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Kerry: "This is a time for diplomacy..."
‘This Week’ Transcript: John Kerry
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STEPHANOPOULOS: Sir, are there any military options on the table? During the crisis with Georgia, President Bush moved military warships to the region, sent humanitarian aid on a military aircraft. Is the U.S. prepared to do that now? Anything more?
KERRY: George, the hope of the United States and everybody in the world is not to see this escalate into a military confrontation. That will not serve the world well, and I think everybody understands that. The president has all options on the table, but the president’s preference was clearly stated yesterday in his hour and a half conversation with President Putin. President Obama made it clear that we are prepared to work with Russia. We understand that Russia has interests in Crimea. The Ukraine government is prepared to respect the base agreement. Nobody threatened those Russia interests. And we are prepare to stand up against any hooligans, any thuggery, any individual efforts with Russians in order to create stability in Ukraine and allow the people of Ukraine to make their choices for the future.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you have any indication at all that President Putin is taking heat (inaudible) as President Obama is saying?
KERRY: Well, they just had the conversation yesterday, and the president invited in to engage with the government. I understand there may have been one phone call. We’re going to continue to engage diplomatically. This is a time for diplomacy, and we will engage diplomatically as much as we can in order to steal this away from the increase in the tension of the level of the crisis. Nobody wants this to spiral into a bad or worse direction. The fact is that there are many options available to Russia, by which Russia can see its interests met. And the most important thing to remember here is, this is not or should not be East-West, Russia-United States, Russia versus Europe. This is about the people of Ukraine, people who stood up against snipers, firing at them from the roofs, who are fighting against the tyranny of having political opposition put in jail. And President Putin I think needs to think carefully about Russia’ real interest here. You know, Russia may be able to invade Crimea, but in the end, Russia will isolate itself, there will be a cost to the economy of Russia, cost to Russian businesses, cost to Russia individuals, and ultimately I think Russia will isolate itself on a global stage that it just spent $60 billion through the Olympics to try to present a different face on. It seems to me that if Russia were to step back and look at where its interests are, we ought to be able to work this out through the diplomatic process. If Russia chooses not to, there will be serious repercussions.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do those repercussions include the U.S. not going to the G8 summit in Sochi come this summer, sir?
KERRY: It is a distinct possibility. We would hope rather that Russia will choose to engage with us, to work with the government of Ukraine, choose a different direction.
Russia has cooperated with us on the START treaty ,on Afghanistan, on Iran. It ought to be possible to find legitimacy in this particular moment in order to be able to deal in a way that serves the world much better than this choice they’ve made. We’re open to that. We encourage that. President Obama made it clear he prefers that. But the choice is really up to Russia at this point.
-more -
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-john-kerry/story?id=22720806&singlePage=true
<...>
STEPHANOPOULOS: Sir, are there any military options on the table? During the crisis with Georgia, President Bush moved military warships to the region, sent humanitarian aid on a military aircraft. Is the U.S. prepared to do that now? Anything more?
KERRY: George, the hope of the United States and everybody in the world is not to see this escalate into a military confrontation. That will not serve the world well, and I think everybody understands that. The president has all options on the table, but the president’s preference was clearly stated yesterday in his hour and a half conversation with President Putin. President Obama made it clear that we are prepared to work with Russia. We understand that Russia has interests in Crimea. The Ukraine government is prepared to respect the base agreement. Nobody threatened those Russia interests. And we are prepare to stand up against any hooligans, any thuggery, any individual efforts with Russians in order to create stability in Ukraine and allow the people of Ukraine to make their choices for the future.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But do you have any indication at all that President Putin is taking heat (inaudible) as President Obama is saying?
KERRY: Well, they just had the conversation yesterday, and the president invited in to engage with the government. I understand there may have been one phone call. We’re going to continue to engage diplomatically. This is a time for diplomacy, and we will engage diplomatically as much as we can in order to steal this away from the increase in the tension of the level of the crisis. Nobody wants this to spiral into a bad or worse direction. The fact is that there are many options available to Russia, by which Russia can see its interests met. And the most important thing to remember here is, this is not or should not be East-West, Russia-United States, Russia versus Europe. This is about the people of Ukraine, people who stood up against snipers, firing at them from the roofs, who are fighting against the tyranny of having political opposition put in jail. And President Putin I think needs to think carefully about Russia’ real interest here. You know, Russia may be able to invade Crimea, but in the end, Russia will isolate itself, there will be a cost to the economy of Russia, cost to Russian businesses, cost to Russia individuals, and ultimately I think Russia will isolate itself on a global stage that it just spent $60 billion through the Olympics to try to present a different face on. It seems to me that if Russia were to step back and look at where its interests are, we ought to be able to work this out through the diplomatic process. If Russia chooses not to, there will be serious repercussions.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Do those repercussions include the U.S. not going to the G8 summit in Sochi come this summer, sir?
KERRY: It is a distinct possibility. We would hope rather that Russia will choose to engage with us, to work with the government of Ukraine, choose a different direction.
Russia has cooperated with us on the START treaty ,on Afghanistan, on Iran. It ought to be possible to find legitimacy in this particular moment in order to be able to deal in a way that serves the world much better than this choice they’ve made. We’re open to that. We encourage that. President Obama made it clear he prefers that. But the choice is really up to Russia at this point.
-more -
http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-john-kerry/story?id=22720806&singlePage=true
45 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Military confrontation is now bad evidently.
And my statement was ironic in nature.. Hence the
There was a whole lot of fucking nonsense going on, wasn't there? 
