John Kerry - Secretary of State, United States HARDtalk

Baghdad. HARDtalk is next. This is a HARDtalk special coming you from

the University of Addis Ababa with the Secretary of State John Kerry.

Many are hoping this Golden Jubilee will mark a new golden hero for

Africa. We have invited an audience of young Africans to put forward

questions and we also have questions from the BBC audience

US Secretary of State John Kerry, welcome. It is a big world out

there and you have many pressing demands, objectives and goals but

when you look around the world, highlight what your main areas of

concerns are? First of all, thank you to the University of Addis

Ababa and for you all taking part in these. Thank you to the Prime

Minister and ministers of Ethiopia. I think, for anybody looking at the

world today, as we measure the challenge us and as you young

people I getting out of universities for people already out

and working. The greatest concern has to be the lack of a fulfilment

by governments in many country of the aspirations of people.

Particularly the creations of jobs and the educational opportunities

needed for this new modern world. We are living in a very different

age. You know it better than anybody. Their instant

communications, more information to prices. In Egypt, that was not a

revolution that was roo by Islamism or any ideology - it was young

people. That was moved to buy. People that texted each other,

emailed. In this world of connectedness, we are really

looking for an opportunity. What I see in Africa, what I see around

the world, are explosive numbers of young people. In Africa, you will

have 100 million young people who need to go to school in the next 12

years. It is a huge challenge. Over the next 35 years, Africa will

become 40% of the entire world's workforce. We need to provide jobs

and develop. Do not look at this and say, we cannot do it. There is

a world of things to do out there. Six of the 10 fastest growing

countries in the world are in Africa. So we're looking at these

explicit opportunity and, frankly, you are all going to defined and

can define, if you choose to, how we respond to these. That is how

you see the situation in Africa and everybody would agree that youth

unemployment is a problem here but all over Africa. 10 million jobs

every year have to be found for Africans. But giving an olive

review of your foreign policy priorities, when you look around

the world, what are some of the key areas and regions? President Obama

and I share the believes that the values of human rights - freedom,

choice and opportunity - a universal values. Everybody aspires

to those. Our objective is to address these concerns. We are

forced to deal with a certain number of crisis. When North Korea

starts to friend and nuclear confrontation, we are obliged to

try to reduce that tension and deal with it. When a leader like

President Assad refuses to listen to the people of his country and

decides to kill them and destroy his country simply to hold on to

power, then we have to try to work with other countries. The US is

both blessed and challenged to be in a position to try to help move

people towards stability and peace and opportunities. That is what we

tried to do. I am sure there are people who want to ask him

questions. (INAUDIBLE). question was about whether the US

wants to talk to Taleban. And he thinks it is nonsense. We should

not talk to terrorists. His ago people thought we should not talk

to China because of its prime minister but Henry Kissinger and

Richard Nixon thought otherwise and today we worked with China. They

try to prevent Iran from trying to have a nuclear weapon. You can work

things. You cannot do say if you're not willing to explore the

possibility of changing views. The requirement for the Taleban to come

to the table was that they agree that they will not engage in

violence against other people, against other countries not engaged

in terrorism that they will not threaten Afghanistan constitution

and so forth. If they meet those standards, we believe we should sit

down and explore. We do not give up anything until you say, yes.

have also had so many questions - hundreds and hundreds - from all

over the world - pleasure, Arabia, picking up on the point - one

question from Afghanistan is what has the US gained from the presence

in Afghanistan. Is your mission accomplished and what have you

achieved? It is a great question. We went to Afghanistan and to

destroy the threat of Al-Qaeda coming from Afghanistan and

Pakistan. They attacked us. They killed more than 3,000 people in an

absolutely unexpected, totally motivated by them attack against

the US. That was Osama Bin Laden. We went to Afghanistan to hold them

accountable for that act. The answer is, yes, we have achieved

that mission. We have destroyed the fundamental capacity of Al-Qaeda.

They still remains some threat, they are still continuing but we

have a hugely reduced the ability of Al-Qaeda to friend how Hyman.

Some of them have moved to the Arabian peninsula, to Mali but

people are taking them on over there. Has anybody else have.

Linked to these region and terrorism? So that we stay with one

topic. My question is. More innocent people are being killed

not from terrorism. How long does this man has continue. My question

is, with regards to the US foreign policy and human rights concerns -

concerns for security. And the US has been accused of a double

standard. What you say about that? I know the US war on terror has led

to the relocation of terrorist movement in Africa - specifically

in Mali. I would like to know what is the US going to do in order to

help these countries to rebuild or to resist against these movements.

They were a clump of questions. First of all the use of US and

France in countries like Yemen, Pakistan. Counter-productive,

killing innocent people and anti-US sentiment? Let nuclear with

everybody here. You said they are killing more civilians - the answer

is, no. They are not. They have been very few drone strikes in the

past year because we have been so successful in a rooting out Al-

Qaeda in Pakistan. Secondly, the only people that we fire a dry and

at up confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level. After a great

deal of a vetting that takes a long period of time. We do not just fire

a drone at somebody who we think our terrorist. Sometimes it takes

the year to build the authority to know we are correct. We do not fire

when we know there are children or collateral damage. We just do not

do it. We have absolutely not shot at high-level tigers that we know

when we see there would be collateral damage. I will tell you

that the extremists who put bombs in those mosques and blow up 100

people never engaged in the kind of clear, and discretion, there we

have exhibited in this programme. There is a lot of mythology about

this programme. That is why the President went public this week in

an unprecedented effort to create a policy and we have shifted the

policy - out of the intelligence community into the Defence

Department where it is totally accountable. And that is what we

want - accountability. You'll never see that kind of accountability

from terrorist who blow up people in the street. I ask you to be very

careful in comparing that. When I came in as Secretary of State are

wanted to review this programme because in my tenure of wanted to

make sure I knew what the standards were and what we were doing and I

will tell you, and I think people know my reputation over 29 News in

the Senate, I am an advocate for openness and for accountability - I

am convinced that we have one of the strictest, most accountable and

ferrous programmes out there. We would prefer to capture some body.

We prefer to get the information. But sometimes, like with the summer

of Bin Laden, it does not happen that way. -- Osama Bin Laden. We

are helping in Mali. We are very sensitive to these movement of

terrorism. But I say this to you, please do not just ask what are you

doing, ask what are you doing. You need to help. Everybody needs to

help. This is where we need to build and governance, the capacity

that has the ability to resist these. It should not be the

responsibility of the US, way across the ocean, to come over here

and say we have to do this. We need to build the internal capacity and

people here have to want to fight for their definition of their

future for their country. We are helping in Mali. Marley will have

an election. It has assistance from the French and from us. But all you

are really the best antidotes to these. Young people against these

violence. Secretary of State, we had from social media all over the

world this issue of terror. It was very big. It is not just foreign

policy but you need to look at your own domestic terror threat.

Absolutely. And we do. The bottom line is, the threat comes from

within as from without. We are spending an enormous amount of

money building a capacity and working very hard internally. Some

of it is home grown. Some of it is not. In Syria, they run 2000 plus

foreign fighters coming from Europe, a couple them from America, a

couple from Great Britain, and many from the Middle East. From Yemen,

and other places. So we all have a part. A meeting come back quickly

to the young African leaders initiatives - it gives you an

opportunity to make your voices heard at present a different

alternative. Any questions on On talking about the situation in

Libya. More people recently around 70,000 people Syrians have died

since the conflict started. You've done nothing. But things are

escalating quickly. What They Think about the Libyan situation?

heard a lot about Syria through social media. Do you think you're

listening to 'The Voice' of the Syrian people and their true

desires echoing what would have? How many more lives must be lost

before the US and the UN intervenes? You acted quickly in

Libya. Have you verify the claims from President as sad about the

rebels using chemical weapons? Many people have suggested that is the

forces of President Al a sad who had used chemical weapons.-

President al-Assad. I thought we had to helping Libya. The leader of

the country, he stood up and said, we are going to go to Benghazi and

we're going house-to-house to kill you like dogs. I thought the

international community had an obligation, knowing that was

happening and going to happen, to try to make a difference and we

were able to because we had a different situation in Libya. There

was no sectarian division. There was tribal divisions but no

sectarian divisions. It was more complicated in Iran. In Syria. We

had Hezbollah coming from Lebanon and Iran and Russia were involved

with support and it was more complex and different than in Libya.

In Libya, we need an important thing. We gave the Libyan people an

opportunity to make a choice. They had a government who had been

chosen and they had elections. They knew the future they wanted. In

Syria it's much more complicated. President al-Assad is trying to

cling to power. He was given an opportunity to bring people in to

make the reforms. He wanted to have an election? No, he chose missiles

and artillery. Bombs. There is some evidence which raises the question

about chemicals against his own people. That is a war crime, a

violation of international war. you think he has used them? We have

evidence from intelligence community assessment. At the

assessment is not evidence that you would be prepared to take to the

world and the President said he would deliberately and carefully

examined this case and he has made clear, if that determination winds

up in the affirmative, he will believe that he has crossed the

line. There's a number of different options as to what he would then do.

The point I'm making is that Syria, because of the complications, we

need to have Ensis to the questions about Russia, Hezbollah, the

Australians, it's a much more complex equation. Make no mistake.

We are on the side of the Syrian people. The opposition at large, is

representative of the Syrian people. President al-Assad has decided. His

father killed many people and held on to power. There is a secret

police. There's a system of spying and arresting people and torturing

people and killing people putting them in jail. I know deep the world

should stand by and allow somebody to violate matters of conscience

and standards of morality the way he has. Universally, within the

region, Climate another President and he believes President al-Assad

must go. Also from Turkey, the Prime Minister, he used to be a

friend of his. Also the Gulf states and the members of the community.

The Europeans. We believe that we are moving in a thoughtful and

sensitive way to get negotiation to see if we can implement a peaceful

resolution but we will support the opposition as we go along if that

is not possible. Now the question of supporting the opposition. We

received a message on social media. Could the US at least harm the

opposition groups or at least help impose a no-fly zone over Syria?

Turkey is ready. Are those options under consideration? After a

meeting in the Senate. They may armed groups in Syria? It will be

considered by the Senate. The constitutional process works better

when the Congress of the US is engaged in this kind of decision.

We welcome the Congress being ready to debate this. The President has

many options on the table. So such as? A will not discuss them. They

had not taken off. We have to see about working with the Russians to

produce a dialogue bringing about peace. Countries like China and

Brazil, should there be a new strategy in US diplomacy to help

progress the democracy within Africa? How the economic crisis is

affecting the overall foreign policy in general. Especially

towards Africa. I'd like to know about what you would do in your

legacy towards Africa. What is your personal aspiration for women in

Africa? Any questions there. Possibly the first question about

the point of that China and Brazil are gaining more influence a

economically and politically at the expense of the United States.

That's very perceptive, you are correct. There is no argument.

China and Brazil have been investing more in Africa then we

have. That must change. President Obama is coming to Africa next

month. He will look forward to his visit. He will go to Tanzania and

South Africa. I am here now. We are going to be engaged here and we

need to be. I am not kidding you. As a huge future to be written here.

Obviously we want to continue Our relationship. I am concerned,

though, that some of the involvement of some countries it is

not as transparent as the United States is. Some of it can undermine

democracy depending on how it is done. Are you talking about China?

( LAUGHTER ) we need to be thoughtful about the standards.

don't want to lose your sovereignty or opportunities. They were as a

question about your legacy for Africa. What are your final

thoughts about the John Kerry doctrine? I'm not trying to declare

doctrines. I'm not getting into legacies. It's a question of your

legacy. What is your legacy for Africa? I am here to try to help.

The President wants to hell. Maybe the legacy will be what we do to

try to help. What we have done, so far, the legislation, the

legislation in the 90s. It was a bipartisan approach. Now we have

saved millions of lives and a generation of people will be free

from AIDS because of it. That's a legacy for everybody. What we need

to do is to continue to do these things. I hope it will be with

President Obama and his administration stepping up his

efforts in Africa to help educate and to provide job opportunities

for younger people and work with younger people so the next

generation will feel that the United States helped them to define

the future of Africa. You are the ones that can make it happen.

due to everybody from social media and to the people here at the