Daily Press Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
June 13, 2007
www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2007/jun/86365.htm

TRANSCRIPT:
...

QUESTION: Sean, any update on the situation in Gaza and are you concerned
about the Palestinian Authority?

MR. MCCORMACK: An update, there's still violence ongoing. The "military
wing" of Hamas is still attacking legitimate security institutions of the
Palestinian Authority and particularly those who report to President Abbas.
It's a -- you know, it is a fluid situation as I understand it now.
Everybody wants to see the violence end. But let's be clear about who
triggered this latest wave of violence and the context in which they did
that. As I said, it is this so-called military wing of Hamas that launched
these attacks, started these rounds of violence that has swept up innocent
civilians in firefights and gunfights and the shelling and the mortaring
just as Egyptian envoys were working to try to bring together elements of
Hamas and Fatah -- political elements of Hamas and Fatah to come to some
sort of political accommodation so they can lower the violence. It also came
in the context of not a stop but a reduction in the number of Qassam rockets
that were being fired out of a Gaza.

Quite clearly there are those who are irreconcilable to any political
process that would result in negotiations with Israel to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They're quite clearly trying to undermine that
by undermining any sort of political accommodation within the Palestinian
political process. It's -- you know, the victims -- the real victims in all
this are the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people who want their
children to be able to take their high school exams, to take their
university exams, want to go to work, who just want to be able to provide a
better living for their family and for those Palestinians who want to live
in Palestine. So we are continuing to support President Abbas.

We have called on others in the region to express their support for
President Abbas and those Palestinian moderate political elements who have
foresworn the use of violence and who have an interest in reaching a
political settlement with Israel via the negotiating table and we're going
to continue to support those elements and we're going to continue to support
President Abbas.

QUESTION: Are you concerned about his authority?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, this is -- thus far you have not seen any spread of the
violence to the West Bank. You know, certainly everybody welcomes that. You
want to see an end to the violence in Gaza. It's an attack upon those
legitimate Palestinian institutions that are struggling to provide some
law -- some semblance of law and order in the Palestinian areas, who are
trying to come up to international standards of behavior whether that's in
the areas of finance or governance or security. These are extra governmental
groups who want to put an end to that and want to reverse course and who are
committed to the use of violence not only against Palestinians but against
Israelis.

.... In general, yes, we have made this -- made a distinction between the
governments of Iran and Syria and other governments throughout the region.
Now there are going to be -- there are -- they come in various stripes and
colors, but in essence, you have a group of governments on the other side of
the line from Iran and Syria who have a general interest in greater
political freedoms and economic freedoms in the region and who fundamentally
have an interest in a more peaceful, stable region and who have turned away
from the use of violence to try to settle the political differences among
states or groups of people.

Iran and Syria find themselves on the other side of that divide and as you
point out, they, in each of these individual cases, have in the past played
a negative role, the Syrians and Palestinians meddling in the affairs of the
Palestinian people, arming -- providing cash and arms to those Palestinian
rejectionist groups. The role of Syria and Iran is well-documented and goes
back decades and we believe Syria continues to play a negative role in terms
of the situation in Lebanon and in terms of Iraq. It's again pretty obvious,
our views on the negative role both of those countries have played in Iraq;
you know, witness our discussions with the Syrian Government in -- at Sharm
el-Sheikh about the negative role that they have been playing, asking them
to see it as in their interests and the interests of the Iraqi people to
stop that.

Now as for any -- you know, specific role that they may have played either
in encouraging or directly giving a green light for any of these particular
activities, whether that's in the Palestinian areas or the bombing in Beirut
today or any particular action in Iraq, I can't do that right now. That's
not the link I'm trying to make. But very clearly overarching the situation,
they have played a negative role that the views and policies and actions of
those governments are 180 degrees off of what we are trying to promote in
the region and what many -- and many people in the region are working to
promote.

Yes.
...

Released on June 13, 2007