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G8 Leaders Close to Agreement on Nonproliferation |
G8 Leaders Close to Agreement on Nonproliferation Plan
Endorse initiatives on poverty reduction,
polio and HIV/AIDS
The leaders of the G8 countries are close to
agreement on a plan to expand international efforts to locate and eliminate
weapons of mass destruction (WMD), according to the White House.
In a June 8 briefing with reporters in
Wilkinson said G8 leaders also have endorsed
initiatives to end famine in the Horn of Africa, eradicate polio by the end of
2005 and expand micro-finance programs targeting entrepreneurs. Such programs
are key to poor countries' economic development,
Wilkinson said.
In addition, the leaders have committed to
help poor countries develop local institutions to finance access to housing and
clean water, he said.
Another part of the G8 poverty reduction
effort is an agreement to launch an initiative to halve the costs to workers of
sending part of their pay to their home countries, he said. At $100 billion
annually, workers' remittances are approximately double the amount of official
aid, Wilkinson said.
President Bush and the other G8 leaders have
also agreed to establish a global HIV vaccine enterprise, a consortium that
would accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine, the spokesperson said.
Following is an excerpt of the transcript of
the briefing:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(
PRESS BRIEFING BY JIM WILKINSON, DEPUTY
ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND
DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR FOR COMMUNICATIONS,
AND BARRY BENNETT, DEPUTY OF COMMUNICATIONS,
G8
WILKINSON: Good morning. As I said yesterday,
the G8 leaders meet this week to take on many key policy issues to promote
freedom, democratic reform and prosperity in the broader Middle East, counterproliferation of weapons of mass destruction,
strengthen international cooperation in the war on terror, expand global
peacekeeping efforts, promote global economic growth and expand trade, harness
private sector efforts to help alleviate poverty, dramatically increase our
efforts to combat HIV-AIDS, polio and famine, and finally, to protect our
environment.
I want to give an update on a couple of these
policy initiatives this morning. As the summit begins today, agreement has been
reached on several key initiatives. I'll walk through those now, so you have
them on the policy side.
On the issue of famine, a special initiative
to help end famine in the north -- excuse me, in the Horn of Africa, agreement
has been reached. The President and the other G8 leaders are expected to
announce soon a new initiative to help prevent famine by improving worldwide
emergency assessment and response systems, with the goal of raising
agricultural productivity, and helping 5 million chronically food-insecure
people in
I'll talk a little bit about the problem of
famine. As you know, millions of people face hunger or food insecurity in
places like
We are, the
In terms of what the G8 will do this week on
this particular issue, the President and the G8 will endorse an initiative
known as Ending the Cycle of Famine in the Horn of
Africa -- that's the title. It will, as I said, improve worldwide emergency
assessment and response systems to help combat famine. It will support programs
to raise agricultural productivity, by promoting rural development in some of
these areas where they have food insecurity. And it would help
It does this in
So that's the first
initiative that's reached agreement.
Second is an issue I spoke a little bit about yesterday, and that's this
commitment to eradicate polio. You can expect the G8 this week to announce that
they will take all necessary steps to help eradicate polio by the end of 2005.
The G8 will work to close the 2004 funding gap for the Polio Eradication
Initiative, and commit to resolve the 2005 gap by the 2005 G8 summit.
A little bit of context. To date, polio
remains endemic to six countries and has actually re-emerged in nine additional
nations. The Polio Eradication Initiative is a global coalition that works to
help eliminate this disease. This
The G8, on the issue of polio, will reiterate
their commitment to the elimination of this disease. They will urge
polio-endemic countries to take stronger steps to eradicate the virus. The will
welcome the resolution on polio eradication passed by the Organization of
Islamic Conference Summit in Malaysia of October of 2003, and they will
recognize the special contribution made by Rotary International to the
elimination of polio.
A couple of context
statistics. Since 1988, the
The third issue of agreement, which will be
announced later this week is on the issue of applying
the power of entrepreneurship to the eradication of poverty. The G8 leaders
will announce agreement on an innovative action plan to apply the best of the
private sector entrepreneurship to help alleviate poverty.
You will remember President Bush's development
policies, such as the Millennium Challenge Account Initiative, which provides
foreign aid to those who choose to reform and try to create jobs and reduce
poverty.
The G8 this week, on this particular issue
will -- there is a long list of these; I'll just go through the steps they will
commit to. First is they'll commit to facilitate and
lower the cost of remittances. And as you know, remittances is the money that
immigrants send back home to their friends and families back home.
As a point of reference, global remittance
flows total nearly $100 billion annually, which is, as you know, about twice as
large as official development assistance that goes to people in these
countries, so you see the significance of remittances.
The G8 countries will agree to launch pilot
projects with the view of cutting transaction costs on remittances by half.
These costs can sometimes be as high, as you know, as 10 percent to 15 percent,
taking money away from these families and people who need these funds for transactions
costs, so they will work to cut those by half.
Under the U.S.-Mexico Partnership for
Prosperity, the
The
Next on this issue will be a G8 commitment to
help finance housing and clean water access by developing local mortgage and
municipal bond markets. You will see a U.S.-African Mortgage Markets
Initiative, which, as you know, was launched in 2003 and is already assisting
Finally, on this issue, the G8 leaders will
commit to improve the business climate for entrepreneurs and investors by doing
the following: One is launching pilot projects to help committed countries
reform this financing. Second is encouraging multilateral development banks to
increase lending and technical assistance to small businesses to help create
jobs. Third is to encourage developing countries to step up efforts to combat
piracy and counterfeit intellectual property.
Next issue of agreement that's significant is
the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, which I mentioned yesterday. The G8 and
President Bush will endorse the establishment of a global HIV vaccine
enterprise, which is a global consortium to accelerate the development of this
HIV vaccine. With over 40 million people suffering from HIV/AIDS worldwide,
President Bush is leading global efforts to combat this HIV/AIDS pandemic, as
you know, through his $15 billion emergency plan for AIDS relief and his
commitment to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, to which
the U.S. has pledged more than $1.96 billion, or 36 percent of all pledges
through 2008.
The President and the G8 will establish this
Global HIV vaccine enterprise, that will help enhance
coordination, information sharing and collaboration globally, as we seek to
find this vaccine. This concept was proposed recently by an international group
of scientists and is analogous to the successful alliance and strategic plan
that characterized the approach to the Human Genome Project.
The G8 also, on this issue, will call upon the
HIV vaccine enterprise to develop a strategic plan to do the following: The
first is prioritize the scientific challenges to be
addressed and fill the identified gaps in knowledge, as we seek this vaccine.
The second will be to coordinate product development efforts, to make them more
efficient. And third will be to help align and channel existing and new
resources to the needs at hand.
Finally, on the issue of nonproliferation,
you'll hear -- as a matter of fact, let me point out, you'll hear on all these
issues today extensive briefings from our policy experts, for those of you who
choose to attend.
On the issue of nonproliferation, I think
you'll see we're very close to agreement on new initiatives to dramatically
expand the international community's efforts to go after WMD [weapons of mass
destruction]. You will see an expansion of the PSI Initiative. You will see G8
leaders working to strengthen the IAEA [U.N. International Atomic Energy
Agency] with some reforms there. A lot of the things the President talked about
in his February 11th speech on reforming our antiquated nonproliferation laws
and statutes and organizations to address the global threats of the A.Q. Khan
network and other global black market networks and regimes who
choose to development these weapons in secret. You'll see a lot of these steps
agreed to on that issue. I'll let Mr. Bolton make the news on that today.
So obviously -- sorry for all the substance,
but lots of policy agreement this week. This is just a few. We'll come back
tomorrow with more and later today, if we have them. But these are some
agreements that have already been reached.
QUESTION: Could I get hard copies of your
comments just now? And the name and title of the gentleman in
the jacket.
WILKINSON: There will be a transcript
released, right? This lady right here with the microphone will go back and type
very quickly. She will come and find you at the Krispy
Kreme truck and bring you the transcript there. (Laughter.)
And, Jim Wilkinson, Deputy National Security
Advisor for Communications.
Q: When you say agreement has been reached --
are you releasing the documents now?
WILKINSON: I think you'll see formal fact
sheets released as you would see through the normal process. As you know, the
summit -- negotiations have been going on for some time. The summit begins
today. These are agreements that have been reached. As I said yesterday, I went
through the long list of policy accomplishments we accept.
Q: For me to do a story, I need to be able to
say what's happened with the initiative, what's happened with the document. So
right now I'm saying a senior White House official has said that agreement has
been reached on these subjects. But I also want to know whether I will actually
see the document.
WILKINSON: There will be documents coming out,
fact sheets and then, again, the normal --
Q: Today?
WILKINSON: Hopefully today, but maybe as late
as tomorrow on these initiatives, because there will be formal policy briefings
later today, and we want to let you talk to the experts on these issues.
A good reminder. Again, in Room 103, you know to come by. We have all
of these experts who are available. Most of them arrive today who can do
one-on-one interviews with you, television interviews, television interviews,
anything you want, to a degree, even for someone like you, Andrei, who is a
warm and fuzzy friend of ours. But they're available, so you can to --
Q: Do you expect agreement on nonproliferation
before Thursday?
WILKINSON: Yes, it could have even happened
overnight.
Q: -- the status of the
WILKINSON: I will refer you to Scott on that.
I think two comments by Negroponte yesterday show that it's moving forward.
Q: Is there any sort of overarching theme in
the President's meeting with his -- influential members of the G8 today? What
does he hope to get out of the meeting?
WILKINSON: Obviously, I've gone through the
long list of policy initiatives. Clearly, promoting freedom, democratic reform
and prosperity in the broader
Q: -- will dominate his conversations today, is that what you're saying?
WILKINSON: I think these topics will certainly
be on the agenda all week. I think each of them will certainly be discussed.
But you will also see specific issues between nations discussed and between the
different leaders.
Q: Can I ask you one other question, too? As a
chief communicator for the White House, many of us who cover the White House
have never seen the kind of outreach that we're seeing at this summit. Is it
safe to infer that you see this as a positive moment for the
WILKINSON: I think -- we're a host of the
summit, and we have thousands of reporters here, many from the international
community and we feel a special responsibility to try to ensure as much access
as possible to as many reporters as possible, with subject matter experts.
These are important issues. The President -- for a moment on
the President -- with his compassion agenda on issues like eradicating polio
and poverty and HIV-AIDS. These are important issues to him, and we just
think it's important to get those subject matter experts with as many members
of the media as possible.
A lot of these officials never -- you
sometimes -- they're not around or traveling and these sorts of things, so we
decided to get them down here and meet with as many of you as possible, just
trying to be a facilitator of information.
Q: In that regard, thank you for making those
subject matter experts available. At previous summits, on these issues, like
famine, like HIV-AIDS, we would be able to bring context to them and not rely
solely on the statements of governments and official statements of the summit
by having direct access to the NGOs who would have been working on these issues
for many years. They would be right with us in the press center, and I'm just
wondering, they aren't here this time around, they've been replaced by Verizon and Cingular, companies
like that, but I wonder, why was that decision made?
And then, secondly, also on the logistics of
it, why is the arrival of the King of Bahrain to this international summit
closed to press?
WILKINSON: I don't know the answer to both of
those questions, but I'll find out the answers to both of those. Don't know the
first thing --
Q: Have the NGOs [non-governmental organizations]
been banished --
WILKINSON: I just don't know. I'll find out,
though. It's not something I've been involved in here. So we will -- I will get
you an answer, though, to both those questions.
Q: When you say you got agreements on these
different issues, I assume that doesn't mean, between yesterday's briefing and
today is the time frame, roughly, of when these fell into place or --
WILKINSON: As you know, the sherpas have been working
diligently for some period of time. Again, yesterday, I went through the long
list of all the issues that are on the table, and even for these particular
issues I've outlined today, there are so many more sub-issues that have been
discussed and agreed. I think your subject matter experts will certainly brief
you on those to a great extent. I've only hit the highlights. These have been
falling into place for some time now.
Q: To put it differently, did anything break
between yesterday and today's briefing --
WILKINSON: A lot of things were finalized and
--
Q: And on the remittances, do you have a sense
of how the G8 remittances are going to affect
WILKINSON: Don't know, but again, that's a
good question for your remittance expert that will be in Room 103 and available
for you later.
Q: Anything that your boss is doing beside the
obvious today? I assume she's sitting at the side of the President in bilats -- talking to reporters or anything else on her
schedule we should know about?
WILKINSON: Nothing of special interest. She'll
certainly be with the President for those meetings.
Thank you all. We'll see you tomorrow morning
very early again.
END