May 23, 2001

0 Comments | US State Department Press Releases, May 23, 2001

Q: To follow up on that, one of the kind of focus of the campaign for Tibet is that Chinese development of Tibet, whether it be a railway or kind of pipelines extracting resources from Tibet, are not benefiting the Tibetan people, and also are kind of marginalizing the population.

Is that something that you are discussing with the Chinese Government?

MR. REEKER: I don't have specifics for you on what we do, other than to say that we raise, as a regular matter, and I know we discuss it here quite often, our concerns about preserving the unique aspects of Tibetan culture and religion and their linguistic heritage. We think that is important, as do many around the world, and obviously the Dalai Lama is in a unique position to talk about that. That is what he is interested in as well, in a sort of peaceful, non-violent way.

So that will continue to be a subject of interest to us. It is part of our human rights dialogue, and we will continue to raise that with China.

Q: A couple of quick ones. Do you have anything to say about the resignation of the Ambassador to Vietnam, beyond what was issued by the Embassy?

MR. REEKER: I would probably just note what Ambassador Peterson himself I believe issued in terms of a statement from there. He has submitted his resignation as United States Ambassador to Vietnam and expects to leave the post, I believe, on July 15th.

During his four years of service, Ambassador Peterson contributed enormous personal energy to the normalization of relations with Vietnam, beginning with the issue of accounting for American personnel missing in action from the Vietnam War, and culminating in the signing last July of the bilateral trade agreement. And for that, we are very thankful to Ambassador Peterson for all of his outstanding service.

Q: Unless it's on the same subject, I have another one. Following up again on this meeting between the Secretary and the Austrian Foreign Minister on Monday. I understand from comments at the briefing yesterday that the Secretary believes that this Department is not in a position to do anything about Waldheim (inaudible) the Austrian Foreign Minister said she understood that a review would be undertaken of an aide mmoire that she gave to the Secretary.

Can you tell me anything about that?

MR. REEKER: Well, I think further to what -- perhaps Ambassador Boucher addressed the subject earlier. Secretary Powell made it very clear that we are not in a position to change the US Government's determination on Waldheim, and the Secretary took absolutely no new positions on this matter.

I think I should just note, for those of you that have been asking about this, Mr. Waldheim was put into the Visa Lookout System based on his wartime activities on behalf of Nazi Germany. The recently declassified files from the CIA only concerns post-War matters, and it was those files that had raised apparently some interest in reexamining this matter.

So the Justice Department made the initial ineligibility determination and its report, explaining Mr. Waldheim's ineligibility, is available upon request from the Justice Department. So we have absolutely no change of position there.