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Amanpour

Interview with Syrian Opposition Leader; Examining the North Korea Situation

Aired March 07, 2013 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour. And tonight, a rare glimpse inside the fight to overthrow Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The leader of the Syrian rebels is my exclusive guest, with a vivid account of the terrible stalemate between rebel and regime forces two years into the civil war.

More than 70,000 people are now dead, says the U.N. and they say a million have been forced to flee. And the war is spilling over its borders, threatening Western allies, like Israel, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq.

So far, the United States policy has been to hope the fight would burn itself out. And it still won't provide arms to the opposition. But the U.S. has come a step closer, for the first time pledging more money, military rations and medical supplies to the fighters.

My guest tonight, the opposition leader Moaz al-Khatib is begging the international community for more. In an online posting, he wrote, "This might the last message to you. I call on you all to bear your international responsibilities before God and the people."

At the same time, though, he is right now under international pressure over the fate of 21 U.N. peacekeepers being held by rebel forces along the border between Syria and Israel. I will ask Moaz al-Khatib about all of this.

But first, a look at the other stories we're covering tonight.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): The Hermit Kingdom strikes again, North Korea threatening a nuclear strike against America.

And Russia gives the U.S. the cold shoulder on Syria. But now they're joined at the hip in the fight to save an endangered four-legged ally.

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AMANPOUR: We'll get to that in a bit. But first, my exclusive interview with the man leading the fight against Bashar al-Assad, the president of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, Moaz al-Khatib. He joined me earlier from Cairo.

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AMANPOUR: Moaz al-Khatib, welcome to the program. Thanks for joining me.

MOAZ AL-KHATIB, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL COALITION OF SYRIAN REVOLUTIONARY AND OPPOSITION FORCES (through translator): Thank you very much. You're welcome.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you first about the news of the day: the United Nations is demanding that the U.N. peacekeepers who've been kidnapped, abducted by rebels in Syria, that they be released.

Can you achieve that? Can you make the rebels forces release those U.N. peacekeepers?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): Dear sister, I have an important message to the secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon. Please take this message and relay it to him.

What we have is not rebels. What we have is revolutionaries who are fighting for freedom. And they did not kidnap anyone. And I'm going to give you details.

There is an area in Syria which has been under constant bombardment for the last seven days. And there was a group of United Nations peacekeepers in that area, who were in immediate danger. What our troops did is took them out of harm's way and they are now completely safe and sound.

AMANPOUR: In that case, Mr. al-Khatib, will they be released back to the main U.N. peacekeeping force?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): The revolutionaries are completely ready to turn in the peacekeepers to the United Nations under one condition, that the Red Cross should come and pick them up and also the Red Cross should evacuate the injured innocent civilians. We have more than 150 injured innocent civilians who suffered injuries under this savage, barbaric bombardment.

AMANPOUR: Can you confirm that the revolutionaries, as you call them, who hold the peacekeepers are under your control or under the control of the Free Syrian Army?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): The faction within the Syrian Free Army (sic), which controls the peacekeepers, is called the Yarmouk Martyrs, or the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigades. And this faction is totally abiding by the international laws. And they are only seeking freedom like the rest of the Syrian nation.

The peacekeepers are all safe and sound under the full care of the Yarmouk Martyrs. I actually spoke with the leadership a few minutes ago. And they did confirm that they have control of the peacekeepers and they are willing to turn them into the Red Cross.

AMANPOUR: Let me move on to aid from the United States. Are you satisfied with what you have received and what you've been pledged by the United States over the last week, particularly in Rome, $60 million towards the Free Syrian Army in terms of non-lethal aid? But, nonetheless, more help?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): I am thankful for this kind of aid which is given to the -- to the Syrian people. However, what we expect and ask for is much bigger. We ask for a complete stoppage of the savage bombardment, which the Syrian people have been suffering from for the last two years or so. This is what we are expecting.

AMANPOUR: Mr. al-Khatib, let me play you something that the U.S. secretary of state said about their pledge to the Syrian opposition.

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JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: We are determined that the Syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind, wondering where the support is or if it's coming. And we are determined to change the calculation on the ground for President Assad.

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AMANPOUR: Do you believe that the pledge that the U.S. has made will change the calculation for President Assad?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): I'm going to be honest here. There were so many previous pledges in the past. We have been waiting for these pledges to come through.

The Syrian people now can only believe what they actually see on the ground. We are grateful for the pledges. But we are waiting for realistic results on the ground.

And the most important thing here is that the savage barbaric bombardment against the Syrian civilians has to stop. The Syrian people have been suffering the savage bombardment and genocide for about two years now.

Why did United States step in in Kosovo and elsewhere to stop the genocide of civilians and why isn't the Syrians' war the same kind of treatment?

AMANPOUR: What difference would it make to your side, to your cause, if you were to receive military assistance, support, intelligence in this fight?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): I think things will change radically if this happens.

AMANPOUR: You must have asked Secretary Kerry in Rome when you met why the United States does not provide this assistance.

What did he say to you? What do U.S. officials say to you?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): The United States seems to be trying to distance itself from conflicts around the world, which is not a bad thing. It's generally good.

However, under the circumstances that we are having now, when an innocent civilian nation is being subject to genocide, I think that attitude of distancing one's self should change. As I said before also, there seems to be an international will to not equip the opposition with weapons, and this has to change.

AMANPOUR: The United States and many in the West are very concerned about the jihadis, the elements in the rebellion linked to Al Qaeda. Apparently about a fifth of the opposition is made up of that.

Do you not understand their concern? And are you worried that that will overwhelm your rebel forces, that the jihadis have too much space inside Syria right now?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): First of all, there seems to be some type of phobia in the international media, which seems to exaggerate matters.

And I'd like to ask the United States officials and other Western officials, are they not afraid of the reaction of a civilian nation that's being subject to genocide and bombardment for two years?

A few days ago, I was inside Syria, and I got to meet and speak with many of the leaderships inside the Syrian opposition.

This negligence and this ignoring of the -- of the savage massacre that the Syrian civilians are suffering is what is going to ignite anger and ignite terrorists.

Our Syrian people is generally a religious one. Those who are radical or illogical are very few and they will have very little influence in the future.

AMANPOUR: Let me turn to negotiations. You have, in the past, talked about negotiations. And it now seems that the Assad regime is willing, more and more, to hold negotiations. Just this week in Moscow, the Syrian foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, said that the authorities were willing to talk, even with armed members of the opposition. This is a first.

Is that sufficient? Is that an opening for you to sit down with the regime and discuss an end to this?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): This is the first time that the Syrian regime says in public that they are willing to negotiate with the armed members of the opposition. However, for the last three years, they have been doing nothing but lying to the Syrian people inside the country.

AMANPOUR: Right. But now they're saying they're willing. Now they're saying they're willing.

AL-KHATIB (through translator): There are tens of thousands of prisoners, political prisoners, that we ask that they be released, the Syrian regime refused.

When the regime is willing to structure itself and to get rid of those who have been massacring the Syrians and when the political prisoners are set free, that's when we will be willing to sit down and negotiate.

AMANPOUR: Earlier this week you sent out a very anguished plea. And you said, "This might be my last message to you." You were addressing the U.N. and the international community.

What did you mean?

AL-KHATIB (through translator): I am now in an official position working for the Syrian people. And I -- being in this position, I have been feeling the pains that my people are having and are going through. There is, however, a limit that I can take these pains. After that limit, I will abandon this position and I will serve the cause of my nation in the way I deem appropriate.

AMANPOUR: Moaz al-Khatib, thank you so much for joining me.

AL-KHATIB (through translator): Thank you very much, Sister Christiane.

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AMANPOUR: So there raising the possibility that he might not continue if he doesn't get the help that they're demanding.

Now 1 million Syrian refugees and counting: that's the grim milestone reached this week, a number so vast it's hard to visualize unless you take a satellite view. Look at what we have in our table here.

These time lapse images from "The Washington Post" show how just one refugee camp -- this one in Jordan -- has expanded exponentially, from a few thousand people in September to an estimated 130,000 and growing.

And when we come back, we'll turn to North Korea. It's threatening to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the U.S. But this time, could it end up shooting itself in the foot? We'll explain.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Now if anyone thought last week's visit to North Korea by basketball star Dennis Rodman might have tempered Kim Jong-un's actions, today's broadside against the United States put an end to that notion.

The reclusive country threatened its enemies with the possibility of, quote, "a preemptive nuclear attack." And even by its own bombastic standards, this was way out there.

Earlier, Pyongyang had threatened to pull out of the armistice with the U.S. and South Korea that ended the Korean War back in 1953.

The international community reacted to this and especially to the North's third nuclear test last month as it always does, with yet another round of apparently crippling sanctions. Pyongyang's closest ally, China, is on board. But will it enforce them? And has China finally tired of its wayward ally?

Ambassador Christopher Hill joins me with unique insight, having been U.S. envoy to Seoul and the designated U.S. envoy to the North's nuclear file.

Ambassador Hill, thank you for joining me from Denver.

CHRISTOPHER HILL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SOUTH KOREA: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: I mean, I said, even by North Korean standards, this was pretty incredible, the rhetoric out of Pyongyang today.

What do you make of it?

HILL: It is pretty incredible. I don't know if it represents Dennis Rodman's advice or whether they came up with this on their own. But, clearly, the North Koreans have kind of stepped this up lately. And I think to the extent one can even analyze this, it seems to be that they try to do this and then they try to scare people and people say, well, look, let's keep this calm.

But in this case, I think the important news today is precisely what you mentioned, which is China. China seems to have had enough of this.

AMANPOUR: Well, I'll get to that in just a second, but, you know, just to allay everybody's fears, can we take stock?

Could North Korea do this, launch a preemptive nuclear strike?

HILL: Well, they haven't been able to take a nuclear device and put it on a missile that we're aware of. We have -- there's no sign that they have any kind of deliverable nuclear device. So I would take this in the category of bombast.

And I would also associate myself with the comments made by the Obama spokesperson today, where he said that the United States will be able to take care of itself.

So I would not recommend that people head for their bomb shelters quite yet.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, then, let's head to the China angle.

There's been, you know, an amazing amount of writing now by people in China closely associated with the Communist Party, with all their official organs and newspapers and this and that, casting a lot of doubt on how much this relationship with North Korea is worth it right now.

Is -- are the Chinese saying enough is enough?

HILL: Yes. This is very interesting, what's been going on in China and recent weeks. It started as a trickle and now it's a -- it's a real flow of writing -- and this is coming out of the Communist Party, coming out of think tanks, coming out of a lot of different places, where it's clear the Chinese have kind of had enough of this behavior.

So the efforts to try to get China on board -- and, by the way, there have been people who've said this amounts to outsourcing foreign policy. It does not amount to outsourcing foreign policy. China is the country that the -- with the greatest leverage in terms of dealing with North Korea.

So the fact that the Chinese seem to be gearing themselves up, and then cosponsoring this resolution in New York, I think this is a very good sign for those of us who've long believed that the way to a solution here is to get the Chinese much more engaged.

AMANPOUR: But what do you think their calculation is right now? Why now, coming to this calculation?

HILL: Well, hard to say. I mean, obviously, there are things going on within China. They themselves are going through a leadership shift. You may have a new leadership in China that's kind of taking stock of China's foreign policy assets and liabilities and have seen North Korea as very much fitting into the liability category.

So we have to see how this plays out. I mean, obviously these sanctions are kind of an incremental increase in the number of sort of financial measures against the North Koreans.

But the fact that they cosponsored it and when it's coupled with this kind of internal discussion within China, suggests that there is a real turn of the screws here. And let's hope that they can really turn those screws on the North Koreans.

AMANPOUR: Let me play you what Ambassador Susan Rice said about the sanctions. Then we'll just discuss them.

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SUSAN RICE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: Bite, and bite hard. They increase North Korea's isolation and raise the cost to North Korea's leaders of defying the international community. The entire world stands united in our commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and in our demand that North Korea comply with its international obligations.

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AMANPOUR: So, I mean, I did start by saying predictably there would be another round of breast beating and rhetoric from the international community on sanctions.

But the fact of the matter is, this is perhaps the most sanctioned regime in the world. And yet it is still moving forward with its nuclear program and, by all accounts, getting, step by step, better.

What are the world's real options? These sanctions don't seem to be working, Ambassador.

HILL: Well, sanctions only work insofar as they're properly implemented. And I think many people have been concerned over the years, even though there are these sort of nominal sanctions. If you go down along the Chinese-North Korean border you don't really see a sense that these things are being so tightly enforced that the North Koreans are feeling the squeeze.

So I think what is significant about what happened today is the fact that China was very much in the driver's seat on these sanctions. They have attempted to kind of get at some of the bulk cash transfers of North Koreans been engaged in. They've really started putting pressure on North Korean diplomats, maybe even opening up the possibility of expulsions.

But your point is that, you know, this is the most sanctioned country in the world and threatening it with more sanctions hasn't seemed to work. That's a very fair point. Certainly, the North Koreans don't seem as concerned about isolation as the rest of us.

But I think it is very significant that China is very much front and center on this, and as we discussed earlier, the fact that there is this increasing discussion within China suggests that there's something different.

AMANPOUR: OK.

HILL: So I would ask people to kind of hold on and see how this works.

AMANPOUR: All right. Let me just ask you, because we mentioned Dennis Rodman, and he did come back and say that Kim Jong-un had said to him that he would like President Obama to call him, and that he doesn't want war.

Now your analysis of that, and also is it time for a grand bargain?

HILL: Well, I've never had to analyze something from Dennis Rodman, so I'm going to have to think a little about that.

But certainly the North Korean regime always likes receiving phone calls from leaders. I'm not sure a phone call from anybody is really going to solve this problem.

I think the North Koreans know very much what has been on the table and been on the table for some time. So the real question is whether they're interested in what is on the table. And for the past few years, they've shown no interest at all.

Now I think there is a lot of hope that somehow Kim Jong-un would come in with a kind of different approach. I think Kim Jong-un has proved to be very much in the mode of his father and grandfather. So so far, we're not seeing a real interest from the North Koreans.

But the grand bargain that you speak of, a willingness to normalize with North Korea or willingness to seek a treaty on the Korean Peninsula, a willingness to have cross-recognition of states, a willingness to have a major economic program, that's all very much on the table. And it's for the North Koreans to pick up on.

And so I think if North Korea wants to go the negotiating route, they know where to find him.

AMANPOUR: Ambassador Hill, thank you very much. Fascinating. Thanks for coming in.

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AMANPOUR: And that Security Council vote to sanction North Korea was, as we said, supported by Russia as well as the United States and China. It is a rare example of cooperation between Moscow and Washington these days.

But when the issue is less political, the two sides have come together before. First as we reported, Russia joined the U.S. and Iran to try to save wrestling as an Olympic sport. And now the two superpowers have united to save an endangered species, increasingly on thin ice. We'll tell you about it when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, the fate of Syria and the Assad regime remains a bone of contention between the United States and Russia, perhaps standing in the way of a solution.

And relations between the two countries have also suffered a Cold War chill over issues such as adoption and NATO missiles in Europe.

But imagine the U.S. and Russia uniting to save an endangered ally: the polar bear.

There are an estimated 25,000 polar bears living in the wild right now. But global warming is melting their icy habitat and dwindling their numbers.

And in Canada alone, native hunters kill 600 bears a year and sell their skin, their teeth and paws to foreign markets.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, a famous advocate for wildlife preservation, has been up close and personal with polar bears, even tagging one to send back into the wild. He and President Obama might not agree about Syria, but at the world's largest wildlife conference in Thailand, their delegates joined forces to protect the polar bear and ban the international trade in body parts.

Unfortunately, then, the unbearable happened after a bitter debate; the ban was voted down. The future of the polar bear, therefore, remains on thin ice. But the United States and Russia vowed to keep up the fight.

Now if the two superpowers could only bring that kind of commitment to bear on resolving the Syria massacre.

That's it for tonight's program. Meantime, you can always contact us on our website, amanpour.com. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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