Extract of Interview, ABC2
Transcript E & O E – PROOF ONLY
Subjects: Security Council, Pakistan, Afghanistan
16 August 2010
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: We're had a lot of ringing phones going on during interviews in this campaign Chris, so I'm very happy you've joined the long list.
CHRIS UHLMANN: [Laughs] I apologise for that Virginia, yes, it's been a very, very busy morning. And in fact I am joined now by the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith who hopefully is professional enough not to have his mobile phone switched on.
STEPHEN SMITH: I've left my phone in the car.
CHRIS UHLMANN: I'm pleased to hear it. Look, before we get onto what we're going to hear today...
STEPHEN SMITH: Sure, sure.
CHRIS UHLMANN: ...on the day that Australians go to polls - got to the polls on 21 August, Russian engineers will begin loading nuclear fuel into the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran. Are you at all concerned by that?
STEPHEN SMITH: No, there's nothing inconsistent with the Security Council resolutions and nothing inconsistent with Iran having access to civil nuclear material for civil purposes. Indeed it does show that Iran does not need to engage in enrichment itself to have access to civil nuclear power. So this is entirely consistent with the Security Council resolutions. Indeed, in my view, it underlines the point that Iran does not need to enrich its own uranium. In addition to this proposal, we've seen in the past other proposals from Turkey for example that the various reactors in Iran be serviced by low enriched material from other countries. So it underlines the point that Iran can have access to civil nuclear power but not engage in an enrichment process which runs the risk of access to weapons.
CHRIS UHLMANN: And I understand too that Russia is guaranteeing it will remove this fuel?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well that's part of this arrangement and part of other previous proposals that once the fuel itself is spent then it is removed and taken back to the source country.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Now just to Pakistan. The head of the UN has been there, he says it's one of the worst disasters he has ever seen.
What's Australia doing?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well we've already contributed $10 million in two separate $5 million contributions and over the weekend we saw the first of a C-17 loading and taking supplies. We've had our officials monitoring the situation, as the United Nations' assessment team has said, it's got worse and so we are looking now at what more we can do.
So I'm hopeful that in the next day or two I'll be in a position to announce what further assistance we can provide. But it is a terrible tragedy. The Australian development assistance and NGO community are urging public contributions to the appeal so I also urge that but the Government's made its contribution. We're looking at what more we can do.
CHRIS UHLMANN: Are you limited at all by the caretaker period?
STEPHEN SMITH: No, because the allocations that we make for humanitarian and emergency assistance are predetermined. They've previously been allocated. It's simply a matter of us allocating monies that have previously been put to one side for these emergency purposes. And whilst from time to time I might give my counterpart the courtesy of letting her know what we're doing, this is not an area where there's any dispute or consternation or difficulty. I think all Australians want us to be a good international citizen. So as I say we've made a $10 million contribution already. In addition to that we're sending supplies off. We expect there'll be another C-17 take off today or tomorrow to deliver further supplies. But because of the worsening situation and the worsening assessments, as I say we're looking at what more we can do and I hope in the next 24 or 36 hours to be able to make that clear.
CHRIS UHLMANN: One more thing on foreign affairs, to Afghanistan, now General Petraeus who's leading the forces there, says he won't be bound by what the President's timetable was and that timetable was for a withdrawal by the middle of next year. We're starting to see some big difference between what the military and what the civilian administration says.
STEPHEN SMITH: No I don't think that's right. President Obama when he announced a surge, indicated that in an ideal circumstance if conditions allowed he'd be looking at the start of a draw down by the middle of next year. But that was always conditions based. In some respects, more importantly, at the very important Afghan conference in Kabul, a month or so ago, the international community, including Australia, committed itself to the objective of handing over the security arrangements to Afghan by 2014, but again that's conditions based. We can only hand it over if the Afghan army and the Afghan police are in a position to do so. I've only seen the reports of General Petraeus I haven't looked at the actual transcript, but what he's saying is not dissimilar to what we've been saying, what the Minister of Defence and what I've been saying is that the advice we have is that in two to four years, so in 2012, to 2014 we expect in Oruzgan Province that our training effort will enable the Afghan army and the security services to take responsibility in Oruzgan Province.
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