U.S. Department of State
Mobile
Remarks With Democratic Republic of the Congo Foreign Minister
Tshibanda Before Their Meeting
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Ndjili International Airport
Kinshasa, Congo (Kinshasa)
May 3, 2014
SECRETARY KERRY: I'm going to say, if I may – if I could have
everybody's attention just for a minute.
FOREIGN MINISTER TSHIBANDA: I'm going to speak in French.
(Via interpreter) Mr. Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government
of the Democratic Republic of Congo, on behalf of the head of state
and on my own personal behalf, I would like to welcome you to our
country. We are very happy you have found time to come to meet us, and
that is extra proof of the interest that you are showing towards the
D.R.C. I do believe that during the brief time that you will spend
here with us, we'll have time to update on the various issues of
interest to us both bilaterally and regionally.
SECRETARY KERRY: (In French.)
And I'm going to speak in English because I want to make a few
comments regarding some other issues. But let me say what a pleasure
it is for me to be in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have wanted
to be here for some period of time. As many people know, our special
envoy, Senator Russ Feingold, has been here nine visits now working
very hard to advance the peace process and the stability of the
region. We're very proud of the work that he has been doing and we're
very, very pleased with the leadership of President Kabila, of the
accords that have been reached, and of the progress towards
disarmament and reintegration and demobilization. These are critical,
critical issues.
We'll talk about those more and I will have a chance to meet with the
press here so I can answer a few questions and talk about the issues
here. But I would like to comment on another issue of great importance
to all of us, which is what is happening in Ukraine.
Obviously, we were very pleased that the seven OSCE inspectors were
released today. It's a step. But there are many other steps that have
to be taken in order to be able to de-escalate the situation. And I
talked this afternoon on my way here with Foreign Minister Lavrov. We
discussed those additional steps that need to be taken. And in
addition to that, we also talked about the meeting between President
Obama and Chancellor Merkel. And I reiterated to him their conclusion
that it is important for Russia to withdraw support from the
separatists and to assist in removing people from the buildings and
beginning to de-escalate the situation.
The President has made clear and the chancellor has made clear that if
those supported by Russia continue to interfere with the election,
regrettably, there will have to be additional sanctions, including the
possibility of – or the reality of sector sanctions. But Foreign
Minister Lavrov and I did talk about how to proceed and perhaps how to
find a way forward here. We both will be in touch with President
Burkhalter of Switzerland and talk about the ability of the OSCE to
play a larger role in perhaps facilitating the de-escalation. We will
both advance ideas about how to do that, without any promises of what
those possibilities may produce.
In the end, we reaffirmed our support for the OSCE. I made clear that
it is important to implement the constitutional process and that we
need to have some kind of dialogue that is taking place between the
Government of Ukraine, people in the east, and those interested
stakeholders in the region.
We also discussed the ongoing removal of chemical weapons from Syria.
And in that regard, I press that we must see the last removal of the 8
percent remaining in a site near Damascus. We agreed that we would
work on certain things to try to see if it is possible to accelerate
that process with an understanding that the Government of Syria cannot
delay. The regime must move immediately to prepare those remaining
chemical weapons for removal, and that we need to meet that removal as
fast as possible.
So that is where we stand with respect to both Syria and Ukraine, and
we'll keep you up to date as any developments occur.
QUESTION: So the release of the monitors (inaudible) Ukrainian side?
SECRETARY KERRY: No.
Thank you all very much.
Oh, I forgot, the other issue, and that is the level of violence. The
United States condemns the violence that has been taking place by any
side, and that includes the violence of anyone who lit a fire and
caused the death of those 38 people or more in the building in Odessa.
All of this violence is absolutely unacceptable, and Russia, the
United States, Ukrainians, Europeans, the OSCE – all of us bear
responsibility to do everything in our power to reduce the capacity of
militants and extremists who are armed to be carrying out these
terrorist and violent activities. They must end, and everybody with
any influence on any party has an obligation to try to bring an end to
this violence.
Thank you all.
[This is a mobile copy of Remarks With Democratic Republic of the
Congo Foreign Minister Tshibanda Before Their Meeting]
http://m.state.gov/md225579.htm

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