Subtle subtext as UK-US ties reaffirmed

By Kim Ghattas
BBC News, Palo Alto

There were a few subtle differences in approach between the two diplomats

If anybody had doubts about whether the special relationship between the US and the UK continues under the cabinet of Gordon Brown, the travel schedule of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband would put those doubts at rest.

The two top diplomats have travelled together to Afghanistan this year, and on Thursday Ms Rice played tour guide to her British counterpart Mr Miliband, on a visit to the west coast state of California, before giving a joint interview to BBC World News America.

Sitting next to each other in a small hotel room, under spotlights and two cameras, the two answered questions about Pakistan, Lebanon and Iran for 15 minutes, with a few differences in foreign policy approaches making for a subtle subtext in the answers.

On Burma, Mr Miliband sounded slightly more forceful, talking about all options still being on the table to get aid to the Burmese people.

But both agreed that there were frustrating realities on the ground that the international community had to deal with.

They were speaking just a few hours before Burma's military ruler General Than Shwe told the UN secretary general he would allow all foreign aid workers into the country.

Desperate people

Mr Miliband said there had been some progress with aid flights coming in and a donor conference planned.

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Ms Rice and Mr Miliband discuss Afghanistan, Burma and the Middle East in a joint interview to BBC World News America

"We've got to keep pushing that door open and working to ensure that those desperate people get the help that they need."

Ms Rice rejected any criticism of the approach taken by Western countries to the crisis, or suggestions it may have been too direct or abrasive.

The responsibility for the crisis in Burma lay with the Burmese authorities.

"It's a quite unusual situation actually that you have a country in these desperate straits with its population in the circumstances that this population is in - and you get a kind of stone cold face about people who just want help," she said.

One area of divergence between the two was Pakistan, and the deal that has just been struck between the new government and pro-Taleban militant leaders in the Swat valley and the border areas near Afghanistan.

Speaking a day earlier in Washington, Mr Miliband gave his support to the deal, saying, in a speech about the need to support democracy to fight radicalism, that "security measures can deal with symptoms, but politics is required to address underlying causes".

And he added: "We need to accept that government reconciliation efforts (in Pakistan and Afghanistan) will reach out to people that we are uncomfortable with."

Fighting terrorism

But the deal is viewed with great concern by Washington, which had warned Pakistan against the deal.

Ms Rice said: "We certainly respect the government of Pakistan, and we fully respect their decision to try a course, but we do have concerns because we've been down this road before and it was violated before by militants, and as a result the ability to fight the terrorists (...) one has to worry that it will be curtailed."

She added that the US understood that fighting terrorism was not just about military action, and the importance of developing economic opportunities.

Ms Rice took Mr Miliband on a tour of Google's headquarters

Ms Rice acknowledged that the circumstances of the US and those of its allies are not identical, so "we wouldn't ask that all those countries behave the same way as the US on these issues".

She was also referring to a deal between the Western-backed government in Beirut and the militant group Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran and Syria.

The agreement, reached after days of violence on the streets of Beirut, gives Hezbollah veto power in the cabinet.

The cabinet also rescinded two decisions it had taken against the group, and the deal is widely seen as a blow to US influence in the region.

But both Mr Miliband and Ms Rice said that in the long term, Hezbollah's standing had been damaged inside Lebanon, because it used its guns against the Lebanese people.

Leverage

But with the US allies in Pakistan and Lebanon making deals with militants, I asked the secretary of state why the US was not talking to its enemies.

"The notion that the US doesn't talk to countries with which it has difficulties is simply not right... But you don't do diplomacy just to talk, you try to have outcomes, you need leverage and you try to prepare the ground," she said, pointing to the example of talks with North Korea, where progress is being made in talks about Pyongyang's nuclear disarmament.

On Iran, Ms Rice said the question was not why the US wasn't talking to Iran, but why Iran wasn't talking to the US.

She and Mr Miliband insisted that the strategy adopted so far towards Iran to get it to halt its nuclear programme was successful, and that sanctions were having an impact on Iran and its economy.

"Iran's defiance comes at a cost," said Ms Rice.

The two diplomats warned that Iran had to come clean about its nuclear power, or face new sanctions.

All the talk about politics came at the end of a day with a slightly more relaxing agenda, as Ms Rice took Mr Miliband to Bloom Energy to look at new, clean fuel technologies - and on a tour of the internet giant Google, which the secretary of state described as remarkable.

The trip to California, said the state department, was a way for Ms Rice to share with a close colleague a bit of her life.

Ms Rice told the BBC she was looking forward to returning to academic life in Stanford where she had lived and then taught since she was 25 years old, "to enjoy this great place where innovation is key, and reflect a little bit on what I have done."