SECRETARY TILLERSON: [. . . And until Iran shows its willingness] to be a good neighbor,
I think is the words that were used by many, that shows its willingness to
cease its enablement of the kind of destabilizing activities that go on, their payment of foreign
fighters, their payment of militias to go into other countries and destabilize those
countries, then Iran will not have a place around this table that was set today.
So it is our hope that – and we have a new leadership or a renewed leadership beginning
another term in Iran – that they will begin to examine what this behavior is gaining for
them, and rather, they will find their way back to a place that Iran historically enjoyed:
good relations with its neighbors.
And that’s what we hope they find their way back to as well.
In the meantime, we will continue to take action to make it clear to Iran when their
behavior is unacceptable – and that means in terms of carrying out and supporting acts
of terrorism, continuing the development of their ballistic missile programs – we will
continue to take action through sanctions and we will continue to encourage others in
the global community to take action as well so that Iran understands this is not acceptable.
So we will be dealing with Iran in the economic sanction front and we will be dealing with
Iran in these countries where they have decided to put their presence militarily.
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: (In Arabic.)
QUESTION: (In Arabic.)
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: (In Arabic.)
QUESTION: Thank you very much, (inaudible).
Traveling from Pakistan, (inaudible) summit today.
My question, Your Excellency, the foreign minister of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is that
Pakistan has been fighting against this terrorism since 9/11
and we (inaudible) more than 50,000 innocent lives.
How has been the assessment in this conference that there could be shared learning
from the experiences that Pakistan has fought in this war against terror?
And my question to Excellency is: The partnership desired today with the Muslim world must have
certain processes to move forward.
There is a lot of fear among the Muslim community, including myself and my friends,
there is a notion of Islamophobia all around in different countries.
When partnerships have been sought and desired and there are great response from all –
most of the Muslim countries that were present today,
how these processes then have their (inaudible) learn
to bridge the gap and (inaudible)
the fears among the Muslim communities?
Thank you.
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: Can I take the second part?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: No, I was going to take the – you can --
(inaudible)
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: Oh, no, no, go ahead. You can --
SECRETARY TILLERSON: I’m happy to.
With respect to, I think, the relationship and how the Muslim world is viewed,
if – I assume you listened to President Trump’s speech this afternoon.
I hope he dispelled the concerns that many might have with that speech.
And in terms of specific processes, much of what came from the two days that we’ve been
here in Riyadh working with our counterparts in the kingdom as well as working with the
GCC countries – and we had a very good meeting this morning among the GCC countries – was
to put in place specific plans of action that, working together, I think we will also improve
the understanding among ourselves: the creation of the center to counter extremism messaging,
the working together on disrupting terror financing networks, clearly the economic activities
between this region and the United States are all helpful in terms
in terms of strengthening those relationships.
But I think perhaps the point you’re making, and it is an important point,
is that all of us have to strive to understand each other’s cultures better,
understand each other’s perspectives better.
And I think on this trip, I know the entire delegation traveling with the President
has gained a much greater appreciation for this region, the rich history, the rich traditions
and cultures of this region, and also a much better understanding of the Muslim faith
by traveling to this special place, the special place of the two holiest sites.
All of this is, I think, useful to us understanding everyone better here, and we hope –
we hope people in the Muslim community will make a similar effort to understand
the American people’s interest and concerns that they may have.
But I think importantly, out of this speech the President delivered this afternoon,
what he said, again, is this fight is ours together.
It is not between us.
It is ours together.
And it’s only together that we will ultimately prevail
and that it is not a fight among religions,
not a fight between Shia, Sunni,
it’s not a fight between Christians, Jews, any of the faiths.
This is a fight of good against evil, and in all of those three great faiths
that millions of Americans follow, we are guided by that same tenet.
This is what unites us in attacking this evil face of terrorism that has befallen us
and has hurt so many around the world.
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: I think Pakistan had – can play a big role in the war against
terrorism and by sharing its experiences and by learning from the experiences of others.
I want to add my voice to what Rex said about
the issue of the importance of tolerance and coexistance.
I believe that the fact that this summit took place is historic.
I cannot overemphasize the importance of it to the history of the world.
This is a – unless we are able to move from notions of a clash of civilizations and move
towards a partnership among civilizations, we will not be able to eradicate the scourge
of terrorism or – which emanates from extremism, and extremism emanates from ignorance.
People in the Muslim world believe there is enmity towards them in the West, and so they
use that to recruit psychopaths who go and murder people, who then increase the negative
attitude of people in the West towards Islam.
That causes Western countries to take steps that then fuel the cycle in the Islamic world,
and also vice versa.
You have extremists in the West who take very bigoted positions or ignorant positions towards
the Islamic world which causes them to recruit psychopaths who demands things or try to do
things that provoke a reaction in the Islamic world, and the vicious cycle continues unless
we move away from this.
And then if we are able to move away from this, we’re able to isolate the terrorists
as mere criminals and psychopaths, and then it becomes a law enforcement matter and we
can deal with it much more effectively.
The President deserves a lot of credit for taking this step, making his first visit outside
the U.S. to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and Land of the Two Holy
Mosques, and then going to Israel and then going to the Vatican to deal with the Jewish
world and with the Christian world in order to try to bring the three religions together.
This is the way to proceed.
This is the way we move from enmity to partnership.
This is a fight – not a clash of civilization, this is a fight for civilization.
It’s as the President said, it’s good versus evil, and good includes everybody – Christian,
Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, everyone.
And evil includes everyone who seeks death and destruction, irrespective of their faith.
And so the importance and significance of this conference today is that it is the first
step where there’s an outreach and there’s a desire to say we need to work together,
and we need to work together in order to support good versus evil and we need to take concrete
steps to do that – to do so, and I think we have a number of concrete steps that came
out of the conference: the launching of the global counter-extremism center, the agreement
on dealing with financing of terrorism and extremism, the recognition – which is the
most important part – the recognition that we have to work together in order to build
a better future for our children and their children.
That’s the first step in the process towards dealing this – with this issue.
The y say in medicine that diagnosis is half the cure.
Well, we’ve diagnosed the problem, and the diagnosis of the problem is that we need to
pull the rug out from under the forces of evil by seeing this as a common problem that
meets a common solution, and seeing ourselves as children of God
irrespective of what our religion is.
That’s how we deal with this problem.
Thank you.
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: Thank you very much.
FOREIGN MINISTER AL-JUBEIR: (in Arabic)