'This Week' Transcript: Susan Rice

April 5, 2009 — -- ABC'S "THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS"

APRIL 5, 2009

SPEAKERS: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, HOST

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N. SUSAN RICE

[*]STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning and welcome to "This Week.

Breaking news overnight. A missile test from North Korea.

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: North Korea must know that the path tosecurity and respect will never come through threats and illegalweapons.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: How will the president and the world confrontthis nuclear challenge? The top question today for our exclusiveheadliner, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in her first Sunday interview.

Plus, Obama's diplomatic debut.

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OBAMA: It is a great honor for me to be here in Europe.

I've come to Europe this week to renew our partnership.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: That, plus all the week's politics and a specialexpanded roundtable, with George Will, ABC's chief diplomaticcorrespondent Martha Raddatz, the president of the Council on ForeignRelations, Richard Haass, plus prominent new media voices from boththe left and right -- Arianna Huffington and David Frum.

And as always, the Sunday Funnies.

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(UNKNOWN): The Germans tried to make him feel at home. Theyoffered to let him fire the CEO of Volkswagen.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: Hello, again.

We begin today with the news that North Korea has tested a longrange ballistic missile. The country's state media claimed themissile put a satellite into orbit. But the U.S. Northern Commandsays the satellite dropped into the Pacific. U.S. officials believethe missile was really being tested to see if it could carry a nuclearwarhead over Japan potentially as far as Alaska.

Speaking out against the threat of nuclear weapons in Praguetoday, President Obama slammed North Korea for violating U.N.resolutions. And he promised to act.

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OBAMA: Rules must be binding, violations must be punished.Words must mean something. The world must stand together to preventthe spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a stronginternational response.

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STEPHANOPOULOS: And joining us now for an exclusive interview,the official who will represent President Obama and the United Statesat an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council this afternoon,America's U.N. ambassador, Susan Rice.

Welcome to THIS WEEK.

RICE: Thanks, George. Good to be with you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what will this international response be?

RICE: Well, George, we have been in close consultation with ourallies in Asia, in particular, Japan and South Korea about theappropriate response. We have consulted over the last several days,including this morning as well with the Russians and the Chinese.

So the U.N. Security Council will meet this afternoon inemergency session. I'll be going up there straightaway. And we willbe discussing the appropriate response. The United States believesthat this action is best dealt with -- the most appropriate responsewould a United Nations Security Council resolution.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Japan wants sanctions, will the U.S. co-sponsora sanctions resolution?

RICE: The U.S. is working very closely with Japan and we will bein consultation with our partners inside the council, trying to getthe most appropriate and strong response we can possibly get.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But this is already a violation of U.N.resolutions -- two U.N. resolutions...

RICE: Yes, it is.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... just to have this test. So what good doesit do for the United Nations to come back and say, hey, we really meanit this time?

RICE: Now, well, the first resolution that is really theoperative one was from 2006, when the North Koreans launched a missileand the United Nations Security Council demanded a halt to futuremissile-related activity and any future missile launches.

We feel very strongly that what occurred today was a violation ofthat resolution. So we will go back and work, George, to both toughenexisting regimes, but to add to that resolution. In fact, thatresolution did not...

STEPHANOPOULOS: So there will be new sanctions toughening...

RICE: George, we have 15 members of the Security Council and --including the permanent five, so we all need to come together aroundthis. But the United States' view is, this is serious, it's aviolation, and it merits and appropriately strong United Nationsresponse. We'll be…STEPHANOPOULOS: You mentioned...

RICE: ...working for that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You mentioned the 15 members. One of them, ofcourse, as you mentioned, is China. China has made it pretty clearthey don't want any sanctions. And because of that, your predecessor,John Bolton, says that any kind of U.N. resolution is going to beclose to meaningless.