Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice held a news conference at NATO headquarters Wednesday. Here is a transcript of her remarks.
RICE: Good afternoon.
I'd like to report just a little bit on my first meeting here at NATO as the U.S. secretary of state, but I'd like to begin by thanking very much the secretary general for his outstanding leadership of NATO, and my colleagues, the foreign ministers of the NATO countries, for their warm welcome here and for the excellent discussions that we just had.
It was, frankly, very gratifying to sit at this table with the members of this NATO alliance to remember its extraordinary past, which, of course, is a past that managed to, through common values and resoluteness, face down imperial communism on this continent and to see the emergence of a Europe whole, free and at peace with itself.
It is an alliance that today talked about its common future and talked about how this alliance, as great as it has been in the past, will have an even better future because it will remain devoted to those values and it will remain devoted to the spread of liberty.
RICE: It was remarkable in the sense that, in sitting around this table, we sat with nations that have not so long themselves lived in tyranny: the Baltic states, the states of Central and Eastern Europe. And this great alliance now united across Europe has an opportunity to deliver that promise to people beyond the trans- Atlantic borders.
I was gratified by the fact that, as the discussion went on, it was very clear and very obvious to everyone that we agree on the agenda before us and that countries are prepared to take practical steps to advance that agenda.
We had an extensive discussion of Afghanistan, of the remarkable events that have taken place there in the last three and a half years, of NATO's seminal role in stabilizing that country, in the role of ISAF and the role of the provincial reconstruction teams -- many NATO members have contributed to those teams -- to the progress that is being made by the Afghans themselves, first in having their presidential election and to the support that NATO must give to the parliamentary elections that will take place this spring.
We discussed the work yet to be done in the Balkans and in Kosovo, but from a perspective of how far we have come in NATO's support for that process.
And in the discussion of -- while there is work yet to do, the quite excellent work that was done in the turnover of the SFOR mission from NATO to the E.U., demonstrating that the E.U. and NATO can work very effectively together and that Berlin Plus works.
We then went on to a discussion of the Middle East. And I was able to report to my colleagues on my trip to the Middle East, my meetings with Prime Minister Sharon and with President Abbas.
Everyone noted the historic and difficult decisions that are being taken by those two leaders, and pledged the support of all to the efforts that they are undertaking.
We had discussions, also, of Ukraine and the remarkable events that have taken place there over the last month.
We look forward to a Ukrainian NATO summit meeting when President Bush is here on February 22nd, and we look very much forward to continuing to work with Ukraine as it develops its democratic future.
