E&OE
6 April 2009
Interview - Kerry O’Brien, 7.30 Report
Subjects: North Korean rocket launch, nuclear disarmament, Afghanistan
O'BRIEN: The world
emerged from the weekend with a mixture of hope and concern:
hope from US President Obama's message overnight in Europe
expressing a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, and
concern sparked by North Korea's latest rocket launch in
defiance of the United Nations Security Council.
The American President must also have been underwhelmed by the
lukewarm response from NATO countries to his plea for a
significant boost in their military commitment to
Afghanistan.
Australia has a special stake in seeing a boost to the NATO
presence in the conflict because the Rudd Government is
probably also going to get a similar request in the near
future.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is just back from a special UN
conference in Europe on Afghanistan, and leaves again tomorrow
for Washington - and the annual defence and foreign policy
dialogue with Australia's most important ally.
The Foreign Minister joins me now from Canberra.
Stephen Smith, do you agree with US President Obama's sentiment
that North Korea has to be "punished" – his words –
for violating the UN Security Council's resolution over its
weekend rocket launch, particularly since the UN Security
Council hasn't exactly rushed to pick up the cane?
SMITH: Well, certainly it's a provocative act. Our assessment and strong view is that it's in breach of Security Council resolution 1718 and there has to be a strong international community response to it and there has to be a strong Security Council response to it. Otherwise the authority of the Security Council is diminished.
O'BRIEN: But as I've said, they're not rushing to do that, are they?
SMITH: They've had one conversation, but they're proposing to return to it. In the course of the day I’ve spoken to my Japanese counterpart, Foreign Minister Nakasone, and also to my Republic Korea or South Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Yu, indicating that Australia strongly supports that Security Council resolution. And our diplomats in New York as we speak are indicating to Security Council members, both permanent members and temporary members, that we believe there should a strong reaction to the provocative act.
O'BRIEN: How much genuine concern were Japan and South Korea expressing on this beyond seeing this as more posturing by North Korea? It's done it many times before.
SMITH: I think what
we have to bear very carefully in mind here is the combination
of this capacity, together with North Korea's nuclear
program.
Now, whilst it's clear from the available evidence and our own
assessments and the views of both Japan and the Republic of
Korea that effectively the three parts of the missile, the
three missile sections landed in the sea around Japan and
didn't make it into orbit. It is substantially improved from
North Korea's last effort at a ballistic launch some three
years ago.
When you combine that with North Korea's recalcitrance on its
nuclear program, it is very worrying. And that's why, in the
course of my conversations today, I've also made it clear to my
counterparts that Australia also strongly supports the
restarting of the so-called Six Party talks to try and bring
international community pressure on North Korea so far as its
nuclear program is concerned.
O'BRIEN: How much hope does Australia place in President Obama's new nuclear disarmament policy, including a reduced nuclear arsenal and ultimately a world without nuclear weapons? We seem a very long way from that point right now.
SMITH: We do, but we
very strongly support his sentiment. Indeed, what he has said
is consistent with what the Government has been doing since it
came to office.
You recall, we have announced and created our International
Commission on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, chaired by our
own former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and a former Japanese
Foreign Minister Kawaguchi.
That had a couple of aims. Firstly to try and get decent
international community discussion going about the nuclear
non-proliferation review conference in 2010, but also has, as
its long-term ambition, which Australia shares, the abolition
of nuclear weapons entirely.
So we very much welcome the speech in Prague. And when we saw
then Senator Obama and then Senator McCain in the course of the
Presidential campaign, we were heartened by both candidates
indicating a renewed interest in these matters, particularly a
renewed interest in the United States signing up for the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
So we welcome it. It's consistent with what we've been doing. And that will be one of the subjects that we have a conversation about in the course of the so called AUSMIN meeting in Washington this week which I have with Joel Fitzgibbon and Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Gates.
O'BRIEN: You're just back
from the UN conference on Afghanistan in the Hague; you're on
your way, as you say, to Washington.
You've agreed with the US review, the findings of the US review
of Afghanistan, that there needs to be greater commitment to
the civilian rebuilding in Afghanistan as well as the military
commitment?
Are you anticipating a formal request from the US as early as
this week for a greater Australian commitment to Afghanistan of
one kind or the other?
SMITH: I don't know
that Joel Fitzgibbon and I will receive it formally from
Secretary of State Clinton or Secretary of State Gates. But in
some respects, Kerry, I think we've gone past this.
Everyone knows that at some point in the cycle the
international community, including Australia, will receive a
formal request from the United States for an additional
contribution. We've made it clear; the Prime Minister when he
was both in Washington and in London; I made it clear went I
was at the Afghanistan meeting with my Foreign Ministerial
colleagues at The Hague; and earlier Joel Fitzgibbon when he
was with his defence counterparts at Krakow; that we strongly
support the notion of a multi-pronged approach here.
It's not just a military contribution; it also has to be a
civilian capacity building contribution and a political
dialogue. So we're obviously looking very carefully at what
further contributions, if any, we can make across the board,
including what we might be able to do so far as temporary
purposes are concerned for the Afghanistan election which is
occurring in August this year.
O'BRIEN: Now you've
mentioned Joel Fitzgibbon's name as one of the pivotal elements
of Australia's interface with America on all these important
issues.
Are you just a little bit embarrassed at the spectacle, the
recent spectacle, in which Joel Fitzgibbon is being painted as
essentially being at war with his department, where the
department is being investigated for... On the claims of
potentially embarrassing leaks and investigations against their
Minister? This is not a good look with our most important ally,
I wouldn't have thought.
SMITH: I've got absolute confidence in my colleague, Joel Fitzgibbon. He's working very hard, as is the rest of the National Security Committee of Cabinet, on the forthcoming Defence White Paper.
O'BRIEN: But what I’m saying is this has the potential to destabilise, does it not, and to undercut Mr Fitzgibbon's credibility in the eyes of the Americans?
SMITH: I certainly
don't think that the use of words like "destabilise" have any,
frankly, credibility at all. The AUSMIN meeting that Mr
Fitzgibbon and I are going to is the equivalent of the one we
had last year. It is the premier organisational meeting of the
Alliance. It underpins the fact that the Alliance between
Australia and the United States remains the centre piece of our
strategic security and defence arrangements. It is
indispensable to that.
And Joel Fitzgibbon works very well with Secretary of Defence
Gates. One of the things we like about the new US
Administration is not only do we have new people to deal with,
but we also some continuity with Secretary of Defence Gates,
and Joel Fitzgibbon works very well and very closely with
him.
So Joel discharges his national security national interest
obligations very well when it comes to dealing with his
counterparts.
O'BRIEN: OK. At what point does Afghanistan become a serious political problem for the Rudd Government back home if Australian casualties continue to mount over the coming months, as experts are predicting, and two more Australian soldiers were wounded at the weekend - with an end to the conflict absolutely nowhere near in sight?
SMITH: When
casualties occur, of course it's terrible for the families.
It's terrible for the nation, and the Prime Minister and I have
made that point before.
We've also made the point that Afghanistan continues to be very
difficult and very dangerous and we need to expect further
casualties. Indeed, it may well get more dangerous before it
gets safer and the terrorist threat is brought under
control.
O'BRIEN: That has a very wearing impact over time, doesn't it, back home here in Australia?
SMITH: It has a
wearing impact over Australians, over the defence forces, and
over Government Ministers who bear the responsibility for
making decisions in our national interest.
But the point I make is that this is very much in Australia's
national interest, The Afghanistan-Pakistan border area is very
much the hot bed of international terrorism.
Australia has itself been on the adverse receiving end of that,
whether it's Australian casualties on September 11th, or in
Bali or very near misses and very near casualties in the recent
attack upon the Sri Lankan cricket team.
So there is a terrible cost in doing what we regard is our
international community contribution in our own national
interest. But there's also a terrible cost in walking away from
that and leaving with that and leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan
to terrorists and extremists. And the Sri Lankan cricket attack
is a very salutary reminder of that.
O'BRIEN: You'd be familiar
with David Kilcullen's views on Afghanistan. He's an Australian
who's been a key State department and Pentagon in both
Afghanistan and Iraq.
He told the 7.30 Report inside the last couple of weeks, and he
is recognised as one of the West's top counter insurgency
experts, that in a best case scenario in Afghanistan, the
conflict could last 10 years. Do you agree with that
possibility?
SMITH: I've seen his
views and as I do with very many of the defence experts or the
counter-terrorism experts, I don't make a public comment. And I
certainly don't put a timetable on Afghanistan.
We know that it is difficult, we know that it's dangerous, but
as I say the consequences of walking away are even more
dangerous. We need to make sure that the job is done in
Afghanistan, and the job is done when we reduce the threat of
international mobile terrorism and remove the danger of Al
Qaeda and others using Afghanistan and the Pakistan border area
as their base to strike north to Europe or south to South East
Asia and Australia.
So we don't put timetables on it, but what we have to do is put
the Afghan nation, the Afghan people, the Afghan government,
and their key state institutions - the army, the police force -
in the position of managing these security arrangements
themselves.
That's why one of the good things about the conference I went
to in The Hague. In addition to the fact that it was very
much sponsored and supported by the United Nations, underlining
that this is a broadly based international community effort,
supported by the United Nations, is the key focus now on
training the Afghan people themselves.
In the end we can't stay there forever. Whatever the timetable
is, we can't stay there forever as the history of the British
and Russians in Afghanistan shows in a different context. So we
have to leave them with the capacity to manage these matters
for themselves, and that's why so much of the focus now is on
civilian capacity building and training.
O'BRIEN: Stephen Smith, we're out of time. Thanks for talking with us.
SMITH: Thanks, Kerry.
[ENDS]
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