Multilateral Negotiations Quotes

Both Bibi and Obama realize that they are going to have to face the problem of Iran together.

My father was a Foreign Service officer, a diplomat and an Arabist who spent virtually all his career in the Near East, as it was called in the State Department. So I spent most of my childhood among the Israelis and the Arabs of Palestine, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

I believe President Obama means everything he says about sticking to the unprecedented backing of Israel and keeping all options on the table against Tehran, as well as countering its adventures in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.

It is the case that the Russians are misusing the veto in the United Nations, but you must recall that it was we who insisted upon the veto. Without the veto we could not gotten it through Congress.

The truce brokered by Egypt between Israel and Hamas depends, above all, on the borders between Egypt, Gaza and Israel.

[Sanctions] make us feel like a player in foreign policy where our powers tend to be more limited …. We’re less patient with diplomacy.

So the president set out the policy guidance and said it had to take place in a multilateral fashion so that other countries in the region could be invested in the success of this process.

Japan continues to work closely with the United States on the issue of the North Korean nuclear crisis and has played an important and constructive role in the Six-Party talks.

The advance guard in the campaign for peace that America wages today must be the State Department.

…one of the best ways to preserve the peace was through continuing conversations between responsible officials in different countries.

Everybody likes to go to Geneva. I used to do it for the Law of the Sea conferences and you'd find those potentates from down in Africa, you know, rather than eating each other, they'd just come up and get a good square meal in Geneva

No Secretary of State can give constant personal care to more than a few problems among the global abundance.

The smaller nations can in fact exercise greater influence on disarmament negotiations than they have hitherto done.

Politics stops at the water's edge

I think I can hold every portfolio - defense, finance and Foreign Ministry. I think personally I'd like the foreign office.

We'll wait forever before the United Nations does anything.

While we all want the U.N. to live up to its original intent and be the place where the world comes together to solve international problems, the reality is the U.N. isn't all that different from any other political body. Countries and individuals play to the cameras, create good theatre, and negotiate selfishly.

Those in the international community that refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel.

In an era of billion-person countries and trillion-pound economies, we need to find ways to amplify our voice. We are most likely to be heard when the Chinese negotiate with a £10 trillion E.U., not a £1.5 trillion Britain.

Of course, China is a key to the North Korea if we're going to solve that riddle, but they could also be helpful on Iraq, which is why it's important that we maintain a constructive dialogue with China.

There is no way to expect one ambassador to cover all of the U.S. government's priority issues, and certainly there are a plethora of U.N. meetings that drag on with an unlimited number of speakers and no time limits.

Sometimes everyone is foreign minister.

Kofi Annan was the U.N. Under-Secretary General for peacekeeping operations. He had the responsibilities in regards to the mounting and operation of peacekeeping missions around the world.

Pat Roberts and I both feel very strongly that when we get to Iran, that we can't make the same mistakes. We have to ask the questions, the hard questions before, not afterwards, and get the right intelligence.

Foreign policy matters cannot be intelligently decided in a large general meeting.