Transcript: Cynthia's McFadden's Interview With Condoleezza Rice

Nov. 28, 2007— -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sat down with "Nightline" co-anchor Cynthia McFadden on Nov. 28, 2007. The following is a transcript of the interview.

CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: Madam Secretary, since we saw you last night, I know that more negotiations have been going on, more meetings. What can you tell us?

SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Well, this morning the president hosted first the Israeli delegation and Prime Minister Olmert, and also President Abbas and his delegation. And then they had a brief meeting together.

It was principally to say to them, let's not now have delay, let's really get there and start the negotiations. Both sides, I think, were thrilled about yesterday because it gave them a kind of international boost, and now they'll go.

I've also today met with the Palestinian negotiators, and I'm going to meet a little bit later with the Israeli negotiators, just to hopefully help them get off to a good start.

But the action now goes back to Jerusalem, where they must negotiate.

MCFADDEN: You've also made an announcement about appointing General Jones. Explain what his role is going to be.

RICE: Well, the long pole in the tent for all of this will be to make certain that the establishment of a Palestinian state can really help the security environment for Palestinians, for Israelis and for the region, because the creation of a Palestinian state is a new factor in the Middle East. It will need its own security forces, but it will also need security arrangements that will have to in part be negotiated.

General Jones is the perfect person to look at this new circumstance of the creation of a Palestinian state and to say, how can Palestinians, Israelis and the region cooperate now to make certain that the creation of a state enhances security rather than detract from it?

And I'm thrilled that he's agreed to do it. He is -- we, of course, can assure him in his job with the Chamber of Commerce, but he is going to be able to bring to there his experience as the former Marine commandant as the former supreme allied commander of Europe.

So it's a great appointment.

MCFADDEN: It is part of the issue. I mean, in order to move forward in a region where trust is in such an issue, feeling secure on both sides is important.

RICE: It's extremely important. And it's important that citizens of the Palestinian territories, soon to be a Palestinian state, we hope, that they believe that they have the proper security forces to be able to provide security for the Palestinian people.

We often talk about security for the region, but we have to start first with security for the Palestinian people. And then, of course, Israelis, who will be withdrawing from the West Bank when this agreement is done have to be certain that they are not compromising their security.

After all, their withdrawal from Lebanon, their withdrawal from Gaza caused security problems for Israel. And that's a memory that Israeli citizens have and that Israeli leaders must respond to.

And so, they will want to make certain that the creation of this Palestinian state will enhance the security of Israel.

MCFADDEN: And besides providing General Jones, will we also be providing military observers on the ground?

RICE: Oh, well, we're nowhere near any such decisions, and I don't really think that American boots on the ground are going to make sense in this conflict.

There may be international -- a role that international forces can play. There may be a role that international experts can play in the way that they are right now at various crossings, helping with customs, helping with border control.

There are going to be very many things that the international community can do, and of course, that's a part of providing for security.

MCFADDEN: So, last night, when you called the president -- and I'm sure you did -- what did you tell him and what did he say about the success, the progress of Annapolis?

RICE: Oh, he's been very pleased. Of course, he's been a big part of making this happen. He was on the telephone with me this weekend. We were at Camp David together over the Thanksgiving weekend. He had to make a few phone calls himself to help us get all of this done.

And he was able to really kick this off in a good way. And everybody feels good about what happened at Annapolis, but everybody also knows that it's only a first step.

Now the really hard work of negotiating a peace between Israelis and Palestinians needs to be done.

MCFADDEN: So you consider Annapolis a success, as far as it went? Defining success in what way?

RICE: The key here over the last several months has been to restart talks between Palestinians and Israelis about the core issues between them; all the great historic issues that have prevent the emergence of a two-state solution.

I remember being with Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas back in February, and it was not too long after a Palestinian unity government had come into being. It raised questions about the relationship between Hamas and the Palestinian authority.

And I held this trilateral at the ... Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem. I can tell you, it wasn't a very happy trilateral. And, in fact, they were talking more about what they wouldn't talk about than what they would.

So it's been a process of bringing the parties together, to the point where yesterday they were able to launch negotiation on the creation of a Palestinian state.

MCFADDEN: So we understand that that statement, which President Bush then read, was really a statement of intention; that by 2008, there would be a Palestinian state. Even late in the morning yesterday, before his 11:00 speech, there wasn't an agreed-upon statement. Is that true? He sent you and the other two out of the room and said, "I want a statement"...

RICE: Well there a reason the president was reading it with his reading glasses; that's right. It came about in the very last minutes, really, of their meeting together with the president. And when people are about to do something hard, every word starts to mean something, even words that I would look at and I would say, "Well, that really doesn't matter." Well, it mattered.

And they wanted to make sure that they were going to be exact in what they said about what they were committing to do, how they were committing to do it, what they were asking the United States to do.

And, yes, it took some work, but we felt very strongly that they needed to be able to say this jointly.

And one of the -- one of the options was that we would say it for them. Well, that wouldn't have been a good way to start a negotiation. And so this joint statement was important, but of course it sometimes seems with everything in the Middle East it always comes down to the wire.

MCFADDEN: Let's talk specifically about some of the issues that have dogged the peace in the region. First in borders. Is it the U.S. position that pre-1967 borders exempting Israel from -- Jerusalem from that -- that pre-1967 borders are appropriate?

RICE: Well, our view has been that you're going to have to end the occupation that began in 1967, and that's going to require a negotiation on mutually agreed borders, and those mutually agreed borders, of course, will have a security component. States have to be secure. Also has to create a contiguous and viable Palestinian state that is able to provide for its people.

And so that's been our position on borders. But we want the parties to negotiate borders.

MCFADDEN: In terms of Jerusalem itself, the U.S. position?

RICE: Well, the most difficult issue, and, frankly, right now the less said the better, because this is going to be very hard for the parties. As you know, there's a lot at stake here. There is a lot that is not just territory in reality, but a lot that goes to the very core of these religions.

But it's important that Jerusalem, of course, is a city where all are able to feel that they can get to their sites and the like. But this is one that the less said the better. Let's let the parties deal with these very difficult issues.

MCFADDEN: But, realistically, without try to divide up monuments, the Palestinians are going to have to have a part of Jerusalem.

RICE: The parties will have to look at the whole range of issues, and the issues are interconnected. And I think that once they have had a chance to look at what will give the Palestinians a state that can provide for its people, but where it does not compromise the security of Israel, once they've been able to look at that question, we'll see how all of these pieces fit together.

MCFADDEN: In terms of the right of return, which is -- Saudi Arabia said it would not come to this meeting, I understand, unless the right of return was on the table.

The U.S. position has been, as I understand, that the right of return would be the right to return to the newly-created Palestinian state, and not to what will be the state of Israel.

Is that the U.S. position at this point?

RICE: The president has been very clear that this is also an issue that will need to be negotiated between the parties.

I don't think it's helpful at this point for the United States to try and pre-negotiate this agreement. They're going to have to make a lot of decisions about very hard things.

Now, what the president said yesterday is that the creation of a Palestinian state should create a homeland for the Palestinian people, just as Israel is the homeland for Jewish people.