraq is
not happening because of the United States, in terms of this current crisis.
The United States shed blood and worked hard for years to provide Iraqis the
opportunity to have their own governance and have their own government. And
they chose a government in several elections, and they just had another
election recently. But ISIL – DASH – crossed the line from Syria, began
plotting internally, and they have attacked communities and they’re the ones
who are marching through to disturb this ability of the people of Iraq to
continue to form their government and have the future that they want. This is
about ISIL’s terrorist designs on the state of Iraq. And no one should mistake
what is happening or why.
And the United States is prepared, as we have been in the
past, to help Iraq be able to stand up against that. The President has made the
determination, which is an accurate reflection of the American people who feel
that we’ve shed our blood and we’ve done what we can to provide that
opportunity, so we’re not going to put additional combat soldiers there. But we
will help Iraqis to complete this transition if they choose it. If they want,
they have an opportunity to choose leadership that could represent all of Iraq,
a unity government that brings people together, and focus on ISIL. And I am
convinced that they will do so, not just with our help, but with the help of
almost every country in the region as well as others in the world who will
always stand up against the tyranny of this kind of terrorist activity. That’s
what’s happening in Iraq, and nobody should lose sight of it.
* * *
John Kerry, Remarks
with Egyptian Foreign Minister Shoukry After Their Meeting, June 22, 2014,
U.S. Department of State Mobile
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