Press Conference on the Middle
East Peace Process
(October 1, 1993)
The President. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I have a brief statement and then I want to give the Crown Prince and
the Foreign Minister an opportunity to make a few remarks.
I have just had the privilege of hosting what to date
has been an unprecedented meeting in the Oval Office between His Royal
Highness Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres
of Israel. This meeting is another important step on the road toward
a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
With me in the Oval Office were Shimon Peres, a principal
architect of the path-breaking Israel-PLO agreement, and Crown Prince
Hassan, a leader who has literally devoted his life to the promotion
of peace and a better future for his entire region. I am grateful to
both of them for accepting my invitation to further the cause of peace.
On September 13th we bore witness to an event that
should serve as a turning point in the history of the Middle East. Then
I spoke of my commitment to help build a new future for the Middle East
and all its people. Today we have taken two additional steps to turn
that hope into reality.
This morning at the State Department, in an extraordinary
demonstration of international support for peace, 43 nations from every
region of the world helped to usher in this new era by providing their
political and financial hacking to those who would make peace in the
Middle East. They pledged more than $600 million in immediate needs
of the Palestinians and over $2 billion over the next 5 years to help
establish Palestinian self-government.
And now this meeting has just taken place in the Oval
Office, coming as it does some 2 weeks after Jordan and Israel signed
their agreement on a common agenda to guide their negotiations. This
symbolizes a new relationship between Jordan and Israel, marked by dialog
and acceptance rather than confrontation and rejection.
The special relationship between the United States
and Israel is central to the pursuit of peace, and I want to emphasize
the great importance the United States attaches to Jordan's critical
role in achieving lasting peace in the region.
In our meeting, both the Crown Prince and the Foreign
Minister spoke of their hopes for the future of peace and prosperity
for Israelis, Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese, and Jordanians all alike,
indeed, for the entire region. To help to work toward this goal they
discussed ways to give more energy and force to their bilateral negotiations
to resolve all outstanding issues.
They also agreed today that Israel and Jordan should
establish a joint economic committee, much like the one agreed to in
the Israel-PLO agreement of 2 1/2 weeks ago. And we all agreed that
Israel, Jordan, and the United States should establish a working group
to be convened by the United States with two representatives from each
country so that Israel and Jordan can agree, together with this Nation
acting as facilitator, on the next steps in economic development in
their two nations. They share so much in common as they both pointed
out. Now they want a common economic agenda.
They also agreed to work through this working group
on common steps to reduce the certification in the area. We want to
reduce the problems of the environment and especially the problems the
desert presents as a part of the long-term economic growth of the Middle
East, and especially of Israel and Jordan.
And finally, they both agreed that we should all get
to work as soon as possible. That's the kind of action and cite kind
of attitude that I hope we can keep alive, coming as it does on the
heels of so many other encouraging signs in the Middle East.
Finally, let hie say that they spoke of their common
commitment to work in close coordination with the Palestinians as this
peace process goes forward. In this way, we can all act as partners
with the Palestinians and work toward our common goals.
Let me say personally that I enjoyed this meeting very
much. I applaud the Crown Prince. I applaud the Foreign Minister for
coming here, for being a part of it. We believe that together we can
work toward a peace that benefits everyone. And we believe there are
things we can be doing now to benefit the countries and the peoples
economically in ways that strengthen their inner sense of security and
commitment to this remarkable process.
I'd like now to offer the microphone first to the Crown
Prince and then to the Foreign Minister.
[At this point, Prince Hassan of Jordan and Foreign
Minister Peres of Israel made brief statements. ]
The President. Let me say first of all, to reiterate
one of the things that the Crown Prince has said, this working group
that we have agreed to set up will clearly operate within the framework
and the context of the peace process and not independent of it but will
focus on the economic and the environmental issues I have mentioned.
Second, I appreciate what the Foreign Minister said
about the Secretary of State. In the privacy of our meeting, he said
that today's speech by the Secretary of State was outrageous because
it was the most expensive in memory. He raised more than a million dollars
for every minute he talked today, which I appreciated.
And finally, let me say, this is somewhat to my chagrin,
but one of the many matters that the Crown Prince and the Foreign Minister
agreed on in the meeting is that they won]d not take any questions today,
but I could. So here I am.
Q. Mr. President, what about the Arab boycott? Can
you tell us your feelings about whether the continued Arab boycott is
an obstacle to the kind of economic cooperation that you gentlemen are
trying to forge here today?
The President. Well, I think, first of all, they have
agreed to find common economic objectives which they can pursue and
seek investment for from all around the world, and they've asked us
to help them do that. And so we intend to. Obviously, the region can
grow more rapidly when all its partners can trade with one another and
invest in one another.
I think the statement, though, of the countries in
continuing their position was not altogether discouraging. Obviously,
as you know, the United States wanted the boycott lifted now, but basically
they were saying we have to finish the peace process. Well, we all agree
with that. Israel agrees with that. No one disputes that. And so I don't
want us to be deterred.
This is a really historic day. we have this meeting
and the agreement coming out of it. We have the remarkable donors conference
today and the results coming out of this. We are moving this process
very quickly, and I am confident that in the course of time we'll get
the boycott lifted.
Q. Mr. President, now that you've brought Israel and
the PLO together here on the White House lawn, and Israel and Jordan
today, what are the prospects of bringing Israel and Syria together
here at the White House?
The President. I thought you were going to ask me if
I could get both parties together in the Congress on a health care plan.
Well, I'm hopeful. We have to take these things as
we can, but I'm quite hopeful. I will say again, I am committed to finishing
the peace process. I have told President Asad that. I have made it clear
to Prime Minister Hariri, and we met at the United Nations and discussed
Lebanon. Nothing that Prime Minister Rabin or Foreign Minister Peres
has said to me leads me to believe that they have a different position.
But I will say again, the most important thing we can
do at each step along the way is to build the support among the ordinary
people of Israel, among the Palestinians, among the Jordanians for the
agreements that have been made, for the processes that are underway,
so that people all over the Middle East have a greater sense of confidence
and security about what has been agreed to and what is being clone.
The Crown Prince made a very important point that I think needs to be
reiterated.
We are trying to make our statements brief and our
actions and commitments long. And that is what we have to do. And so,
I understand that this whole thing has to be finished. But to Finish
it, to get to the end, we have to absorb the full implications of the
enormity of the things which have been done and implement them in a
way that keeps the support for the process going. And I am committed
to finishing it with all parties, more so than when we began.
Q. Mr. President, how much of the money that was given
today at the donors conference will or should go to Jordan? Or will
all of this go exclusively to the Palestinians? And if so, what will
Israel and Jordan be cooperating about?
The President. Well, what we are going to do, this
committee is going to come up with a whole different economic agenda
for Israel and for Jordan and for how to deal with the overlapping Palestinian
issues. And there are some overlapping ones which might lead to some
different decisions down the road about what we do with commitments
that have already been made. But I think that we need a whole different
economic agenda there.
I think, as you know, I'm extraordinarily excited about
this group of American Jewish and Arab American business people we got
together who want to see an enormous private sector commitment in the
Middle East. They are particularly interested in what can be agreed
upon between Israel and Jordan and whether they could play a role in
that. So I wouldn't rule tint anything.
But the purpose of the donors conference today was
to give life and meaning and reality to the agreement we saw between
Israel and the PLO. There will have to be other investments, other commitments
that will help to deal with the problems of Jordan, including the enormous
problem Jordan has of accumulated debt. There needs to be some debt
relief for Jordan, and the United States will support that. And there
are a whole lot of other things that we need to be doing on that. Yes?
Q. Do you think that this is leading to a confederation
between Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinians? Is this the beginning?
Is this the basis to something like that?
The President. That's a question that I haven't answered
and shouldn't answer. Anything regarding the political organization
of the Middle East, that's a decision that will have to be made by the
parties themselves. The United States will support the process and will
support the decision of the people there.
Thank you.
Sources: Public Papers of the President |