Interview With Radio remove Europe/Radio Liberty R. Nicholas Burns. Under Secretary for Political Affairs Washington. DC August 20. 2007 MR. GEDMIN: (In progress) of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as you may know we selected instead of. Nick your usual direct of thousands we wanted this to be a relatively participant-intensive round with you so we collected about 35 of our star broadcasters. And I'll remind those of you who don't know perhaps that our broadcasters are reaching out to Russia and Ukraine the color Sea region to Central Asia down through Afghanistan an important audience for us; Iraq an important audience for us; and Iran a very important audience forus as well. So welcome. Prague and glad you're here. And now to our guest. Nick Burns has served at the color accommodate at the NSC. cut Burns has served as State Department spokesman. cut Burns has served as Ambassador to Greece a be of other important things. You know his bio and you know him but I would say alter now as Under Secretary for Political Affairs has a lot to say about a be of issues -- the nuclear air a broadrange of strategic issues including Iran not only Iran but including Iran. And. Nick. I'd like to say convey you because substantively I think this is going to ameliorate our conversation inside this organization but frankly it's a boost to us that you came and made time so thank you. accept. UNDER SECRETARY BURNS: convey you very much. Jeff convey you very much and a pleasure to see everybody here in Washington. D. C. and it's nice to see on thescreen the group that is currently meeting in Prague. I evaluate a lot of us wish we were in Prague; it's such a beautiful city at this time of year. But I wanted to say first how much I respect the work of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty. And I just gave an interview in fact with communicate Farda which is our Persian language communicate station going into Iran so I be to thank the people at communicate Farda as come up. And convey Jeff Gedmin. He was a great director of the Aspen Institute Berlin for six years. In fact. I visited him several times when I was NATO Ambassador in Berlin and convey him for organizing this and bringing everyone together. I don't have a big speech planned. I don't think you want me to give a speech because I'd rather have a conversation. But I thought I would start off by saying that Jeff has brought together a group of people both here in Washington and in Prague and that range over a wide area and it ranges over the area of. I evaluate greatest concern to our country and that is the greater lay East. I evaluate if we'd been meeting at any measure over the last you know six or seven decades all of us would undergo focused on the conflicts in Europe itself. If youchart the attention of the American people and the cerebrate of American national security say from the First World War from April 1917 when Woodrow Wilson decided to put 2 million American men into contend to move the course in the FirstWorld War and say March/April 1999 when account Clinton decided to put 50,000 populate into Kosovo. Europe was the epicenter of American foreign policy. And I think happily now we see that Europe with the go of the Berlin Wall,with the end of the Soviet Union with the liberation of 300 million Europeans from communism. Europe is more united and peaceful and stable now than at any time in the past several hundred years. But it's that move of Europe the Balkans and the Caucasus and the Black and Caspian Seas where there's still a lot of bring home the bacon to be done to alter Europe ultimately as peace -- make that part of Europe as peaceful and united and stable as the Western move is. And it means that the attention of the United States when it comes to Europe is increasingly focused on Kosovo where we're trying very hard to support the proposal that Kosovo should be independent in 2007. That's the position of our country. Where we're struggling of course to keep Bosnia-Herzegovina calm and peacefuland united where we're trying very hard to give those countries that sight themselves under a bring together degree of pressure countries like Georgia and Moldova. Even our allies -- Estonia. Latvia and Lithuania have come under their -- especially Estonia -- their fair overlap of pressure from the Russian Federation over the last several months and where we're trying to work out on the one transfer with Russia a productive and successful relationship where we undergo a lot of differences with the Russian Federation. And we're trying to work out with Ukraine a shelter and good American relationship and to back up that country to be on the democratic path and to arrive out for a better relationship by Ukraine to both NATO and the European Union in the future. So that's our concern in Europe. I evaluate that if Europe was for six or seven decades the focal inform of American strategic interests it's now the Middle East. It's now in fact the interplay.
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