Rice discusses Mideast to European relations

ROME - NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent interviewed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday regarding a wide range of subjects, from the Middle East Summit in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt, to European relations, to "regime change" in Iran, to being a female secretary of state. Here is a full transcript of the interview.

Q: Here you are in Rome. The Middle East summit is taking place. There have been so many attempts at peace in the Middle East. Why should this, after 10 cease-fires, why should this cease-fire be any different?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, certainly the many failed attempts to take advantage of historic opportunities should be a very strong signal that it takes hard work and that there is still a hard road ahead in the Middle East. But there are some fundamental differences this time. You have a new Palestinian leadership that is devoted to a peaceful resolution of the conflict that in fact believes that the violent intifada is not the way forward for peace and has been categorical in saying that. You have the Israeli decision to withdraw from Gaza, which represents an opportunity to seize on the Israelis’ historic decision that they must give up land in order to have peace. So there are some fundamental differences here, but it’s still a long road ahead. I have to say I was impressed with the singleness of purpose of both (Palestinian Authority) President (Mahmoud) Abbas and (Israeli) Prime Minister (Ariel) Sharon, who both seem to realize what an historic opportunity is before them.

Q: Palestinians are demanding a much greater prisoner release than Israel has been willing to do. Should Israel release thousands of these prisoners, many of whom have committed terrorist acts?

SECRETARY RICE: It really isn’t the place of the United States to tell a democratically elected Israeli government what prisoners to release. We do know that prisoner release is an important part of a package of getting to an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But there are obligations and responsibilities on both sides.

The Palestinians really must fight terror and fight it in a way so that there can be permanent peace. The Israelis have obligations to not somehow forestall future decisions through acts that are unilateral and that might prejudge a final status agreement. So there are obligations on both sides. I think the good thing is that when they meet in Sharm el-Sheik, they will be able to put all of their concerns on the table. They can talk about whatever is on their minds and they can begin the slow process of coming to terms with one another.

Q: A lot of people think that that won’t happen without the United States’ putting them together in a room and forcing them to make concessions and to do the give and take. Why aren’t you there today?
SECRETARY RICE: It’s a very good thing when the parties can make progress on their own. And they’ve sustained a very good momentum over the last couple of weeks. And it’s a very good thing when the regional actors, Egypt and Jordan, are involved in this way because they are going to have to be party to this — they are going to have to support any agreement.

The United States is very involved. I was just there with the prime minister and with the president. I’ve talked to my Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts. We’ve appointed a security coordinator to help the parties move forward on the all-important issue of security, and so the United States is going to be and is very involved, but I don’t think it’s important for us to be at every meeting. Sometimes it is really crucial that the parties — or the parties and regional actors — move along on their own.

FREE VIDEO Rice attempts to mend fences Feb. 7:  Speaking in Paris, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says “it is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past” that alienated longtime allies over the U.S. invasion of Iraq. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports. MSNBC

Q: In Paris today, you agreed to talk about democracy and expand on the president’s themes from his inaugural address. What would you like to see the Europeans do? What more do you want from them?
SECRETARY RICE: We all have to first and foremost accept the obligation that all of us have who were lucky enough or are lucky enough to live on the right side of freedom’s divide to support and to promote the aspirations of those who are not yet free to be free. It’s an attitude, a change of our view of our own obligations.

Secondly, there are a lot of things that we can do to help the Afghans and the Iraqis in terms of training security forces, in terms of reconstruction assistance, capacity building for ministries and institutions that are fledgling institutions that need to get started.

And, of course, we have international forum in which we can support civil society, business groups, women’s groups like the Forum for the Future coming out of the president’s broader Middle East initiative, which brings those groups together from countries that are aspiring to freedom with countries that have long lived in freedom.

There’s a great deal more that we can do. We’ve already done a lot, but there is much more to do, and I look forward to talking to our European allies about how we put this great alliance, that faced down tyranny before and saw the emergence of a Europe whole and free, how we put this alliance to work on behalf of the great goal of freedom.

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