a couple of minutes to introduce Susan. She is the research professor of international affairs and the GW Cross Disciplinary Fellow at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. In addition, she's also the Carvajo Fellow at the Government Accountability Project and was formerly the Minerva Chair at the National War College. She's going to be talking to us today about her work on digital trade, but she's also involved in a number of other projects, including those concerning repression and civil conflict. Transparency is a tool to promote labor rights and good governance, trade liberalization and public health. Also blowers at international organizations such as the UN WIPO, she's been involved or had her work funded by a number of governments, major foundations, international organizations such as the UN, ILO, World Bank and the like. She's really one of the leading voices in Washington and in the world on digital trade, so it's a real pleasure to welcome her here. So Susan, blowers here. Thank you. Thank you. So what I'm going to try to do today is talk about this weird relationship between digital trade, human rights online and protectionism. And basically it's a critique of U.S. policy, although I think there are some things that are really good. So interrupt me at any time with this Prezi. So I'm calling this the digital trade imbalance and in truth as I told some of you, trade imbalance is a term I've used before to describe U.S. policies, but I think that it's, we're in an odd position now in that I think many of us think of the United States as having the lead in terms of internet technologies and hence it seems odd that we would be so protectionist and yet the United States is the leading demandor of digital protectionism and more and more firms are asking for protectionism and this very much worries me because it requires an expertise and I'll talk about this that I don't think the U.S. government has. Often when the U.S. government is hacked we rely on foreign firms to attribute it and so to start using protectionism as a tool very much worries me because who's going to do the attribution and is that going to increase trust in the government and the internet? Somehow I don't think so. But let's see what you guys think. So I'm defining digital trade as cross border information flows although the U.S. government defines it as goods and services delivered via the internet. And the reason I define it this way is because digital goods are pretty easy to talk about and very clear but so much of cross border information flows have no monetary value and many scholars question whether or not that's even really trade but that's a different issue and I'm not going to go there but you guys can. So when I talk with digital rights activists like EFF they're often very opposed to trade agreements and they tend to focus on the intellectual property provisions but they don't seem to see the possible benefits to internet governments and free flow of information and so the thing to think about is that the reason I believe trade rules could protect to the open internet and in general I think it could be a good thing at the multinational level if they're done right is because they will make it harder for governments to censor filter or block the internet and the reason that will be harder for them is it could be a violation of trade norms so everyone with me on that okay all right so here's the latest figures that I have from the U.S. government and that's a source that I trust is digital trade is about 385 billion exports we have 12 of the 20 largest global firms and at least four of the other firms are Chinese and then there are other countries firms I don't feel uncomfortable saying this because do we really think of Google as a U.S. firm I mean it certainly has a U.S. character but I realize I'm very hypocritical to call it a U.S. firm okay but it's created a huge surplus for the United States Susan, can I put you there? What's in the 385 billion dollars there? So purchases of ads on Google? That's a lot there but it's also digital goods that are delivered for example a digital good would be if you watched a movie on Amazon. I buy you know a bicycle on Amazon have it delivered that's not considered well the the transaction was digital trade right but the actual trade was physical in a good I don't know why I said physical you could touch it feel it yeah it wasn't a service but there was a service affiliated with that yeah and oh so there was a statistics there which I really believe which is that 75% of the benefit accrued to traditional sectors of the U.S. and other economies right they've benefited from the efficiencies afforded by digital firms okay so the U.S. trade representative claims that TPP in fact will help protect and open into yet and yet they provide very little evidence to make this clear but I agree with them it could help if TPP happens which is a mighty big if and also if all the government sign it because all the signatory governments would comprise about 25% of the internet users at this moment and that their numbers are going to grow for Asian countries okay so trade agreements say very little but human rights and they say nothing about the internet because even though there's been plenty of trade agreements since the internet has been invented and became in wide use the TPP is the first trade agreement to make rules binding upon signatories and that's really really important because then governments must adhere to those rules as opposed to should right but they have something in common which is the principle of non-discrimination which is a human rights principle so trade rules offer in terms of non-discrimination three types of non-discrimination and the first type is most favorite nation which means that you treat every every nation goods and services from that country in in an equivalent manner national treatment which is you don't favor your domestic firms over foreign firms okay and then like product which means that you are not supposed to discriminate against a product that's maybe made in an environmentally insensitive way or in a way that violates human rights okay so you're supposed to treat all products producers and countries the in the same manner and that you know sounds very human rightsy and I think comes out of a similar logic okay so with that insight why is the United States so adamant about these provisions including them in TPP because all this came out of US pressure upon our trade partners okay who wanted much more stringent privacy regulations and they didn't want these rules to be binding but they agreed to it in TPP okay and the reason the United States is doing it is because obviously these are this really strong sector for the United States the United States is very concerned about digital protectionism in other countries and we're going to talk about the specifics of that in a few minutes and then we also wanted to have a very strong exception for national security and in TPP the exception which means that you can ignore the rules or violate the rules as long as you have a national security reason to do so and so that's an interesting thing now all trade agreements have a national security exception but it was enhanced significantly in TPP which is just you know something to think about in term when you're thinking about digital trade all right yeah yeah yeah so so so I don't want to spend we could talk about this at lunch but the language is much more specific as to what countries can do in terms of the national security exception and it's a little bit odd this is just my opinion not quite relevant to this presentation because we had the source code language within this chapter of the agreement but we didn't include malware and so what is malware it's just malicious information flows so that's something we could talk about a little bit later so just to clarify I want to now sort of blend the human rights of responsibilities of states and what trade agreements require and at least TPP would require states to do regarding information flows so under the UN it says that excuse me I misspoke under international human rights law states are not supposed to block access to the internet right in such a way that people can't express themselves right so you're not supposed to censor people okay states must provide an appropriate regulatory framework for the internet to function including civil liberties and the rule of law okay did you hear about China's plans to label every person in business okay well if China were a member of TPP couldn't do so under the internet rules there because that framework doesn't protect civil liberties and that's the kind of thing this is why I'm saying to you this could have a huge effect in promoting an open internet if it were to happen and that's why I support it moreover there is no human right for states okay they do not have the responsibility to maintain information control which will call information sovereignty because that's the term the Russians use and the Chinese use okay in order to maintain security for their citizens okay and that has huge implications for information flows we're going to talk about this yeah and a second because just to frame what you're saying right now we have this crazy world and David will kind of laugh at this where I think unions and a lot of civil society groups say trade isn't good enough the current system of rules sucks it isn't good enough and where I think that will lead us to is okay we're going to have trade agreements that don't have labor rights chapters or transparency chapters or environmental chapters in addition we'll just use exceptions and that means governments can get away with anything and I find that deeply troubling in other words you can say I'm going to every person who's blue-eyed we're going to put in you we're not going to let them use the internet for national security reasons because blue eyed people are generally terrorists okay and they could say that's we think it's necessary to our national security and you know another country could dispute it and that country would have to accept the dispute and defend itself but it's very unlikely because there's never been such a dispute but I worry about that that is possibly the future of trade agreements so I share that worry I was curious how that your statement saying under TPP there would be no right to information sovereignty well not saying that I'm saying that these are what the human rights we're going to get into TPP specifically because we need to be no this is great it's exactly what I want I appreciate it Rob so what does TPP say the thing is like other trade agreements and I think trade agreements are gonna have to catch up right they told they they address governments and they address market actors except market actors are firms and they are at times consumers but they're not human beings and I think this is kind of a problem when we're talking about information flows but here's what it says it addresses the so you have to go first to the service chapter to look at who's covered because the service chapter is the umbrella for the digital services which is e-commerce chapter and so it defines who's delivering the services and who's receiving the services so who's covered so an investment is covered an investor or a service supplier and that's important because it's unclear if it covers all users who may not be purchasing a service when they deal with cross-border information flows okay someone else might be purchasing that service so when I'm looking up directions at Google and I'm lost in Rio de Janeiro and I go to my smartwatch and I look up how do I get back to my hotel there's an ad on the side I probably won't even look at it that person paying for the service but am I here it's unclear I've heard both ways but it's never specified and I think it's gonna have to be specified in the future okay what else does it say well about digital rights it doesn't say much okay it states that in another chapter TPP says that any regulation including internet regulation must be developed and applied in a transparent and accountable matter and it must allow individuals and firms to challenge policies so that's political participation language that's in a separate chapter and due process language okay it's not in the e-commerce chapter but it applies to the agreement as a whole so it governs TPP okay but in terms of human rights it doesn't address it directly whether or not people should be able to access the internet whether they should have rights to free expression etc because trade agreements don't do that but I think they're gonna move in that direction okay so what does TPP say it has non-discriminatory principles which could give states the ability to challenge one government sensor or filter information flows because they distort trade they can be discriminatory so that's thing one okay but any government could say too bad I'm doing it under an exception okay and that's worrisome there has never been a challenge trade dispute towards a national security exception okay but TPP covers right now 25% of all internet users and that's a huge chunk of internet users and hence if it went into effect I think it would affect all countries because all countries trade with the big kahunas like Japan the United States Canada etc okay but TPP is not well liked and I don't know its future looks quite questionable to discriminate against products that are made in conditions that violate human rights so that seems to sort of go against some of the other things you're saying well okay in terms of but that's called like product right and digital services are a different thing so a product would truly be a digital product it's something that is tangible in the sense that you know there's something that is created that's not just a service that to delivering to another person okay so the movie is the product but I it doesn't say anything but like services so and again most of what we're talking about here is is really information flows which are neither a good nor service they're something in between yeah a digital product that was produced under what we would consider bad labor laws unethical labor laws we would then not be able to discriminate against such a digital product that's right okay so I mean you could still produce it let me just give an example of this Burma has long been a member of the GATT WTO okay and the United States banned certain goods from Burma but Burma never challenged that and the United States did so because Burma's tourist was notoriously corrupt and was quite abusive of people producing many of the things that it exported in the you know black market and in the if you will be real market so countries are very reluctant to challenge each other on these kind of things but maybe that'll change over time yeah you could exercise there's a public morality exception so you could ban that film or whatever under the public morality exception whether or not that would pass muster illegally would be open to whether or not Susan pointed out that other country chose to challenge it on behalf of this producer but there is an exception for public morality as well a moral issue well we have a little money you might you might view it as a moral okay yeah but we have a labor laws which define ours people can work and so on and so forth which would not be a which would not be a moral issue I'm not worried about point pornography morally or something blue off color and such that not the issue I'm looking at specific fair labor laws right that would not say to you is you simply use the morality explanation to ban that good so the United States could say we're banning goods from birth from Burma because it offends our morals so that would be the way that you'd caveat it that's what he's saying alright ooh so okay moving right along there's several other agreements that could have binding provisions on information flows and they are t-tip right the transatlantic trade and investment partnership and then the trade and services agreement which is being negotiated at the WTO but not by all the members of the WTO and so you know these these negotiations if TPP were to happen they'd have to have binding provisions too but we'll see they're all big ifs okay and it's hard for governments to find common ground and in particular I think t-tip will be bedeviled by privacy questions right because but if we were to rephrase that it's about the regulatory context and Europe just has a very different regulatory context in terms of information flows than the United States does we've patched together a solution but I don't know if that solution is going to hold in EU courts and so we'll have to see okay so now I want to move on from that trade agreement side if I guess I've gone a little bit I'll be going a little bit over but just to say about digital protectionism because I don't think you can talk about one without talking about the other and I'd be curious to know if you guys agree with me I'm so sorry I have my back to you which is very rude but you know how can this be the United States is so far ahead in terms of digital trade I mean you know the only country that comes close is China but the US you know in general is is and I think this will change China's gonna catch up it's great on digital platforms like e-commerce platforms but the United States is more and more calling other countries regulatory environment protectionist okay and I think that this is gonna bite back in ways that the United States should be very worried about first because the internet is evolving it's evolving in ways that United States may not have the comparative advantage and hence do we really want to be protectionist is that gonna be the right strategy to go so let's look at this okay so this is the internet evolution and all I want to say here is that the where I think the internet is evolving here I am at Berkman saying where the internet is evolving that's kind of ironic but I think apps and AI are the not the internet of things is really where the action is gonna be and the United States frankly is not as good at China in terms of turning products I mean Amazon's done great with Echo but you know I would say China is now leading in terms of product applications using AI and then the other thing is apps which are more and more used by people because they save them time and so our lead could be declining especially as population the internet population moves away from Western countries more towards Eastern countries all right so what's happening with US protectionism well every year the United States puts out a report on protectionism called the national trade estimate and what that is is businesses come in and say here's what we're finding barriers to trade so I just want to give you really quickly a couple of examples so national security procurement so Canada basically says you can't bid on our government email platform okay but the United States does the same thing for certain email platforms okay the Army says it wants to have its own platform and it's not going to allow a cloud provider from another country to provide that all right yeah yeah government procurement agreement which is a trade agreement that basically everybody who signs that basically says we're going to treat you as a local producer if you sign it there are certain exceptions to it okay privacy again just to do this really quickly the United States condemns countries that don't do enough on privacy and then it condemns countries for having too much privacy as a barrier to trade okay well are we the gods that decide what is an appropriate level of privacy that's gonna differ in all countries I mean just look at your children or your friends you know children have very different concepts of privacy than their parents online privacy okay okay what is the appropriate regulatory environment for the internet in 1997 during the Clinton administration the Department of Commerce came out with this report which defined the environment and I would say if that is what it's supposed to be the United States doesn't stick to that and that's okay I guess but what we said was we want to make sure that differences in national regulation whether it's privacy whether who can provide the government services whether it's this is national security regulation they shouldn't be trade barriers we got to figure out a way to reconcile this but we don't we condemn other countries for example how they treat ISP liability provisions I don't want to go too far into this but this has become a huge issue for for example EFF or public knowledge and this is why they they don't they don't think the United States does enough to help other countries have fair use type provisions but other countries have very different views about what is appropriate what is the appropriate strategy for taking down sites or whether or not ISP should have that function at all and I'm not sure we should be telling other countries how to do it all right this is where I'm really getting worried so I would say demands for digital protection is I'd like to write a history of this someday but I don't have anybody to pay me to do it and I think it really starts when Google says China is censoring the internet filtering we're having you know trade distorting effects and we just can't operate there and that's when they issued this paper I think David Weller wrote it it was a really interesting paper I use it all the time I guess it's out of date but that was the first time that I saw a firm really alleged digital protection and that's the link to human rights because these governments are censoring their own citizens and producers and restricting access to the internet okay but in another example so every year now the ITC labels countries it names and shames them that it thinks are have too many barriers to digital trade so in 2014 it was now Nigeria Algeria and China okay and they were very specific about China in 2015 so for example they said they have protectionist strategies including an opaque internet regulatory regime right if you don't know how you the rules that apply if a government's not transparent about it that can be a barrier to trade and their right to cite China's okay another example is this us steel case which I'm very very worried about so what happened is us steel right long excellent at getting protection excellent at asking for protection and basically they said that as part of a larger case against Chinese steel producers they said a particular Chinese steel company the government had gone in stolen us steals intellectual property online for a high-tech much more flexible steel bow steel came got that from the Chinese government and then bow steel has been using it dumping steel well wait a minute so that means the US government has to determine it has to attribute it it has to figure out the remedy how harmful it is to firms how do you compensate firms what agency should decide this I can tell you that the US government has not got its act together on this they don't know how to do this and it's not a public discussion and they should be thinking about it because things like censorship as you know can affect the stability of the internet okay so the only other thing that I wanted to bring up is can you use the exceptions to prevent censorship and maybe we'll just leave it for questions but I have some recommendations for the US government and I think the best way to determine this is to do it at the WTO to have a case and let's figure out what is a barrier to trade in terms of information flows okay and let's have a censorship filtering data localization trade case but it needs to be done at the WTO at the multilateral level to be credible okay that's my shtick so I welcome you thoughts words about what your your principal beef is I'm not sure I totally got it so I have many beef okay my first beef is that US policy towards the internet is incoherent right and that's what I wrote in the the brief for the Global Commission in that we're doing all these things in terms of trade to to help US companies and we say we're doing it to have an open internet and I think we generally want to have an open internet but we're not credible in saying that for many reasons first because we don't have any staff people who are out there looking at the implications of our policies on the internet and because we through the fly-vies but particularly through NSA are out there scouring the internet for information and we are also the country that is most adamant about taking downsides in terms of potential censorship and so we look kind of hypocritical although I I understand that we need to have some sort of strategy to deal with intellectual property online so I'm saying we we haven't figured out how to reconcile ideals for an open internet and for protecting digital rights with our trade policies which are the main means right now for regulating global information flows and I don't see people asking the questions to try to link what's being done at the Department of State with what's being done at the US Trade Representative's office and I don't think that will be down well for our comparative advantage in the internet sector if we become really nutty protectionist I think that'll have huge bad implications for trust online and for the internet as a whole expand a little bit on one of the points you made very early on which was calling like calling Google a US company how the the multi rep national role or factor of country country companies affects their relationship to these trade deals yeah I think this is where the rug what's the expression that something meets the road rubber meets the road yeah I think investor state brings it to the floor and there's a guy at at Cato who I really have a lot of respect for Simon Lester and Simon Lester he says he does not understand why the United States is so adamant about including investor state provisions and trade agreements which allow companies to sue states for regulations that they see as regulatory takings okay why are we doing this for companies that are footloose this is basic thesis okay why do companies get that right okay because until we had investor state and trade agreements and this starts 1993 we only had state-to-state dispute settlement and what state-to-state dispute settlement does is it allows you only and we should ask Mark's opinion on this but it basically says we're not gonna have flimsy trade disputes we're only gonna have trade disputes about really big issues whereas when you have state and firms to state disputes you're gonna have tons of little disputes and maybe that's not such a good thing there are other problems with investor states but why are we giving firm so much power when they're footloose and when that had principally been reserved to the power of states take away mark what do you think well why but mark served at USTR and I think it'll be interesting to hear his well I think you can obviously do an investment agreement as a standalone agreement between two countries I think the reason they've been brought into trade agreements is oftentimes there's a belief that you need these other components in order for the two sides to make a deal so that's how it got brought in the public wasn't focused on this I would say until very recently and particularly Europe I think they weren't focused on it when they were trade deals with smaller countries where there was a sense of an asymmetry of course our courts are reliable but not necessarily yours therefore this is largely to our own advantage but now that the US in Japan you in Japan US and Europe are doing these deals with each other and particularly some other cases involving public interest such as the Australia challenge of Australia tobacco labeling environmental challenges they've really elevated this to the public for so I think there's a real public debate going on about whether they should be included or not if so how do you address some of these imbalances but that some of the historic context for why we saw the trend move this way I think CEDA would sail through and T tip would sail through if you got investors stayed out of it yeah I'm so sorry it's Canada EU okay it would sail through well actually today they yeah so but I'm saying that the EU Parliament will be much more accepting and in particular Germans who have taken to the streets over investor state because of a particular case related to nuclear power but you know so just to summarize this so you know what should how should we negotiate trade agreements the notion is that we need business to be supportive of these agreements and so you can't get rid of investor state but that is the key provision in TPP and I would say in CEDA and in T tip that is alienating large swaths of the population obviously many people don't like other aspects but that issue that state that firms can sue states is very worrisome now we need to acknowledge the fact that the United States in their models for these chapters there's language that carves out regulatory it says that states need policy space so that their regulations are protected but no one seems to believe that because of history there's been too many challenges to state regulations by firms states wasn't way back when you know they had a big riot in Seattle about WTO it seems like that was one of the principal issues no because it wasn't in trade agreements I believe me I was there okay in 1999 no they just believe that the WTO empowers multinational corporations at the expense of workers and consumers and that was essentially the argument having investors state didn't exist in makes that problem worse well yes it but you know the United States I think US policy makers have made a decision that they can't leave it out because they'll alienate the business community even more and it's the business community that's gonna lobby for TPP and it's the Republicans that'll give it the votes to make it if it ever comes to a vote yeah I have a question about how you define these these flows these data flows because that really comes to the core of the question for me you had this example of being in Brazil and you know using your Google Maps and there's no money changing hands there at least you're not paying for it right you know there's the advertisers and there's Google who are exchanging money there and in a sense you know you are the product in those exchanges it's that's one way of framing it right and so you know when you pose a question that way are you involved there to put it in European terms you might say are data subjects included you know in this idea of these data flows and this is why you know I worked in Brussels for a while at European digital rights or Edry Mary Ant that's right yeah I wasn't on the TTIP portfolio so I wasn't following this closely but you know one of the things you heard was you know they say that privacy is excluded and Europe still has its right to regulate you know data protection on the other hand these data flows are in in the treaty right and if you take the European view that you know personal data is about privacy and regulating privacy means regulating personal data if you then say that personal data are part of these flows which must be free then you know that that's basically contradictory yep so I know where you're fusing that yeah I think it is a great dilemma and I've heard very Mariant and I are going to testify in a couple of weeks at the EU Parliament on just that my gut is you know I think there's no way to do it without having some sort of recognition of privacy and so I think the easy way out is to say make it stronger and clearer in the exceptions instead of spelling it out right by saying here's the rules by which we will respect privacy because the United States and the EU are not going to find common ground on that only because you guys you guys in the Philippines have a right that doesn't exist in the United States or in the real world the right to be delinked the right to be forgotten it we're just not going to find common ground on that I think so the only way to do it is through the exceptions and I think this is this is why we're trade agreements are going to go but that's a bad thing I think too David is there a bilateral deal or a national government that's got it right I mean is there a model even a partial model of how to do this out there somewhere in a particular country that Denmark or Sweden I was thinking Sweden but it but Sweden doesn't have its own trade policy but I mean more generally in terms of how they define internet right now no one's I mean the United States is is at least moving in the right direction but I don't see it in Canada I don't see it in the EU we just need to think more clearly about it I guess the question that I would ask right is on the one hand I hear you Susan being quite realist about it saying whether we like it or not this stuff is going to be included in trade agreements and it's almost politically necessary given the political economy of who's involved in export industries that it be included in trade agreements so given that that's the case right would you really prefer a world where this stuff is not included in trade agreements or yeah I prefer that it be included to be done differently inside what I want first is the United States to develop some sort of infrastructure to think about there should be like a committee to defend the internet where you have sort of an arms bugs man person arms buds person who says let's weigh the implication of various policy decisions on the internet as a whole someone should be safeguarding the internet I'm not saying it's a commons but I think we should start off with that premise then I think we need to figure out a way that we can encourage innovation online but set a regulatory context that builds trust and is flexible to accommodate different regulatory environments so that leads me to say trade could be good because of these nondiscriminatory rules but it also from the human rights hat that I wear it really worries me because having worked on trading human rights for years while I see it getting better and better over time I don't want human rights to be regulated through trade agreements so thank you for bringing out that essential hypocrisy in my own analytical thinking but here's the thing what I think about is you know I don't know if you guys ever go to you know the IGF global but you know when thinking about these things or net Mundial you know and at those kind of events people are very very you know it's almost like they have this image of the internet as if it's this wild and free you know thing and we can keep it that way and that's too romantic for me because the truth is where the population is is in countries where the internet is very very restricted and yet those countries have innovation flourishing at least some of them do Russia I mean if you look at cyber security stuff app development and then of course China now are those outliers other repressive states don't have innovative industries but given that that's happening where you have this weird context where you have a lot of innovation and yet you have repression of I feel like it's incumbent on us to the trade regime offers you this opportunity but is the price of that you know what is the price of that I need I need to think more clearly about it because it does offer you that free flow as the default and that is so important if TPP happens China is going to want to join it it can't right now because it just doesn't have the regulatory capacity but at some point it's going to want to join it and then it's going to have to play by those rules and that gives you the opportunity to challenge it in a trade dispute but maybe do it at the WTO which where China is a member even though it says nothing right now about the internet there's no clear rules there have been trade cases related to the internet and it offers an opportunity to like test these things and I would like the United States to start testing now there's evidence that the United States these trade estimate reports the naming and shaming is a way to publicly accumulate evidence to do a trade dispute but yet the United States hasn't done it since Google first complained in 2010 I don't think the the United States would choose a big kahuna like China it would choose a much smaller economy to challenge like an example could be Egypt remember when Egypt censored the internet and it does off and on you couldn't do it with a country like Iran because it's not a member of the WTO the boundaries we've been talking a lot about the international law sphere and trade deals what about below that in the norm sphere what can be done there to do more in these areas or is that kind of just a feel-good thing that companies and well two things so after Seattle now I'm showing my age but after Seattle I did a lot of work on corporate social responsibility and I guess I I am not a fan of corporate social responsibility I think it's I think it teaches people to ask companies for public goods or quasi-public goods instead of learning to influence government and good governance only occurs when there's that feedback loop where there's this give-and-take between the government and the governed and so while it can be helpful in providing some public goods some of the time it's it's very irregular right because as the company loses money it will pull back from providing AIDS drugs or whatever or roads or education for scholarships for the children of its employees so I wouldn't count on that and I it's nice to see soft law hard-law combinations but I don't think the track work it is and then I look at you know I have enormous respect for Rebecca McKinnon you know if you look at the index does it look so sunny to you what firms are doing I mean I I just I know I don't know I don't you know I like I have it reminds me of when I was a kid I used to look at department stores like sacks was different from you know Macy's and like is Google Facebook I know they're in different sectors and you know it's one better than the other one has a mission statement that says do no evil but I really don't know the interior workings is one really nicer and more humane than the other I'd like to think so but I really don't know so where are these norms you know I mean Yahoo got its hand you know Congress slapped Yahoo they were publicly shamed is Yahoo a good company now I don't know about so we kind of talked about so in Europe for example the idea of you know how maybe good faith regulation which isn't intended to have you know protectionist effects could end up having them anyway right it's not the main aim of these regulations yeah but so what would a bad faith you know regulation pretty clear right if I'm the EU and I really want to like you know you know support my own digital economy keep you out well local content local content local server requirements I mean those are pretty obvious data localization yeah yeah but I don't you know privacy to me like that's I understand how it could add costs but it doesn't seem like that's really an explicit trade barrier it's it could be used in that way I mean I've seen studies that show that the right to be forgotten has really empowered the big platforms because little firms they can't do these kind of things so a duck duck go is not gonna have a staff to like take down sites the way that a Google would and so is that really that what you want in Europe but I don't think US regulatory policy is any better I mean you know that question about who has it right does anyone do you all can you name a government that has the internet right maybe Estonia yeah like a relatively much yeah I've heard good things about Chile too but I couldn't document it to you but with that then if if we're saying Estonia hypothetically has it right how the I did the following question is any or even even if we did it like a Sweden or a slightly bigger country how do we scale that for not just the US well I think we ignored the other side of this the the I think a lot about I've never been funded for my work on this but trust online and malicious information flows and I don't think any government is handling that well and as someone who has done a lot of research on good governance and transparency that's one of the things I teach I am totally amazed that we let this happen that we have this market for malware that is totally opaque and ungoverned and that's okay I just don't get it at all and we're all threatened by it and it's traded and I'm not talking about you know Vasanar and you know export controls I'm talking about we've got to figure out ways to make the sale of malware transparent because I think it's it's basically eroding trust in others and trolls would be another example and the internet now that's not right right they're not but let me just could I well no but let's think about this I mean in terms of what the trolling that has occurred related to the Russian disinformation I can't document this for you because I don't have I haven't done research on it I don't know enough about it but it's my understanding from secondary sources that you know there's been a lot of disinformation that has been sent that's another question that I think trade regimes will need to deal with but is it propaganda is it really traded I don't know and I don't see any I don't know do you know of any scholar working on that yeah do you agree with that you know thinking about it that that it is an international issue now is it a trade issue most people would say no trying to suppress malware with a trade agreement seems to be like trying to suppress heroin trafficking with a trade agreement it's sort of like the the wrong tool for the job but if trade agreements govern information flows and they govern source code they govern malware right it's not it's implicit it's not explicit it's never been clarified but logic would tell you that it is there and hence it must there are things that you can do to make it more opaque make to me less opaque because transparency is a key norm of all trade regimes transparency of regulation and yet you have this essential black market but you know that's a very different issue that I hope somebody will work on no not at all if that's what you're saying no and if you made the market more open you know maybe there will be less higher bounties and there will be less incentives for malware I think the opacity makes it more attractive in some respects nobody knows what anyone else is doing so we really don't know what the pricing should be and it might reduce demand for it I don't think I've convinced you all well it was really nice to talk with you I feel like at least four or five different ways we've the discussion has reinforced your argument that the WTO is the place to do this it's our best effort because it's got enforcement power that substantial framework has it's got the rules that we want and trade agreements even at getting it norms one way of getting it norms is to do it through regional trade agreements if you have two or three regions even if it's two small ones and one larger one and they agree on something and it it's more or less similar clauses and those agreements that begins to kind of set a if it doesn't create law per se at the international level but regional agreements will you know help create norms in that direction I'm coming back to the Obama argument which is you know we need to get something like the TPP done because that gives us some leverage to help set the rules of the future rather than sitting back and letting them either be no rules or set by somebody else yeah I agree with that political mind-twisting about going back to all the negotiating partners and having some kind of a renegotiation that they might not agree to about some significant points before you can bring it back to the US yeah but I think you know the Clinton campaign I mean they have to be very negative about TPP but I think there will be a TPP kind of limited TPP and I think it'll move forward it just be rejected or accepted in total so if you if it can't be amended at this point right it can't it can't really be amended but but I if let's say Canada it seems to be moving ahead in Canada Prime Minister Trudeau said and I think if Canada or Australia or Japan moved it ahead there would be more incentives and I think there's ways to just I mean it's never happened before that I can think of but I think Secretary Clinton she's they will have to figure out a way to do it not to amend it to repackage it maybe if it can't be amended and it's not acceptable in its current form and it can only be voted up or down that seems like you have to start over yeah well I think we'll be we'll be seeing judge just Chief Justice Merrick Garland before not Chief Justice but Justice Merrick Garland before we see TPP pending the outcome of the election but I don't know the issue in the United States yeah but they're making all sorts of noise now which is very interesting to pressure the United States you know and I think you know some people in Congress will some Republicans in Congress hear that but whether or not they're willing to use I mean I'm not saying the late duck I think it happens if she becomes president and and you know has to do something but I think if it's president Trump we all might as well influence our legislators yeah I hope this brings to bear right some of what saying there's a lot of very complex questions surrounding the TPP not just on some of these larger issues but specific to the internet community yeah where you're dealing with an agreement that is imperfect but are you better off in a world with this or without it right and so Susan thank you for provoking us on that to think further and deeper about this question well thank you all so much for coming I really appreciate it


Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. My name is Nancy Lindborg and I am the president of USIP. Just to note, I hope everybody who needs one has a headset for simultaneous interpretation. English is on channel one, Arabic is on channel six. And it is my distinct honor today to welcome his Excellency, Dr. Ibrahim Al-Jafari, the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Iraq. And I'd also like to welcome the distinguished members of the Iraqi delegation who I have also joined us today, Mr. Nazar Al-Kirullah, the Deputy Minister for Bilateral Affairs, Mr. Yarub Al-Ambaki, the Iraqi Council here in Washington, Dr. Muhammad Jawad-Mahdi, the Embassy's Charger d'affaires, and Mr. Esan Al-Awadi, the Minister's Senior Advisor. Thank you, all of you, for joining us here today. I'd also like to welcome our very hard-working colleague from the State Department, a special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition to counter ISIL Ambassador Bret McGurk. For those who have not joined us before, US Institute of Peace was founded in 1984 by Congress as an independent national institute dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, peace is practical, and it is essential for global and United States security. And we pursue a vision of a world without violent conflict by working on the ground with local partners, building peace from the ground up as well as from the top down. And we provide people, organizations, and governments with the tools, knowledge, and training to manage conflict so that it doesn't become violent and to resolve it when it does. And Iraq has been a priority for USIP for more than a decade. We've worked closely with both Iraqi and American partners. Our teams have been on the ground to see both significant challenges as well as significant progress. And then, of course, the terrible rise of Daesh that has taken territory, it's taken lives, destroyed communities, and now threatens both regional and global security. So we're gathered here today at a very significant moment for Iraq and the region as a whole. The Iraqi government forces and the US-led coalition partners have logged significant military victories in recent months against Daesh, and hopefully Mosul is on the horizon and just ahead. This makes the pledging conference tomorrow of utmost importance because overshadowing those military victories is the question of how to convert that progress into an enduring and lasting peace. The question is how do we help the Iraqi people return home? And importantly, how do the Iraqi people avoid cycles of violence that could require repeated military operations, especially as they cope with the aftermath of an occupation that has torn apart the social fabric and left communities deeply suspicious of each other? Two weeks ago, we hosted here in Washington our Iraqi partners from Sennad for Peacebuilding and the network of Iraqi facilitators who have dedicated themselves to answering just this question. And in the aftermath of the 2014 massacre by Daesh of 1700 Iraqi Kedetsa camp spiker and then the subsequent liberation of Tikrit, this network of Iraqi facilitators worked with Tribal Shakes and the Iraqi government to mediate agreements on fair trials, on accountability and reconciliation between communities, and in doing so, we're able to address the sectarian accusations of complicity with Daesh and convert the liberation of Tikrit into a sustainable peace. These results can be replicated. And Iraqi's diverse communities, they must and they can learn to live together. And we also are very hopeful that local agreements can be reached and hopefully eventually support a national reconciliation. Tomorrow's conference will be critical for gathering international support for life-saving humanitarian assistance and vital support for stabilization. And as it is important as it is to restore basic infrastructure in destroyed communities, it's as important to rebuild the social infrastructure, to rebuild the social fabric, to ensure that renewed violence doesn't break out again on the heels of these military victories. We know this is possible, peace is possible, and we're pleased to be working with so many dedicated and courageous Iraqis from civil society as well as the government Iraq, the US government, and the United Nations. And we're privileged to have with us here today the Foreign Minister, Ibrahim Al-Jafari, and Ambassador Brett McGurk to give their insights into the current situation in Iraq, the efforts to counter ISIL, and the prospects for an enduring peace. And so it's my honor now to welcome Ambassador Brett McGurk, the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to counter ISIL. Ambassador McGurk has devoted a significant amount of his career to Iraq and its citizens. He has served as the lead negotiator during bilateral talks with the Iraqi government on both the long-term strategic framework and a security agreement to govern the temporary presence of US forces. He was one of the chief architects of the surge strategy under President Bush. He's held several positions in the Obama administration, including Senior Advisor in the Bureau for Near Eastern Affairs and a Senior Advisor to Ambassadors Ryan Crocker, Christopher Hill, and James Jeffrey in Baghdad. In short, he is one of our most knowledgeable and experienced diplomats who is ably leading us forward on this important issue. Please join me in welcoming Ambassador McGurk to the podium. Thank you very much. I want to thank Nancy, I want to thank my former boss Steve Hadley, Ambassador Taylor, USIP for everything that you do to try to make the world a better place, and in particular for all the very hard, difficult work you do in Iraq. And I associate myself very much with Nancy's remarks. We're determined, as everybody knows, to do all we can to defeat ISIL or Daesh, and we will defeat them. I can talk a little bit about where we are in this campaign, but we're also not just focused on defeating Daesh, we're focused on what comes after Daesh. So before introducing our foreign minister, Joffrey, I'd like to just kind of put in context of why the foreign minister is here in Washington, and we're very honored to have him here in our capital city, about what's happening this week. We are bringing together over 40 members of our international coalition in a campaign to defeat Daesh to look ahead over the next six months. And in many ways, our campaign is now ahead of where we thought it would be at this time. We do check-ins within the coalition every couple months, and we thought, you know, Mosul is going to be a very, very difficult challenge. Mosul, of course, is where Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his phony caliphate two years ago this month. It is where we will put one of the nails into the coffin of that phony caliphate, and we knew we have to get Mosul back. But Mosul is one of the most complex challenges ahead of us. There's about a million people still in Mosul. It's a very diverse city. We have issues of local governance. We have a number of issues of resources to make sure that what comes after Daesh, that the people can return to their homes and have a and restore life to their streets. This will be one of the most complex challenges imaginable. I'm encouraged because the military side of this campaign is now coming together. The Iraqis just completed a very impressive offensive move. We've got 100 kilometers to capture and liberate. It's called Qiyar air base, a major air base just south of Mosul, which is now a major staging area in the process of isolating Daesh inside Mosul. The Iraqi security forces from two years ago this summer, in which they were losing battles, have not lost a battle in over a year. They are showing increasing confidence, increasing professionalism, increasing capacity, and they're liberating towns in Anbar province through the Euphrates Valley and now moving up the Tigris River Valley and setting the stage for the Mosul campaign. But every time we work with the Iraqis to launch a military offensive, we ask all the very hard questions, a process that goes on for months. What's going to come after the military operation? Who is going to hold the ground? What will the resources be for the humanitarian response? What is the program for stabilization to get people back into their homes? Through the coalition, we've established a really innovative program of post-conflict stabilization. We have two funding mechanisms. The first one is called the Funding Facility for Immediate Stabilization, getting people back into their homes as soon as possible and a second funding facility for expanded enhanced stabilization for the kind of longer term reconstruction. And we've had some real success and we've had success because of the governments that Foreign Minister Joffrey is here representing. The government led by Prime Minister Badi has a governing philosophy of more decentralization, of more empowering local people at the grassroots to take hold of their affairs. So in Tikrit, Tikrit was a city that two years ago, this month, was a scene of massive atrocities. Thousands of young Iraqi military recruits were slaughtered. It was put on YouTube. I was in Iraq at the time speaking with the Foreign Minister and other Iraqi leaders as they were undergoing this incredibly difficult, horrible, horrific advance of dash towards Baghdad. Tikrit was liberated by Iraqi security forces. The entire population had almost been, had almost left the city. And through the work of the Iraqi government, empowering local leaders, getting local Tikritis back into the streets, local police back into the streets, and through the global coalition, which contributed tens of millions of dollars for stabilization projects, almost the entire population, 95 percent of the population, returned to the streets of Tikrit. If you look historically of returning populations to their homes after a conflict like this, that is totally unprecedented. We've now had total in Iraq, over 700,000 Iraqis have returned to their homes in areas that had been controlled by Daesh. And the Iraqi security forces have now liberated about 50 percent of the territory that Daesh had once controlled. The success we're having in Anbar province in Ramadi, all the way out to Al-Hit, all the way down to Rutba in the Baghdad-Aman corridor, is attributable to the Iraqi security forces, which are showing tremendous proficiency, but also organizing and mobilizing local tribal fighters. In Anbar province, we have about 20,000 local tribal fighters working with Iraqi security forces being paid by the government of Iraq, because of the policy of the government of Iraq to empower local people at the grassroots. So Mosul is now upon us, and we're not going to put a timeline on the Mosul campaign, but we will pursue it deliberately, and we will check every box to make sure we're doing all we possibly can to prepare. Not everything will go right. This is one of the most complex, difficult things imaginable. But the reason we were all here in Washington this week with over 40 members of the coalition is to make sure we do all we can to support Iraqi partners to get this right. So tomorrow we'll have a pledging conference, in which we hope to raise a significant amount of funds to help with the humanitarian response and the stabilization plan. And then on Thursday at the State Department, we'll have a joint ministerial of foreign ministers and defense ministers to come together to talk about the next six months of the campaign. And of course, it's not just Iraq. It's a very important work we're doing in Syria. It's the important work we're doing in Libya. And it's the global campaign against Ash to dry up their foreign fighter networks, their financing networks, and their propaganda networks. But without a strong partner in Iraq, it really is a centerpiece of the campaign. And that is why I want to introduce my good friend, Foreign Minister Joffrey. Again, Foreign Minister Joffrey has been there at every single moment of the last 10 years at very difficult times in which Iraq has gone through. And I saw him this morning and express my deepest condolences, of course, to the horrific attack that Iraq faced in Baghdad in Karadah just about 10 days ago. We're 300 very young Iraqis. Kind of the spirit of the future of Iraq was wiped out in this horrible crime by Daesh terrorists. It was a horrible crime. I think it shocked all of us. But having gone back and forth to Iraq now, but every two weeks over the last last year or so, we tend to forget what happened just a few months ago, where a terrorist, a suicide bomber, came into Iraq and blew himself up in a soccer game, a children's soccer game where young kids were getting trophies after winning a soccer game. And not only do they do that, it's on YouTube. Everybody can see it. The most horrific, horrible crimes imaginable. In Iraq for month to month, we have sometimes 50 suicide bombers coming into Iraq to blow themselves up and to commit acts of mass murder. And we've of course faced Daesh-inspired terrorism here in the United States. We've seen the horrific crimes recently in Istanbul, in Nice. So I think we all have to empathize a little bit with what the Iraqis are going through, these horrible crimes. And you have to imagine if suicide bombers from around the world were coming in to blow up our playgrounds, our churches, our supermarkets, our mosques, because that's what is happening in Iraq. And it's been happening now for years, frankly. But the number of suicide bombers has really began to kick up in 2013 and reached a peak some months ago. So we have to do all we can to support our Iraqi partners, our Iraqi friends, not just to defeat Daesh, but to do the very hard work of what comes after Daesh. Not just the restoration of electricity and getting police back in the streets, but the psychological trauma that the society has gone through. They're really going to need all of our help. And so that I want to welcome Foreign Minister Joffrey. I want to say what a terrific job he's doing as Foreign Minister. As with all of the members of our coalition, we don't always agree on everything. We had a very good meeting this morning to talk about some very difficult issues. But we are a very strong partner of Iraq. We have a strategic framework agreement, a permanent agreement with Iraq, and that will continue. And we couldn't do it without the leadership of people like Foreign Minister Joffrey. So again, I want to welcome you and look forward to your remarks. In the name of God, peace may be upon you all. We met a year ago in this very place, in these institutions, and the session was moderated by former Ambassador Negropanti. Today we meet again and this is something important and we need to do to see each other from time to time and exchange ideas, opinions. And because Iraq is the front line in the confrontation between terrorism and Iraq, but Iraq is not defending itself only by defending the whole world and the whole international community. Iraq is facing three challenges. These challenges are the security challenge and it's not a secret that terrorism has spread its shadows in Iraq and in many parts of Iraq in the world. The second challenge is the economic economy. Challenge and the third is the security and administration challenge. Iraq yet is determined to defeat terrorism and achieve accomplishments. Last year we had a bad security situation comparing to what is now. Prime Minister Abadi applied his plan whether on security or on the economical reforms or in management reforms as well, which started. It is a heavy legacy but the Iraqi government has worked hard and achieved good results. The Iraqi government after the elections was formed. It was a pluralistic government, inclusive one representing all the people. Today the political experience in Iraq is advancing. We have difficulties yet we are determined to commit to its main objective, which is establishing a democratic system in Iraq and since it is committed to establishing this system, yet Iraq must respect all the different opinions in Iraq, the different political attitudes. This is the very principle for which Iraqi democratic system is formed to give the liberty and the freedom of all Iraqis. The confrontation against terrorism continues and will not stop. From time to time you will see that we face sub-radic battles inside the country. But these same attacks happened outside Iraq in different parts of the world in Egypt, in France and in different parts in the Middle East. Terrorism cannot be divided. Terrorism is the same and it tries to extend into new areas. Standing beside Iraq and the success that Iraq achieved is not a success for Iraqi people only but although the Iraqis are paying the most precious price which is Iraqis blood and Iraq achieved the victory and it's achieving this for the whole world and it is the right of the whole international community and the whole world to feel proud and happy for the achievements that Iraq is achieving. In the meantime the calamities that happens in Iraq and the attacks that happens in different parts in Iraq like the terrorist attack in Al-Qarade we should all take and express our condolences to the whole world because civilians were attacked and every one of you has children, has a mother and a father. The new this war that terrorism brought to the world is to target civilian targets, to bomb markets, to bomb kids, hospitals and the Karade attack people were rejoicing the Eid festival and they were shopping for the Eid festival buying gifts for their children but they were suddenly blown away with this terror attacks. I'm quite sure that this wave of sympathy that we received from different officials around the world expressed a humanitarian reaction and approved that when Iraqi forces achieve victories of the ground they might expect such reactions from the terrorists. Mosul will be after Fallujah is the next target. Terrorism tried to deepen its roots in the city of Fallujah but with the assistance of the Iraqi army and the citizens of Fallujah they managed to defeat terrorists in this city. In a short period of time and in a few casualties Fallujah was liberated and something the world was not anticipating and this proves the true desire and the will of the Iraqi people that are determined to liberate Iraq. For sure Mosul requires a momentum of the efforts that are continuing. Mosul is a huge city is the second largest city after the capital. The range of time that the Mosul was under the control of Daesh is more than two years it's almost three years it requires a plan. The people of Mosul are victories they are heroes they were threatened and attacked across the history so many times and they were always achieving victory and operating their city. The last battle would be in Mosul city it is the last hideout of Daesh in Iraq. Achieving victory for the Iraqi people is not a national victory it is an international and global victory for the world because terrorism and Daesh is a global challenge to the world. Iraq is proud in defending itself and defending the whole world. The Iraqi government is determined and is proceeding in following and defeating Daesh in all Iraqi areas. In 2014 September I stated that I was addressing the international community saying telling them that we are not asking the United Nations and the member states to send their own sons to to Iraq and lose their lives there. The Iraqi people it is the responsibility of the Iraqi people to defend themselves but I appealed the United Nation to provide assistance in three levels the security level and the assistance levels as you know Iraqis were leaving the country, displacing outside the country and I asked the United Nations to provide assistance for the Iraqis and thanking the countries which welcomed and housed the Iraqi refugees. The second type of assistance that I mentioned is the assistance on the military level logistics equipment and providing air strikes for Iraq in supporting for Iraq forces. Today is the time for the third type of assistance that we require which is assisting Iraq in the post liberation area and I may always mention the the Marshall project in Europe where the United States assisted Germany and helped Germany to rebuild itself as a country and the German people reacted to this. Iraqi government is suffering as you know from an exceptional economic conditions with exceptional conditions on the ground it is not a secret that Iraq is a country of multiple natural resources there is oil agriculture there is religious tourism in this in Iraq it is a country of the first dawn of civilization it is 6 000 years ago yet Iraq is living exceptional conditions today the international community should bear its responsibility to support Iraq which stands and facing terrorism. Iraq will always remember those countries that are standing beside Iraq especially countries that provided security assistance training equipping I would like to extend my thanks to these countries with this honorable position it has been doing in support of Iraq. Iraq is looking forward to rebuild the cities that was destroyed the cities after being liberated the policy of Daesh is to destroy totally the cities that it leaves it leaves the cities as ruins and detonate the whole houses and the home and the whole neighborhoods with explosives and mines it was not easy for the Iraqi forces to liberate the city and this forced the Iraqi army to extend the time of the military campaign and especially to avoid the citizens that were captured as a human shields by by Daesh so we had a two-way fight confronting Daesh and trying to save the citizens and avoid targeting the civilians civilians. Iraqi armed forces moved in a professional and advanced in a professional way in the battlefield eventually the victory has been achieved we will apply the same policy in liberating the city of Musa. Iraq is committed to preserve its democratic identity the democratic system in Iraq states that all the people should express themselves freely and that's why we you see public demonstrations from time to time in Baghdad despite the opinion they adopt it is a constitutional right for the people to demonstrate this is something that Iraqi new democratic system is determined to the security forces that were sent to Iraq was not to suppress or fight the the demonstrators they were sent to maintain peace and security and protect the civilians on our political relations and the strategy of the political relations that we have with the countries in the region in the world it's it's based on strategy and a philosophy it is not spontaneous philosophy it's based on having equal relations based on mutual interests of these countries we do not ask themselves that why should we have a relation with such a country the the original thing and the normal thing is to have a bilateral relations and a multilateral relations it is a world of relations a world of mutual interests a world of mutual threats we should not ask ourselves why do we where should we have a relation with this country or that on the contrary we we share the same love respect and tolerance with that all the countries that helped iraq and that countries that sent delegations official delegations to iraq most of the countries in the international coalition sent its delegations and we returned this visit our policy states that we do not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries iraq is as you know state situated in a region surrounded by Saudi Arabia Turkey Syria Jordan Iran is Islamic state in in Saudi Arabia for example there is the monarchy system iraq deals equally with these countries and iraq will not imitate any of these countries on the contrary iraq being in this middle between these countries can can do some meditation and can work on improving the relations with these countries for example we maintain relations with Syria and we maintain relations with Turkey and we know that there's some attention between Iran and Saudi Arabia and we maintain good relations with both countries and try to build bridges between these two countries iraq always do its best to keep itself distant from the policy of exes and political pillars or and i would like to extend my thanks to the united states to all the countries and the international coalition that supported iraq and has been supporting iraq during this fight and during these difficult times iraq as you know is not defending itself only but defending the whole international community i would like to thank you for listening to me today and wish you all the best thank you very much thank you minister very good please i'm sitting here so minister thank you for for those comments my name is bill taylor i'm the executive vice president here at the united states institute of peace and very pleased to moderate this question and answer period with foreign minister we're we've taken the opportunity to give you cards if you would like to ask the foreign minister questions please put some questions on the cards pass them to the to the sides and someone will pick them up and and bring them up to me if you are following us on twitter there is a hashtag where you can ask questions as well as hashtag joffery usip so let me begin both ambassador mergork and nancy nemborg have talked about reconciliation you have talked about reconciliation you spoke of you spoke of the the plans following the mosul military campaign both ambassador mergork and nancy mentioned an earlier version of reconciliation in tukrit where the government and and the local government and some of the usip people helped with reconciliation between suni and shia following the massacre that nancy mentioned at camp spiker you also mentioned the attack at kurata and you mentioned the mothers and fathers who lost children there um one of the questions that we've already gotten asks about this issue that is why is the us media silent on terror attacks such as kurata recent attacks where the spirit of the youth was wiped out by ibrahim jabar who is here somewhere ibrahim thank you for that question minister the question is following mosul as you say there is a plan for reconciliation there is a plan for moving forward after the military action can you describe that plan can you describe how the reconciliation will take place we started the national reconciliation long time ago and we moved from the national reconciliation to national participation and by participation i mean where where different iraqi communities contribute in the decision making and the policy and the administration and different levels of the iraqi political life you find peoples from different ethnicities different backgrounds the iraqi public sector institutions reflect the truth about iraqi people every iraqi city is a diversified one you can never find an iraqi city that is from one ethnicity and there there are no kind of long range or broad range of of ethnic tension or cleansing indeed there are some individual attacks the national reconciliation has started and can never stop national reconciliation committee commission will be the focal point for those discussions you talked about how the of the importance of local governments and indeed civil society organizations that can help with that reconciliation between people like in tukrit where the sunni and shia were divided by that massacre can you describe in in any detail what your plans are for mosul let me explain to you the role or the role that i hope it has when the iraqi people when a people is well educated on the concept of national reconciliation and if they are not prepared for such a reconciliation no one can impose a certain culture upon them iraqi people i assure you cannot accept to ignite internal fights and no one can convince or lead the iraqi people into a fight they do not have this culture iraqi people as a coherent one the NGOs should do its best efforts to create and to strengthen this this social fabric and and strengthen and support and promote for the tolerance that has always lived in the iraqi committee and cut the way on dash coexistence is a culture inside iraq and no two iraqis differ that they should that they will live together and that the best for iraq is to stay together united minister speaking of of a united iraq there are communities who have lived together for for a long time six thousand years as you described we have a couple of questions here about the Kurdish community and one specific question is about Kurdish community's participation in the donor's conference that comes up tomorrow this question and also one from twitter Kurdish Peshmerga forces are playing a vital role in defeating ISIL and feeding dash and sheltering over 1.8 million displaced syrians in iraqis they have requested an invitation to attend this pledge conference how has this request been granted and will any krg officials attend the conference the Kurds as part of the iraqi people suffered as much as the rest of iraqi parts suffered oppression ethnic cleansing isolating the community just like the same way the Shia and Sunnis were suffering when Saddam Hussein attacked the Kurds not because he was an Arab because he attacked Arabs before the Kurds and he attacked the Shia not because he is Sunni and he attacked the Sunnis as well we all suffers Kurds Arab from the oppression of Saddam Hussein just as we are suffering today from terrorism where terrorism targets everybody in iraq today in new iraq the Kurdish is equal to the arab the Kurdish are participating in the iraqi parliament in the iraqi government since the first president of the republic and today the president is Kurd Iraqi Kurdish we have ministers and important ministries also assuming these positions we have we might have some disagreements but no one can deny that the the rights of the Kurds is a priority for me we all gather under iraq today iraq with its diversified community reflects the coherence and reflects the cohesion between its parts also there is a continued culture in iraq whether in the parliament in the media that that the national unity must always be preserved we are not worried about the future of the national of the national unity of iraq Kurds Arabs and others all are equal and all believe in the unity of iraq the the current government has signed a national pact with the 20 points in the first point mentioned that the iraqi government should be inclusive representing everybody and that was achieved and we signed this pact and we are committed to mr we have a couple of questions from the the audience on post mozal after mozal and we've already talked a bit about the reconciliation components of that and so two further questions on that once mozal is recaptured what will the iraqi government do with the popular mobilization forces disband them or convert them to a national guard so there's on the military side and there's a related question what are the non-security measures that the iraqi government will take to prevent another generation of terrorists from emerging after liberating mozal the different national iraqi groups that are fighting in iraq came as a reaction for example the mobilized forces came after great violations against the iraqi territories and iraqi population from iso the the iraqi volunteers represented by the mobilizing force came as a response from different appeals from the iraqi people from the highest religious leadership in iraq and those are committed to the principles of the of the iraqi army and work under their umbrella what would you expect after two-thirds of iraq has fallen across the history many countries adopted similar methods accepting volunteers things like the army who are assisting the the regular army in its fight and we have benefited from these lessons and those volunteers are doing a great job to the war against iso whether the mobilizing forces or other groups contributed a lot in preserving the the cities whether the capital and other cities those fighters are moving under the umbrella of the iraqi government and they are under the prime minister command because he's the commander in chief and he's also the president of the iraqi government every armed iraqi person fighting today on the battlefields is automatically related and receives orders from the chief of command for example as just like the president of the united states is the chief of command that we have the same in iraq we have the same constitutional secret if there is if the need continues for the mobilizing forces they will be kept if not we will examine other other countries experiences how they can re reintegrate the armed groups into the community we have no problem any citizen whether he's armed or not whether his title is the iraqi army the mobilizing force or the volunteers he's part of the iraqi committee and we will make us of his experience thank you minister and on the second part on the non-security steps that the government the non-security steps that the government will take after mozal to avoid the the problem of terrorism a new generation of terrorists are there are there plans in that direction father this issue is very important in iraq and we need to pay a lot of attention the city of mozal is a diversified city it has a lot of ethnicities religions and people from different backgrounds and even different clans and tribes and in mozal there is a tribal background looking at this map we should react in a wise way to prevent others from making use of these differences to create further tensions in the history of mozal there has had been many attempts to ignite tension political tensions inside the city but the city had always overcome such attempts i had detailed conversation with the iraqi prime minister about the plans and the post liberation period how we can attract the inhabitants and the citizens of mozal who left the city and left the country many of the citizens of mozal and iraq left to your countries and this is a problem we should tackle how we can bring them back we had a vast displacement movement to from mozal to codistan and other parts of the middle of iraq so the demographic fabric of the country has changed a little bit first we should should prepare a plan for the reconstruction of the city providing job opportunities preserving the possessions and the belongings of the citizens of mozal and convince the idps and the edps from this city to get back to their to their hometown and providing them with the with encouraging uh uh uh encouraging opportunities and encouraging stuff so they can find homes to live in they find schools and public services this is our principle we need to achieve victory in mozal and al-ambar but we also should maintain and prepare for for the post liberation area this is not only a national responsibility but an international responsibility for all the international community to cut the range of time and abbreviate the the range of time to start the third term of this campaign and how to consider how to reconstruct the city we cannot ask the peoples to come back to their cities while there is no hospital or public services or schools for them um all these services must be provided all these are basic needs should be provided to in the city before they are asked to come back thank you minister um in your role as foreign minister i know you've been other ministers before including the prime minister but in your current role as foreign minister there are a couple of questions about international relations as as the neplexa rock um one of course is uh uh your neighbor to the north has just uh put down uh an attempted coup um do you have thoughts about the uh your relations with turkey following uh that coup attempt we have uh fixed unstable and constant relations with our neighboring countries and no one should be mistaken that a country could isolate itself from the surroundings the united states once adopted a policy to isolate itself from cuba uh uh today uh turkey uh uh intervened uh uh in the north of iraq and stationed base uh we might disagree with the government about something or another uh yet uh we should maintain strategic people with with the uh with the turkish people um we blamed um uh the turkish intervention of iraq yet we uh did our best to maintain good relations with turkey despite their military presence in the country we believe that we should maintain this relations due to the geographic and historical ties that after this coup attempt i found the minister of foreign affairs of the republic of turkey i called him over the phone and uh i uh asked him to continue uh support to uh iraq and i urged him to support iraqi uh including iraq in the national list of the world heritage and we and turkey voted for iraq to include the marches in the uniscoe world heritage so we can achieve a lot uh in politics uh and turkey will always remain a friendly country to iraq the your colleague uh in ankara gave you a positive response to your uh your phone call minister another of your neighbors um uh you now have uh in baghdad um an embassy from saudi arabia um can you say a little bit about the relations between iraq and and saudi arabia now that there are diplomatic relations uh syria arabia is a neighboring country to iraq and the priorities of geography is uh turkey syria arabia syria jordan iran kawait and we have relations and we made a lot of efforts to push forward the bilateral relations between syria arabia and iraq and to establish diplomatic ties between the two countries some statements and some actions uh surprising actions and statements that were shocked by from this odyside we wanted to keep these statements and these reactions away from the media to maintain these relations we still hope uh to uh to prevent uh intervention from the our syrian neighbors and to prevent hostile statements uh maintaining uh good relations uh with them uh syria arabia is an arab country uh close sharing borders with iraq and uh it's very important for us to maintain these relations uh syria arabia is the country where mecca is there is and where all muslim programs go every year all these are pushing factors towards maintaining uh good relations with them uh disagreements might happen between the two countries but we will not hesitate to talk together and sit together and discuss how we can solve it that's for mr um let me thank you very much for your your answers for your comments here i know you have other things on your agenda here this afternoon um you have been very forthcoming on these kinds of questions and we appreciate it we wish you the best of luck tomorrow with the donor's conference and the next day on the coalition strategy and moving forward as ambassador megerk said and we hope you will come back here on your next visit so ladies and gentlemen please join me in thanking the foreign minister for the all the best and uh i wish iraq will continue in this campaign with the assistance of the international community wish you all the best and thank you very much and please remain in your seats until the official party departs


My name is Tim and I'm ever so glad you've come to hear more about my exciting Christmas adventure with Jump Jump of Holiday House. Very holiday, I keep up with the clowns, sleepy slender lion, the port, and Jump Jump, the little elf only three inches tall, and myself, who are up in the frozen country, trying to rescue Hannah's reindeer. They had been stolen by the ice queen, and the closer we came to her palace, the harder she tried to stop us. So far, we had escaped the traps we had set for us. But now we were facing a stampede of polar bears and seals and tendons that threatened to run us down. To make things worse, Little Jump Jump had popped out of Mary Holiday's pocket and was jumping around right in front of the top of the unrushing polar bears. And we were having a hard time catching him. First, he'd don't wriggle out of my head. He'd fight a whole army of polar bears. Yes, Tim, Jump Jump is angry, but the ice queen is trying to prevent us from rescuing Hannah's reindeer. He's so angry he's willing to fight all those animals single-handed. Into my pocket, you go Jump Jump. Yeah, I guess I'd better button the pocket tightly so he can't jump out again. We'd better start running, don't you think Mary Holiday? Those animals will be here in just a minute. No, no, don't run! Don't run! The animals have stopped running now. Yes, they are watching us. I'm a circus clown. I'm a master at training animals. Isn't a polar bear an animal? Yes, indeed he is Archie Partley, but you'd better hurry. You just get behind me, all of you. Come along, sleepy slim boy. Mary Holiday, Jump Jump, everybody. Now imagine that you are at the circus. At the circus? Yes, Tim. Can you pretend to lead the band? Can you imitate a drum? I guess so, Archie Partley. I'll try. That's all right, Tim. Yes. Now, I'll use the bells off of my coat for a whip. All right, animals. Stop. You're going to perform now. The circus begins. Mary Holiday, do you think that's entirely impossible to stop that stampede of wild animals? Well, we have to wait and see, Tim. It's our only chance to escape. Animals are going to do what Archie Partley says. See the waltzing polar bears and sing polar bears in the hall? Archie Partley making those animals perform just as if they were real. Archie Partley's turning sub-results now. Looks like a bright cuckoo. Come on, folks. I think we can slip away now. Now, Archie Partley? The animals, yes. They're having a grand time dancing and performing. All right. They won't notice us if we leave and leave very quietly and don't make any noise. Step softly now. All right? All right, Archie Partley. Come on, everyone. Was that slow? Oh, don't you think we can run for it now? We're far enough away from the animals. They're still doing tricks and dancing. Look at them. Yes. I think we're all right. Yes. I think we can slow down now. Oh, my goodness. What fun. I did have fun. Fun? Well, I don't know about it being fun, Archie Partley. Oh, but you were wonderful. Archie Partley, you saved our lives. You sure did save our lives. We'll never make fun of you again. Well, Tim, I want you to make fun of me. I love to have fun made of me. That's why I'm a clown. Jump, jump. Jump, jump, thanks. I'm funny. That's good. I'll never forget the way those polar bears stopped running toward us and started to dance together. And they say you made those seals clap their flippers. I like the acrobatic penguins best. Didn't they look funny standing on each other's shoulders? Yes, Tim, but we'd better put our minds on being alert again now. Don't forget, we are just about a mile now from the Ice Queen's palace and she might try anything to prevent us from reaching it. I wonder why she is so cold-hearted in me. She is selfish, Archie Partley. Well, that's right. Yes, jump, jump. It's right. She is selfish. Now, let's all be very careful. Watch where you walk. And I think the poet in Sleepy Slamet better walk behind it and keep a sharp eye out because the Ice Queen is lucky to try and surprise us from all sides. Yes, Mary Holiday. That's true. There's nothing she won't do to stop us. Wait till I put my fur clothing on again. Ooh, it's cold. It's cold. Archie Partley, I think it's getting colder as we come close to the Ice Queen's palace. It's lucky you remembered to grab your fur clothing when we ran away from the bed. Yes, it is. Yes, it is, Timmy Boy. Say, that's strange. I didn't see any mountains of ice in front of us before. Did you, Tim? Mountains of ice m- Right ahead of us. What a peculiar thing. Yes, you're right, Mary Holiday. There wasn't anything there a minute ago. I'm sure because I know I-I look to see. Maybe-maybe the Ice Queen put them there with her magic. Tim, do you hear that Ice Queen laughing? She did laugh. Did you hear it? I sure did. And I don't like it all. It gives me the shivers. It seems we always hear them laugh just before something terrible is going to happen. There's something awfully strange about those ice mountains. They-they look just like great big statues. So they do, Archie Partley. Oh, but mountains often look like figures, you know. Hey, I saw that one move. Move? Are you sure, Tim? Are you sure? You bet I'm sure. There, another one moved. See it?  Realize what? Realize what, Mary Holiday? Those are not mountains at all. No? No, Jump Jump. They are the Ice Maidens. They are alive.  The ones who guard the Ice Queen's palace? Last now? When has turned your head? Oh, yes. What a chilly glance. I-I'd rather go back and play with the polar bears myself, I think. I almost agree with you, Archie Partley. What do we do now, Mary Holiday? I don't know. I think we need the Christmas fairies' help again, Tim. Yes, we do. Oh? Isn't that her voice, Mary Holiday? Isn't that the Christmas fairy? Yes. Oh, yes, it is, Tim. But I don't see her anywhere. She must be invisible. I hear her speaking, Mary Holiday. What did she say, Mary Holiday? What did she say? The Christmas fairy said, Do ask Tim to carve Jump Jump a mouse. Why, that's the strangest thing I ever heard of. Why should Tim carve Jump Jump a mouse? I don't know. I don't know. Yes, Jump Jump, I think I know too. Hey, Tim, how do I know? Try, Jump Jump. It's not time to be playing games. Oh, well, well, well, well, well, well, well. Yes, do it, Tim, as fast as you can. Well, I haven't any wood, though. Well, I hate to interrupt, but you'd better hurry, Tim. Those ice maidens are staring at us as if to pounce on us any minute. I still have a bit of whale bone that Eskimo Boy gave me in my pocket. I'll carve a mouse out of that. It won't be a very big one. I don't think it'll be big enough, Tim. All right, I'll hurry all I can. Oh, here's the bone, now for my knife. Oh, those big girls up there, they don't look friendly to me. Oops, I'd hate to have a date with one of them. They are fearsome-looking, Archie Pogli. We only hope they don't rush toward us all of a sudden. So far as I can see, they're just guarding the approach to the ice palace. They have instructions not to allow us to pass by, no doubt. Oh, I only hope they don't attack. Me, here. Hey! I'm hurrying all I can to jump jump. Here's the mouse's head, yes. Now for his body and tail. One of those ice maidens is standing up now. She looks as big to me as the city hall, I guess. She's only 20 feet tall, Mary Holiday, is that all? I hope so. If you finish the mouse, I'm afraid the ice maidens are getting ready to attack us.  Oh, Tim, hurry up, Tim, hurry! Oh, Tim, Tim, no, that's good enough, that's good enough. They're coming toward us now. Oh, hurry, Tim. All right, that'll do, I guess. It's not me, but it's a mouse. What do we do? Oh, that's a mouse. Let me out of your pocket. Let me out of your pocket. Yes, jump, jump, I'll let you out of the pocket at once. There you are. I'll put you on the ground next to Tim's mouse. Now hurry, hurry and touch it, jump, jump. Jump, jump, it's touching your mouse. Oh, he's going to bring it to life. Why? Oh, you'll see, Tim, you'll see. There, the mouse is alive. Oh, it's a real mouse. Yes. Oh, look at it scared for toward the ice maidens. Yes, yes.   Ice maidens have disappeared. He just up and ran away as if scared to death. I've forgotten girls don't like mice, but their Christmas fairy hadn't. Well, that took care of the ice maidens, but we still had to actually reach the palace to get into it. So we pushed on right away, hoping to reach the palace in a short while. And I'll tell you what happened tomorrow.