Interview – 7:30 Report

Subjects: Pakistan, Georgia, APEC

KERRY O'BRIEN: Foreign Minister Stephen Smith delivered a major policy address in Sydney tonight emphasising a new era of Australian commitment to multilateralism, particularly regionally, to prepare for what he and the Prime Minister describe as the "Asia Pacific century". I spoke with the Foreign Minister earlier tonight.

Stephen Smith, you have expressed the hope today that with Pervez Musharraf's departure the Pakistani leadership will more effectively address terrorism and extremism in the border area. What do you base that hope on?

STEPHEN SMITH: What I base that optimism on, if you like, is that since the election after Mrs Bhutto's terrible assassination the elected parliamentarians and leaders in Pakistan have focused very much on squaring up or squaring off to the former President.

With his resignation they can now focus on the real challenges that Pakistan have with their economic and social issues. But there are also strategic and security issues. The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the so-called FATA areas, the Federally Administered Territories, are absolutely crucial to two things: to international terrorism and its mobility; but also deleterious consequences for Australia's 1100 troops in Afghanistan.

So I'm optimistic, but the proof will be in the pudding.

O'BRIEN: But the key to it all is less the Parliament than the military, isn't it? You'd agree the biggest stumbling block to cleaning up terrorism spawned in the border area with Afghanistan, is the extent that the ideology of Islam permeates the Pakistani military and intelligence, and the extent that military culture permeates the policy of Pakistan.

SMITH: Well to date General Kiani, the military head, has made it crystal clear that he's not interested in performing the role that General, and then President, Musharraf performed before him. He's a military man...

O'BRIEN: And Zia before him.

SMITH: And Zia before him, that's right.

He says he wants to remain a military man, and we have seen in the most recent example, there’s been no intervention by the military in the resolution of President Musharraf's position.

So we hope he sticks to his word. And it's quite clear that Pakistan needs not just regional assistance, but the assistance of the international community to deal with the very significant security and extremist and terrorist problems that they have.

O'BRIEN: But do you acknowledge that a lot of that problem lies within the military itself?

SMITH: A lot of problem lies within Pakistan itself, which is why...

O'BRIEN: But also within the Pakistani military.

SMITH: Well the Pakistan military is actually part of Pakistan, but there are a couple of issues here.

Firstly, it's Pakistan itself realising that what is occurring is as much a threat to Pakistan as a nation state as it is to the region itself. And secondly, its military does have to accommodate to a new reality, which is not just as the Pakistan military traditionally has been looking across the border at India but understanding it is now dealing with extremism, terrorism and insurgency, and that requires different skills.

And it's one of the reasons Australia has said not only do we stand ready, willing and able to help with humanitarian assistance or development assistance, to build parliamentary institutions and to help with governance matters, but also technical assistance when it comes to counter-terrorist activity.

O'BRIEN: Very briefly, on the conflict with Russia and Georgia, beyond the immediate local issue, are you concerned, is the Government concerned, at the signals that this potentially sends, at the echoes of Czechoslovakia and Hungary from the bad old days.

SMITH: I won't make reference to the bad old days, but I am concerned about, if you like, the flexing of the Russian muscle.

Yes, there was a deliberative message to Georgia, to use an Australian vernacular, there have been simmering tensions for a long period of time between Georgia and Russia, and Russia wanted to give them a clip over the ear.

O'BRIEN: But it went beyond that didn't it?

SMITH: In a massive a disproportionate way, they did.

My concern is that it sends a signal to the West, to Europe, to the United States and to the international community, that Russia sees itself as re-emerging.

I think what's now required is a much more fundamental dialogue with Russia. I think the wider international community needs to ponder very carefully the signal that Russia is sending. And I think one of the signals is "we are back, we want to be noticed", and in first instance that requires a substantial and fundamental dialogue with Russia.

O'BRIEN: Mr Smith, Prime Minister Rudd made a major speech two months ago saying it was time to build a new regional architecture, to build an Asia Pacific community, something that took the region beyond APEC and other existing, multilateral regional structures.

Other countries in the region haven't exactly rushed to embrace Mr Rudd's vision. And in your speech tonight, a major 32-page foreign policy address, dwelling substantially on the Asia Pacific, Mr Rudd's vision rates one sentence or 12 words. What does that say about the future of an Asia Pacific community?

SMITH: What the focus of my speech tonight, is as much if not almost entirely focused on multilateralism and the need for Australia to engage at that level.

If you were to read the last major speech I gave which was about ASEAN and our engagement, you would have seen very many pages on the need for us to get the regional architecture right, which is what the Prime Minister's Asia Pacific community initiative is all about.

Recently I was in Singapore for ASEAN and ASEAN-related meetings and had had lengthy discussions, bilaterally and at the East Asia Summit about the need to get the architecture right.

In this century it will be the era of the Asia Pacific, and there's not one piece of architecture where all of the key players are in the same room at the same time talking about both economics and strategic matters.

The Indians, for example, are not in APEC. The United States, are not in the East Asia Summit. And we've started the dialogue and the region will have that dialogue with us.

O'BRIEN: What is wrong with simply working with APEC, which is the start, which has already expanded beyond just the economic with the leaders forum, it's into political and strategic issues.

Why not just expand that to fix the defects, invite India into APEC, rather than come up with a whole other structure which...

SMITH: We've said a couple of things. Firstly all of these institutions, all of the architecture evolve.

With ASEAN, for example, we started off in the mid-1960s with a half a dozen nations. I don't think anyone then envisaged that we'd see with ASEAN what we see today; the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, Australia and other nations being dialogue partners.

These things evolve and the Prime Minister and I have both made it clear that one of two things will occur. What we see as a strategic need will evolve from some of the existing architecture. It might be APEC, it might be ASEAN-related, or there'll be a new piece of architecture.

But the key point is, and I made this point tonight, we are in a new era, where economic, strategic, political power and influence is moving to the Asia Pacific. Australia and the region we are in, the Asia Pacific, needs to not just adapt to that, we need to be wise to it and start to prepare ourselves for the future.

O'BRIEN: Mr Rudd talks about a vision and he has set a target of 2020. So in setting a target to establish this architecture for an Asia Pacific community by 2020, does that vision include even a basic concept of what that body might be, other than simply that it should include everyone in the region?

SMITH: Well, what it needs to do is to include all the key players in the region where they can have a conversation on both strategic matters, security and strategic matters, and also on economic and investment matters.

Some of the key players, for example, won't have a strategic or a security conversation in APEC because there are players around the table who they don't regard as nation states or in front of whom they won't have a conversation about those matters.

O'BRIEN: China and Taiwan.

SMITH: China and Taiwan is one example.

So all of the pieces of architecture, whether it's APEC, whether it's ASEAN itself, whether it's the East Asian Summit, they all play very good roles as a summit. And we support that continuing activity. But either out of those by evolution or the creation of a new piece of architecture, we will find something which meets the emerging challenges.

And I think it's to the Prime Minister's great credit that he was at the forefront of that, not responding to someone else's suggestion.

O'BRIEN: Stephen Smith thanks for talking with us.

SMITH: Thanks, Kerry.

[Ends]

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