U.S. Policy and Issues

Official Transcript of the Press Conference Following the Meeting of the U.S.-Czech Bilateral Consular Working Group

January 26, 2007

Participants:
Cameron Munter, Deputy Chief of Mission, U.S. Embassy Prague
Martin Povejšil, Political Director, Czech Foreign Ministry
Paul Rosenzweig, Assistant Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

Cameron Munter:  Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you once again to the Bilateral Consular Working Group meeting that has just concluded.   Our special guests here are: from the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Paul Rosenzweig, and, representing the Czech Republic, we have the Political Director from the Foreign Ministry, Mr. Martin Povejšil.

(Martin Povejšil speaks in Czech)

Paul Rosenzweig:  Thank you very much.  Let me first express my very great appreciation to the Czech Republic for the kind hospitality that has been shown to me and my traveling colleagues.  We arrived here last night and had an excellent series of meetings during the day -- first, on a multilateral basis with all of the other countries in the area that are aspirants to the Visa Waiver Program and then,  as we've said, most recently with the Czech Republic in the Bilateral Consular Working Group meeting that just concluded.

When President Bush announced his intention to seek legislative change in the VWP in Tallinn last November, his announcement reflected a political commitment by the Administration of the United States to seek to modify the VWP in a way that reflects the  post-September 11 reality -- to change the program from one that has proven a hindrance to visa free travel for citizens of the Czech Republic and other countries, into one that instead focuses on our mutual, shared values of security and free travel between our respective countries.

That political commitment is, from our perspective, of great significance.  It reflects our understanding of the reality of the relationship between our two nations, and our understanding of the importance placed on visa free travel of the citizens of the Czech Republic.

It is my expectation that that political commitment will become reality.  But it is important as well to note that the road from here to there has many steps.  We have taken the first several, both in the President's statement and in our meetings today.  But there are more to be taken.  There may well be a few obstacles along the way.  Most significantly of course is, as the President said, is the necessity of seeking legislative change in the United States Congress, a parliamentary requirement that, as I'm sure you are all familiar with, is not necessarily as easy to achieve as it is to state.

But from our perspective, we have made the undertaking -- with the full anticipation that this Administration will achieve the necessary legislative changes and then begin the hard work, of course, of implementing those changes -- in our bilateral discussions with the Czech Republic and with the other aspirant nations who are seeking entry in the Visa Waiver Program.  For me, personally, this has been a long road.  I first started thinking about Visa Waiver reform three or four years ago, before I even joined President Bush's Administration.  We have come a great, long way since then.  The situation now is far different than it was even a few months ago. 

That change is to our mutual benefit.  There remains, of course, much to be done, but I think we can take great comfort in the prospects ahead of us.  I would be happy to entertain questions and thank you.

Reporter:  Could you give us some insight into what progress has been made today, where are we?

PR:   Well, there are several pieces to that.  We had discussions both at the political level and at the technical level.  At the political level, we discussed some of the necessary realities of making this program and these legislative changes a reality, as well as joining together in asserting our political will to make those happen.

At a technical level, we undertook -- both at the Bilateral Consular Working Group and in my earlier meeting at the Ministry of Interior -- to discuss in some detail the enhanced security requirements that are going to be part of the legislative proposal advanced by the Administration.

As I am sure you know, as part and parcel of continuing that discussion, a technical working group of experts will be traveling to the United States from the Czech Republic next week -- I believe it's February 1 -- comprising members of both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Interior -- where they will continue their work at an even more technical level.  As you may imagine, my technical expertise go only so far down and there are others who have great deal more technical information than I do.

We look forward to taking that next step and that that will then, I hope, lead -- through an iterative process -- to the development of a concrete work plan that will identify, with as much particularity as we can provide, the sorts of things that we will have mutually agreed on as part of our security requirements and ultimately, with the passage on the legislative side of the necessarily legislation, to the realization of our joint, shared vision.

Reporter:  Any time horizon?

PR:  Time horizons are very difficult to predict, especially in matters that require the assent of our legislature, which as I am sure as all here have experienced, can be protracted in their discussions.  I would say it this way:   I am a member of the President's Administration and my personal time horizon ends with his term in January 2009, and my personal hope is to see new entrants into the Visa Waiver Program prior to that.

Reporter:  (unclear) will the chances of the Czechs’ entrance into the Visa Waiver be enhanced by their decision to host parts of the missile defense facility?

PR:  Thank you for the question.  The answer of course is that our intent in revising the Visa Waiver Program is to address security concerns that are directly related to travel between the United States and the Czech Republic.  Of course, we hope to address separately our mutual bilateral interests in the missile defense program and a host of issues that we have in common with respect to trade, with respect to defense, with respect to counter-terrorism, but, no, there is no intent to link or condition visa waiver travel on the provision of anything other than the explicit security enhancement that become part of the law.

Reporter:  But it may help?

PR:   It is certainly always the case that we will look to the totality of our relationship with any country as part and parcel.  At a minimum, it affects favorably the atmosphere of the nature of our relationships, but it is by no means a requirement and I would not want to suggest that.

(Martin Povejšil in Czech)

Reporter:  Kim Ashton of the Prague Post, could you be more specific about the political and technical issues that you discussed today?

PR:  Certainly.  Let me start with the technical issues, since those are far easier to characterize.  As part of the transition of the Visa Waiver Program -- the basic architecture of what we are doing is to move from assessing suitability for travel to the United States on country-by-country basis to one where we assess a person's suitability to travel on an individual basis.  The country-by-country basis under which the program currently operates is both over- and under-inclusive.  It is over-inclusive in the sense that it characterizes all Czechs alike; and it is under-inclusive in that it presupposes that threats to the security to the West emanate only from places where visas are required and not from countries where visa free travel currently exists.

The transition that we envision, broadly speaking, is to enhance our ability to identify specific, individuated threats, so that we can stop those travelers from traveling who pose an actual threat to aviation, to the security of the United States or to presumably the 
Czech Republic as well.   What that means is that we want to do things like enhancing our ability to exchange information about individuals who are traveling to the United States so that, hypothetically, if it is known to the Czech Ministry of Interior that a certain person is an ax murderer -- and we do not know that -- it would be reasonable to ask that we have a means of assessing that before travel occurs.  So that's the sort of information exchange -- we have many methods by which we do that, involving exchanges of information between our respective Interior and Customs and Border Protection agencies. That's one technical aspect.

Another technical aspect, by way of example, is the threat posed to both our nations by persons who travel on lost or stolen passports.   There is a grave security risk, that passports that have been stolen may be altered so that others may travel on them, posing as legitimate Czech or American citizens, who are not who they purport  to be.   So we want to enhance our ability to exchange information about lost and stolen passports so that we receive information about those in a timely manner.

I think the most important aspect about the technical commitment, that I can say is really the political commitment, is a commitment on our behalf to do this on a reciprocal basis.  There is nothing that we will ask of the Czech Republic, in terms of security enhancements, that we will not be willing ourselves to do in return if the Czech Republic makes the same request of us.  Of course, the means and methods we do so may differ because of our different systems and orientations.  But as a matter of principle, we are committed to one of reciprocity.

I think the other political principle that we discussed that bears emphasis on the technical aspects, is a principle of uniformity -- which is to say that, in our view, the security enhancements that we are going to be talking about with the Czech Republic are the same ones we are going to be talking about with everyone else in the world -- the other aspirant countries and also the other members of the existing Visa Waiver Program.  It is not, in the long run, our intention to operate a two-tiered system of Visa Waiver but rather it is our hope and belief that collectively all of us within the western world -- and I don't mean to exclude our Asian partners like Japan and Singapore -- that all of us will share a common vision of security that allows for free travel for those of our citizens who pose no risks but allows us concurrently to accurately assess whether or not individual citizens do pose risks and to take collective action to deny them travel and then if necessary (take) other police actions as well.

Reporter:  Will Roadmap countries come in one by one as they reach the requirements or are they going to have to wait until every Roadmap country is ready and come in as a group?

PR:  Our intention would not be to hold any country up pending the resolution of all the other countries.  We certainly see this.  Though there are many common and collective issues, our discussions with each of the prospective Roadmap countries necessarily occurs with each country on a bilateral basis because there are, of course, substantial differences between the Czech Republic and, well, I won't name any other -- You're not the same as any other country and the types of technical discussions we have to have with the Czech Republic will differ from others.  We will not hold anybody hostage.

Reporter:  My name is Teodor Marjanovic from Mlada Fronta Dnes. Out of these security requirements you talked about, is there anything that the Czech Republic is not already doing?

PR: There are several things that we have not reached mutual agreement to do yet, but they are not so much I think because the Czech Republic is incapable or not willing, but rather because we have not had those discussions at the level of detail necessary.  I mentioned for example lost and stolen passports and we have not yet finalized an agreement or discussion about how to do that exchange.  I would defer to you on the political will that lies there, but on a technical level there are some steps yet to be taken, and the same is true with some, but not all of the others of these technical requirements.

(Povejšil addresses question in Czech)

Reporter:  Chris Johnstone, AFP.  Can you say whether all thirteen countries are at the same stage at the moment or are some more advanced than the others?  Do you expect all thirteen to join by the end of the President Bush's term in office?

PR:  I think that every country is different.  Each has different issues and challenges, matters we want to discuss with them.  It wouldn't be appropriate to characterize any as "further along" than others -- if only because I fear giving offense.  But I think the reality is that this process will move at different paces in different places, both because of political will and because of capacity or capability.  It would be very ambitious for all to be entrants by the time, at the end of the President's Administration.  
As I said, my goal is to see the process started before the Administration ends.

Reporter:  Bruce Konviesor, freelance.  I don't quite understand when you talk about "the totality" of the relationship being the criteria for judging visa waiver.  How do you square that with saying they don't have to support this radar base in the Czech Republic?  The government (sic) has invested a tremendous amount of capital, military and political, in this program and if there's a more important program in the bilateral basis between the two countries, I'm not aware of it.

PR:  Well, I guess I would take issue with your characterization of how we would be thinking of approaching this.  My view is that the Visa Waiver Program stands independently.  It will turn, we hope, on objective criteria that are related to security and travel for individual Czech citizens.  The national-level relationship between the U.S. and the Czech government with respect to -- for example, the Czech missile issue or, frankly, with respect to any other issue, obviously stands apart, but, equally obviously, bears some relationship to the overall state of U.S.-Czech relations.

I am pleased and happy to be able to say that as far as we are concerned they are excellent at this point in time.  And I have every reason to assume that that will continue to be the case.   But within the context of visa free travel, our objective -- contrary to the assumption implicit in your question of making this a test and a reward only for only our very best friends -- is instead to develop a program that is of universal applicability, with transparent and objective criteria that are focused on the threats posed by travelers and focused on the benefits of free travel within the confines of that.  It would blinker reality to say that the nature of Czech-U.S.  relations have no relationship to that, but it would also be contrary to the spirit of the principles we've enunciated to say the Czech visa free travel is dependent upon that.