February 28, 1991
|
Interview with Ambassador Shoval and
Ambassador of Turkey to the U.S. Nuzhet Kandemir on CNN's
"Crossfire" February 28, 1991 |
INTERVIEW WITH AMBASSADOR SHOVAL AND AMBASSADOR OF TURKEY TO THE U.S.
NUZHET KANDEMIR ON CNN'S "CROSSFIRE"
Interviewers: Mike Kinsley, Pat Buchanan
February 28, 1991
ANNOUNCER: From Washington, Crossfire. On the left, Mike Kinsley. On
the right, Pat Buchanan. Tonight, A Lasting Peace? In the crossfire,
the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Zalman Shoval and the Turkish
Ambassador to the U.S. Nuzhet Kandemir.
PAT BUCHANAN: Good evening and welcome to Crossfire. The guns have been
silent for almost 24 hours in the Gulf war and the diplomatic
maneuvering has begun. France claims the Palestinian question ought to
be addressed now. Egypt and the Soviet Union seem to agree. Turkey
says it is willing to accept Saddam Hussein in power in Baghdad and so
is Iran, but Israeli President Chaim Herzog whose country was the target
of 39 Scud attacks says the job will not be finished until Saddam
Hussein is himself finished, and Israel has not yet given up its right
of retaliation. Secretary of State Baker is headed for the region to
sort it all out. Tonight, is this juncture the last best hope for Arabs
and Arabs and Arabs and Israelis to settle their differences in peace or
is that naive? Michael?
MIKE KINSLEY: Mr. Ambassador, your foreign minister said today that
Turkey would be happy to see Saddam Hussein remain in power and could
even have good relations with him. Now, you share an enormous border
with Iraq, were you just being polite? How can you have good relations
with this guy? Wouldn't it be better if he were gone?
NUZHET KANDEMIR, Turkish Ambassador to U.S.: Well, before the crisis, we
were having very good relations with Iraq and with the leadership, but
now we do not agree with the leadership but we have always good friendly
relations with the Iraqi people, and I think what the Turkish minister
suggested was that who will be at the head of Iraq, at the
administration, will belong to the Iraqi people. So, it is -- it must be
an internal matter for Iraq.
KINSLEY: Well, President Bush has a different point of view on that. He
more or less hinted or said today that he will maintain -- he wants to
maintain the economic embargo on Iraq tight enough to prevent them from
rebuilding their destroyed country until they get rid of Saddam Hussein.
Now, there can't be much of an economic embargo unless Turkey goes along
since you've got this enormous border. Will Turkey cooperate with
President Bush in that?
AMB. KANDEMIR: We have been cooperating with President Bush and we shall
certainly cooperate in terms of arms embargo going ahead.
KINSLEY: But more than that, to actually strangle the economy until
Saddam Hussein comes down which I think is what the President has in
mind. Does Turkey favor that?
AMB. KANDEMIR: This is something that we shall have to see the
modalities. So, I cannot give a blank check as of now.
BUCHANAN: Mr. Ambassador, let me ask you a direct question on that. Are
you going to keep the pipelines form Iraq to the Mediterranean closed or
are you going to open them up?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Well, if the embargo continues, we shall certainly
implement 100 percent as we have been implementing it but if the
decision is changed or smooth until certainly the pipelines will be
opened.
BUCHANAN: All right. Ambassador Shoval, your President said today,
quote, 'I won't feel that the work is done if Saddam continues in his
job as president of Iraq.' Now, other than President Bush and the
coalition's embargo, I guess, on industrial equipment and weapons, what
else should the coalition do now that the fighting has stopped?
ZALMAN SHOVAL, Israeli Ambassador to U.S.: Well, I think the aim
enunciated by President Bush and the American government, the coalition,
that there should never be a situation again where Iraq can present a
threat to its neighbors is something we fully agree with. Now, exactly
how this is going to be accomplished is not for us to say, but I think
we concur in the aims of the coalition.
BUCHANAN: All right. The Iraqi war machine has been -- over 3,000 tanks
destroyed, army routed, country in ruins. Saddam Hussein represents no
military threat right now to Turkey or Iran or its neighbors. Does it
represent a political threat, Saddam Hussein personally in Iraq, in the
Arab world which is a problem for Israel?
AMB. SHOVAL: Not necessarily. I think a defeated Saddam Hussein and he
has been very, very thoroughly defeated, may become even an negative
symbol, hopefully so, but the man hasn't changed. If he's still around
and he may have the financial means if the embargo is lifted which I
hope won't be lifted, he may come back another day and threaten all of
us again in the area.
BUCHANAN: Your agricultural minister, Rafael Eitan, is quoted today as
saying, Israel is going to tell Secretary of State Baker when he arrives
there that King Hussein of Jordan must be overthrown. Is that Israeli
policy?
AMB. SHOVAL: No, that's not Israeli policy at all. We want to see a
stable neighbor on our eastern frontier, our longest frontier with any
country is with Jordan. We were very disappointed and I would say even
worried by the way Jordan went in this war. There used to be a
perception that Jordan was a moderately moderate country. All of a
sudden aligned itself with the Iraqis --
BUCHANAN: Mr. Ambassador, could the king of Jordan have survived if he
said, I am with the Americans and the coalition when these mobs and
crowds are demonstrating in the streets for Saddam Hussein? Wouldn't
that have been the end of the king? Didn't he pretty much have to go
with 70 percent of his people?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, that's quite right. You put your finger on the
point; 70 percent of his people are Palestinians. So, what is King
Hussein going to present in the future? I think it's up to him to make
the decision. Does he want to go back to the situation of Jordan as a
good neighbor or relatively good neighbor living at the de facto peace
with Israel? Or does he want to become a confrontation state and Israel
is going to look very carefully at that.
KINSLEY: Mr. Kandemir, for most of the 1980's you were the Turkish
Ambassador in Baghdad, Iraq's biggest neighbor. You must have had some
very close dealings with Saddam Hussein. Tell us how this man thinks.
What do you think he's thinking today? He's said this was a marvelous
victory for Iraq. Now, does he really believe that or what?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Well, the Saddam Hussein that I knew the years 1982 --
between '82 and '86, he was doing good things for his country as well.
For instance, I was very appreciative of him when I saw that there were
many development projects which were carried out properly during the war
with Iran.
KINSLEY: I suspect most of those are gone now, don't you?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Yes, most of them are gone, but this was something that
he has done for the good of his people.
KINSLEY: Were you surprised then -- was this totally out of character
when he suddenly went mad and invaded Kuwait?
AMB. KANDEMIR: No, I was not surprised. I was expecting him to invade
Kuwait but because the military preparations were such that it couldn't
be otherwise.
BUCHANAN: Mr. Ambassador, you sound like -- when our President uses
terms like 'Saddam Hussein is Hitler and worse than Hitler,' you think
that's a lot of nonsense. I mean, you're talking about an individual
whom you say had a good public works project --
KINSLEY: He's talking about Saddam Hussein exactly the way George Bush
and Ronald Reagan were talking about Saddam Hussein during the 1980's.
BUCHANAN: Well, fair enough. Are the Hitler analogies nonsense?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Well, I couldn't say it is nonsense but I am just trying
to explain Saddam Hussein that I knew in the years 1982. So, he was not
a madman to my sense and he was doing some good for his country as well.
BUCHANAN: Sounds like a New Deal Democrat.
KINSLEY: Hey, watch it, but let me ask you also on this very same point.
Given your understanding of the Iraqi people and the Iraqi military,
what is the likelihood that what most people think would be the best
outcome, someone comes along and topples Saddam Hussein, is that likely
in your view?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Saddam Hussein is controlling the three main pillars in
the administration, namely the Ba'ath socialist party, the leadership
and the army. I do not add the Mohadarat [sp?] which is their secret
service. Therefore I do expect any kind of move against him from within
the administration but from within the people if they are well informed
this might be the case.
BUCHANAN: Mr. Ambassador, you've only been here a couple of weeks and
you've had a tremendous -- couple of months, a great dust up with the
Secretary of State, then with the President of the United States, a
formal rebuke from the west wing of the White House, a message simply
because of something you said to Reuters using the term 'run around'
which seemed a fairly modest comment. Do you think the administration
when they issued that strange, you know, rebuke, are trying to send a
message to Israel, that is the President says, in the 1990's, what we
say goes?
AMB. SHOVAL: Have you just noticed that your television set went mute.
That matter is behind us and I don't really want to comment on that.
BUCHANAN: But isn't it true, though, that I mean, it was not aimed at
you so much as -- isn't President Bush saying, look, we're going to have
to deal -- once this over, we're going to have to deal with the Israeli-
Palestinian problem and we're going to have to play hard ball. Wasn't
that the purpose of that message?
AMB. SHOVAL: I don't know. I want to take things at face value as they
were and I'm not going to add anything to that.
KINSLEY: OK. We have to take a break. When we come back we're going to
talk about the Israeli-Palestinian problem and also in particular if we
want to get rid of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, doesn't that
include Israel as well?
[Commercial break]
KINSLEY: Welcome back to Crossfire. Secretary of State Baker is off
next week to the Middle East to tidy up a bit after the war and we're
here talking about what those problems are and what America's role
should be: troops, money, fatherly advice, or withdraw in triumph and
leave it up to the locals? Our guests are two locals: the Israeli
Ambassador to the United States Zalman Shoval, and the Turkish
Ambassador to the United States Nuzhet Kandemir. I want to ask
Ambassador Shoval one item on everybody's post war agenda for the Middle
East is getting rid of the risk of nuclear weapons, keeping them out of
people's hands like Saddam Hussein, but how can the United States insist
that the Arabs not develop nuclear weapons when it's well known that the
Israelis have them?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, without going into the question what Israel does or
does not have, you cannot equate somebody who has weapons in his home to
protect himself from marauders with the weapons in the hands of
marauders. We are not threatening any of our Arab neighbors. We have
to defend ourselves. We are less the 4 million Israelis still facing
140, 150 million Arabs, none of which except for the Egyptians
fortunately have made peace with us.
KINSLEY: Well, rightly or wrongly the Arab nations don't see it that way
and if there's going to be any hope for a nuclear free zone in the
Middle East -- well, let me ask you. Would Israel agree to a nuclear
free zone in the Middle East if it could be inspected including the
state of Israel?
AMB. SHOVAL: Israel has proposed arms reduction and arms control in an
overall way in the Middle East as a whole and Israel is still facing as
I said all these countries, all the Arab countries together and I think
once we have a regional attention to the problems of the Middle East and
we have peace with the Arab states which we recommend and which we want
and which we desire --
KINSLEY: When there's peace in the Middle East --
AMB. SHOVAL: -- lots of things will be different.
BUCHANAN: Things will be different, right. Mr. Ambassador, let me ask
you this. All across the Maghreb, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, anti
American, pro Saddam demonstrations. In Egypt they closed down the
universities. There were anti American demonstrations in your country,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, even India wouldn't let us fly our planes out of
there because the problem got so hot. First, how serious in the Islamic
and Arab world is this anti Americanism and secondly do you think it's
in -- and what's the cause of it?
AMB. KANDEMIR: I don't think first of all that you have to blow up the
picture too much and this anti Americanism in the Moslem world is not
general. There are some local groups which do pretend that they are
anti American but I do not think it represents the totality of the
population.
BUCHANAN: Let me ask you. Is the problem television in general and
maybe CNN in particular in that our cameras tend to, you know, they see
an American flag being burned and an Israeli flag being burned, let's
put that there, and then you take this demonstration in Ankara and the
demonstration goes all over the world and people like Michael sit in
here and I in the studio are influenced by these. Is it small? Is it
medium sized or was it as broad as it was painted in some of the written
press as well?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Insofar as my country is concerned, it is very small and
I do not think it represents the mind of an average Turk in Turkey.
There is a friendship and the spirit of cooperation for the United
States and it does not represent --
KINSLEY: Let's ask the Ambassador Shoval. At every stage in this
crisis, we've been told, watch out the Arabs in the street, the Arab
masses are going to rise up. It has not happened.
AMB. SHOVAL: Yeah. This is exactly -- hasn't this been another
miscalculation of Saddam Hussein? The Arab masses did not rise up and
did not join some sort of holy war against the West, against America. I
think this was another mistake he made.
KINSLEY: This is -- but why doesn't Israel take this as slight evidence
that perhaps it's not as surrounded by enemies as it might think?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, it is surrounded by people who have not made peace
with Israel. So, we say now to all these Arab coalition partners of the
United States, not only do you owe a debt to the United States but you
have now recognized where your real interests lie. Come and sit down
with us and talk peace.
BUCHANAN: If Saddam Hussein is no political threat to the Arab world,
why are the Arabs, partners in the alliance, seem to be so determined
that he's got to be overthrown or killed?
AMB. SHOVAL: I don't know about killed or overthrown but if he remains
there as I said before, he may still assemble an arsenal -- America will
be out of the area, American won't keep its troops there. He may still
present a threat to some of his weaker neighbors and it's not primarily
Israel. You know, Israel can take care of itself; it's its Arab
neighbors.
BUCHANAN: Let me ask about Israel, though. You were hit with 39 Scuds
in 18 general attacks and Israeli officials kept saying, we reserve the
right to retaliate. Now, that the war is over and Iraq is in ruins,
wouldn't an Israeli retaliation, say, with Jericho missiles or an air
strike seem gratuitous and redundant and wouldn't you surrender all the
good will you've won in Europe, the United States and much of the Arab
world by your policy of restraint?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, we never regarded retaliation as an eye for an eye or
a tooth for a tooth sort of policy, although it was invented in our part
of the world, but we always looked at it as a way to defend ourselves.
Now, if Saddam Hussein has really been defanged, if that's the word, and
if he does not present a danger anymore, I think we will look very
carefully but won't necessarily retaliate but if he still keeps part of
his military arsenal, the missiles and the other non-conventional things
and once America is away and he may try to get at Israel again or
threaten Israel, then Israel would have to act, but hopefully this won't
happen.
KINSLEY: Moshe Arens, the defense minister, did not merely say Israel
might retaliate, it said, Israel definitely would retaliate at some
time. Was that just for internal political consumption?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, no, he did say this at that time and we were very
much afraid that he may launch a chemical attack --
KINSLEY: You mean Saddam not Mr. Arens.
AMB. SHOVAL: No, not Arens to the best of my knowledge and he hasn't
done that and America has done a very good job so I think at this time
it's redundant.
KINSLEY: Let me ask Ambassador Kandemir. The French and the Arabs, as
Pat was saying at the beginning, have come out today saying the first
thing we have to do, the most urgent thing we have to do now in the
Middle East is turn to settle the Arab-Israeli dispute. What is the
urgency and why should the Palestinians be rewarded for essentially
siding with the bad guys in this dispute by suddenly having their
concerns moved up to first place?
AMB. KANDEMIR: There are a number of issues in the Middle East which
will have to be solved. There is no doubt in my mind but they have to
be addressed one by one and I do not know what is the priority but all
the issues existing, pending there will have to be addressed and solved,
but I do not believe in fancy, big international conferences out of
which nothing will come out. So, I think each issue will have to be
addressed for its own merit.
KINSLEY: So, you don't share the view of the French, for example, let
alone the Arabs, that this has to be the number one thing and forgetting
about all the other chaos in the Middle East, we have to put the
Israeli-Palestinian dispute at number one.
AMB. KANDEMIR: I do concern that the Palestinian issue is one of the
most -- one of the important issues over there and which will have to be
addressed but in terms of a priority I think each issue has its own
merit and will have to be solved.
BUCHANAN: OK. When we come back, the issue is foreign aid. How much
will Israel and Turkey need in American tax dollars over the next few
years?
[Commercial break]
BUCHANAN: Ambassador Shoval, Israel gets 3 billion a year in U.S. aid
military and economic. Reports in the New York Times said Israel wanted
13 billion more over the next five years and then there's talk of 10
billion more for housing guarantees. How much -- well, tell us which of
those stories is true and false?
AMB. SHOVAL: Israel has submitted one request for $ 1 billion for
emergency military aid because of additional defense expenditures since
August the 2nd. We are also considering something which has nothing to
do with the war and has nothing to do with money. We are considering to
ask the United States for a 10 billion guarantee for immigrants
absorption over the next five years which I want to repeat is off
budget. It's not money. It's just a guarantee. We are going to get
the money from other sources and we are going to repay them from our own
coffers.
KINSLEY: And how much would you like, Mr. Kandemir?
AMB. KANDEMIR: Well, I do not want to spell out any figure but there is
no doubt in our mind that the Turkish armed forces do need modernization
and for this we do need the assistance of our allies.
KINSLEY: OK. Let me ask -- I want to ask Mr. Shoval. We have less than
a minute left. The big cliché in Washington about how to keep the peace
in the Middle East apart from Israel and the Palestinians is there's got
to be a new security arrangement with no American troops. The American
troops have got to get out of there, it should be Arab troops with
American equipment. What does Israel think about the idea of a big, new
security force, inter-Arab security force armed by the Americans just
sitting there protecting the peace?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, the peace would certainly be controlled if this force
shouldn't be turned one day against Israel, but I think the place of
Israel as a strategic ally of America will be even more important in the
future even though Israel has not participated in this war.
KINSLEY: What does Israel think about a permanent stationing of American
troops there?
AMB. SHOVAL: Where?
KINSLEY: In the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia, maybe.
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, it's not for us to decide but we'd be happier with
American troops there than without American troops.
BUCHANAN: Mr. Ambassador, are you going to oppose the big sale of
weapons to Saudi Arabia?
AMB. SHOVAL: Well, we always oppose when there's a big sale of arms to
countries which are not at peace with us. There's step by step. Let
them make peace with us and then we'll be also, I would say, de jure not
just de facto on the same side of the fence.
KINSLEY: Okay. Thank you very much, Ambassador Shoval. Thank you very
much, Ambassador.
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