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Amanpour

Kenyan FM Defends Attack Response; Mixed Reactions to Iran Nuclear Agreement; Capturing Yemen on Camera; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired April 06, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Tonight: Kenya bombs Islamic extremists in Somalia but faces tough questions about why it took so long to respond to

last week's college massacre. Exclusive tonight, the first interview with Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed.

Also ahead, first a deal, now the pushback, how will President Obama sell the nuclear agreement with Iran? I ask former U.S. nuclear negotiator

William Burns.

Plus filmmaker Safa Al Ahmad leaked the rebels causing chaos in Yemen.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

Kenya's president promised the severest response possible to Thursday's horrific terror attack and today it began. The Kenyan military says it's

pounded two Al-Shabaab training camps in neighboring Somalia after the terror group brutally massacred about 150 people at the Garissa University.

As Al-Shabaab vows to continue painting Kenya, quote, "red with blood," security forces are hunting the mastermind and they've already determined

one killer was one of their own, a Kenyan, a law student and son of a government official.

The bodies of all four attackers were loaded into a truck and paraded around the streets for public viewing over the weekend. Families of the

victims are in deep mourning but they are also angry, angry at the government for failing to protect their children and why, they ask, did

commando teams arrive at the scene several hours after the massacre began.

Let us ask our guest Foreign Minister Amina Mohamed, who is joining us from Nairobi for this exclusive interview.

Foreign Minister, welcome to the program. And you have been meeting with these grieving families ever since this horrendous massacre over just

before the weekend.

What are you able to say to them ,to assuage their anger, really, and their grief, especially that the commandos didn't arrive for so many hours?

(AUDIO GAP)

AMINA MOHAMED, FOREIGN MINISTER OF NAIROBI: (INAUDIBLE).

AMANPOUR: Foreign Minister, let me ask you what is adequate about 150 people face down on the ground, many of them shot in the head execution

style and parents and students saying we were waiting for several hours before anybody came to try to stop this.

Do you think you could have saved more people had the response been more adequate and faster?

MOHAMED: You know, again, Christiane, obviously hindsight is always 20 --

(AUDIO GAP)

MOHAMED: -- what we've seen before and what we've seen even in other countries.

AMANPOUR: So Foreign Minister --

MOHAMED: -- so we did all this with the resources that we had -- yes?

AMANPOUR: -- well, so let me build on that.

Are -- can you confirm the bombing of Al-Shabaab targets inside Somalia?

And can you confirm that? Is that what the Kenyan military has been doing?

MOHAMED: Well, that's being done by the African Union troops in Somalia. As we know --

(AUDIO GAP)

MOHAMED: -- of the federal government of Somalia, yes.

Christiane?

AMANPOUR: Well, to ask about, you mentioned President Kenyatta. It has come as a big shock to people of Kenya that one of the attackers was, as we

said, one of your own, the son of a Kenyan official.

You've been meeting -- I mean, how is it that that is embedded, as the president said in your culture and how can you fight this if it's actually

Kenyans as well?

MOHAMED: Well, we will fight it together as Kenyans as we've always done with everything that --

(AUDIO GAP)

(CROSSTALK)

MOHAMED: -- and you cannot predict who will be next.

AMANPOUR: Possibly, but you know, the president said after the Westgate Mall attack that this would never happen again and this is very similar to

that. It hasn't changed that much, at least from an outside view. The death toll is much higher.

So more people have been killed since the Kenyan president said there would never be another Westgate Mall-style massacre. Plus can you confirm that

intelligence that was given to your government about an impending attack in Garissa there was not acted upon?

MOHAMED: Well, first of all, first of all I think nobody expects anything --

(AUDIO GAP)

MOHAMED: Yes, Christiane?

AMANPOUR: I hear you; I was just -- I was just saying thank you very much indeed for joining us with that perspective from Nairobi, Foreign Minister

Amina Mohamed.

And as you were saying, you have to try to adapt and now Kenya is thinking of building a wall along its porous 200-kilometer border with Somalia,

perhaps inspired by this Bulgarian barrier under construction across the Turkish border. That's to prevent illegal crossings there.

And when we come back, the United States and Iran bridge their considerable differences to reach a framework nuclear deal. Now both must sell it to

skeptics at home and also abroad. The former American top negotiator, Bill Burns, joins me next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Last week, Iran, the United States and the major world powers finally agreed on Iran's nuclear program. By all accounts, it was a major

diplomatic breakthrough. But while Iranians take to the streets celebrating a deal that could end decades of crippling sanctions, now the

hard part begins, selling it to the skeptics.

Here in the United States, President Obama's congressional critics threatened to block what he calls a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity while

the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took to American airwaves demanding a list of amendments to what he calls a very bad deal.

To discuss all of this I'm joined by William J. Burns, who led the U.S. back channel negotiations with Iran until recently.

Former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the program.

WILLIAM J. BURNS, FORMER DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Thanks, Christiane. It's very good to be here.

AMANPOUR: So you were there at the beginning, so to speak. You started these back channel negotiations and even many years before you were at a

table in Switzerland with the Iranians.

What is your assessment of where we are today with this framework agreement?

BURNS: Well, the framework understanding is an important step forward. There's obviously a lot of work to be done to turn that into the detailed

comprehensive agreement that we and our partners seek.

But it's certainly an important step forward. And I think it really is a reflection of the enduring value of hard-nosed diplomacy.

AMANPOUR: And you know, you wrote over the weekend that some of the previous agreements, whether it was the interim agreement or the sort of

joint sort of frame that you came up with after the back channel negotiations, you called it much maligned. But in fact, you know, these

things have proven their worth.

Explain that part of the diplomacy.

BURNS: Well, I think if you remember November of 2013, when the interim agreement or joint plan of action was reached between the P5+1 players, the

permanent five members of the Security Council plus Germany plus the European Union and Iran, there was a great deal of skepticism at that time

about the value of the agreement and whether it would be implemented.

And it's proven, I think, its effectiveness. It's been rigorously executed and implemented, both sides have lived up to their obligations. And from

our perspective, it's frozen and rolled back in some important respects the Iranian nuclear program, introduced some very important and innovative

inspection and monitoring procedures and all in return for very modest sanctions relief while we've managed to hold together the international

coalition behind the negotiations and behind sanctions.

So I think it put us in a very strong position to engage in the comprehensive negotiations.

AMANPOUR: And now going forward, obviously we see how many people on the outsides of this agreement and the negotiating teams are very much against

it.

What does President Obama have to do? You've been there on the American side for a long, long time around this issue.

What has to happen so that, for instance, Congress doesn't block it as they're threatening to do or review it in a way that suggests they might

seek amendments or additional punitive measures?

BURNS: Well, first, we have to get the details right over the next few months and that means translating what is, I think, a solid framework

understanding into the kind of detailed comprehensive agreement that, for example, provides a fair amount of detail about the kind of unprecedented

intrusiveness in a verification regime that we intend to apply and agree to.

Second, I think it's going to be very important just as we did with regard to the interim agreement more than a year and a half ago to make clear that

this agreement is going to be executed rigorously.

And finally we have to embed our approach to the nuclear issue, to a comprehensive nuclear agreement in a wider strategy in a region which

really is in deep disarray right now and that means acknowledging the understandable concerns of a lot of our friends and partners in the region

and making clear that even though we're convinced that a comprehensive nuclear agreement is the best way to deal with the nuclear issue and

prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, we recognize that there are lots of other aspects of Iranian actions and behavior in the region from

Syria to Yemen that threaten the interests of our friends and threaten American interests that we're going to need to not only push back against

those actions but reassure our friends.

And that's why I think it was important that the president invited the leaders of the six Gulf Cooperation Council States to come to Camp David

later this spring. That's just one example of the kind of step that is important to take as part of that wider strategy.

AMANPOUR: So that's from the American perspective. The Iranians and President Rouhani have been saying some of our critics here at home -- he

means in Iran -- have said the choice is between fighting or surrendering. No, we say it's cooperating.

Let me play you something he said during his address to the nation.

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HASSAN ROUHANI, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): This is the first step in order to reach constructive interactions with the rest of the

world. Nowadays in the school, progress, security in the region, without cooperation that will not be possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So clearly they think that there's some kind of ability to work with the West, work with the United States around the region.

Do you see that as a possibility?

BURNS: I hope very much over time that once we reach a comprehensive agreement on the nuclear issue that that can contribute to an atmosphere in

which other kinds of tensions will ease.

But hope is not a basis for policy in the short term. And I don't assume that those kind of frictions are going to evaporate overnight. I think

it's going to take time. I think you see a very complicated political environment in Tehran sometimes. And we have a lot of work to do to

reassure our friends and partners in the region.

So as I said, I hope very much that over time you see an easing of the tensions which have complicated life and created real threats for our

interests and the interests of our friends in the region, threats emerge from Tehran. I hope that begins to ease over time. But I think in the

short term we have to be clear-eyed about the kind of wider strategy we need.

AMANPOUR: William Burns, former deputy secretary of state, now president of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, thank you very much indeed for

joining us today.

BURNS: Thank you so much, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: And meantime, a little bit of new hope for Iranian women. This weekend for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the

government lifted the ban on women attending sporting events. They'll be allowed to join men in stadiums for football and other such games, but not

for scantily clad male sports such as wrestling and swimming. One small step, et cetera. And after a break we follow Iran off the pitch, still

trying to score strategic points across the region on the ground in Yemen. Saudi female filmmaker Safa Al Ahmad unpicks Tehran's backing for the

Houthi rebels there -- next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. Iran seems to be backing the winning side in Yemen as the death toll rises and Sunni-powered Saudi

Arabia tries to thwart the rebel Houthis march on Aden. CNN's Nima Elbagir traveled briefly to the airport in the capital, Sanaa, today, on an Indian

flight chartered to evacuate civilians. And she saw the devastation that Saudi airstrikes have wrought first-hand.

But who are the Houthis? And how has this Shiite sect so quickly taken power in this Sunni majority country? A new documentary by "Frontline" and

the BBC explores.

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NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Houthis are mostly Zaidi Muslims from the Shia branch of Islam. Their slogan is now seen

everywhere. It's a political chant from the days of Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution.

It reads, "God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. God curse the Jews. Victory to Islam."

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AMANPOUR: So that was Safa Al Ahmad in Yemen and now she joins me from London.

Safa, thank you very much indeed for being with us. That is really quite rare insight into this struggle going on, that nobody quite seems to know

what's all about.

What do you think is the Houthis ultimate game?

And how did it get from there to here in such a short time?

SAFA AL AHMAD, FILMMAKER: Well, ultimately, I think their goal is power and control of Yemen. In the beginning, they said they just wanted to

stamp out corruption in Sanaa but obviously their long game was much bigger than just the capital.

And I would like to emphasize when we're talking about the Houthis and the local conflicts there is in Yemen it's more political than sectarian.

So putting it with an -- when we call them Shia militia, I think it doesn't do service to the definition and the goals of the Houthis themselves.

So they are a political animal first and foremost. So calling them Shia militia doesn't really help in understanding what their goals are in Yemen.

AMANPOUR: Well, that's really interesting because everybody has said they're backed by Iran but nobody has quite shown the actual proof of that

and is it a proxy war between Iran and the Saudis.

How do you see it?

Is it?

AHMAD: I think the whole influence of Iran on the Houthis specifically is completely overblown. There's very, very little journalism to prove that.

I am not disputing that there is a relationship between the Houthis and Iran. But not to the extent that keeps being repeated in the media and

even in your own introduction about the Houthis like Iran-backed Houthi Shia militia. I think the Saudis have much stronger, more direct influence

and interest in Yemen. They have a huge border with Yemen. And so their interest in what happens inside Yemen is much more direct than the Iranians

have. And it's been there for decades.

So there is very little journalism that's been done to prove that relationship between Iran and the Houthis.

Or at least the extent of that relationship.

AMANPOUR: Right. Now you are Saudi-born and raised and there -- Saudi Arabia has been at this before and it hasn't actually stopped them. Even

this intervention hasn't stopped the Houthis. It's hard to know where this is going in that case.

AHMAD: Yes, I mean, airstrikes have very limited result. Even the Americans with their drone strikes against Al Qaeda in Yemen have shown

very little result as well.

So I don't know what the end game is. But the result of this as well is that the Houthis are now -- have reached inside Aden, which is one of the

things that they were trying to stop.

What we're looking at is possibly civil war inside Yemen. And that is not an outcome anybody wants. I mean, there's a fragile balance inside Yemen

right now. And whatever was a functional government or semi-functional government was holding that balance together a bit. But what's happening

now is frightening. The frustration right now for the Yemeni people, I can't even imagine what it feels like, looking down the abyss of the

situation.

AMANPOUR: I just want to play one of the many clips from your documentary. But this is almost about how whoever is in power does to the other that

they don't want done unto themselves. This is what you found from the Sunni community.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

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AMANPOUR: So there you have the Sunni imam at the mosque that you were at, saying, listen, the Houthis are doing to us what they said we were doing to

them. I mean, is this not now an endless cycle of revenge?

AHMAD: It is frightening because the Houthis had six wars waged against them. And they were complaining of all these things that they are now

doing, now that they're in control of Sanaa and other cities that is under their power. So they're kidnapping people; they're disappearing them;

they're torturing them, they're shutting down media that's opposed to them.

So yes, I mean, the cycle is quite frightening. And for a lot of people, who supported the Houthis when they first came into Sanaa, they were hoping

that that cycle would actually stop. They really believe the rhetoric of the Houthis when they say we're fighting anti-corruption battle against

this government and Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi's government specifically.

So there's been successive political failures.

AMANPOUR: OK. Well, you had extraordinary access and extraordinary times.

Safa Al Ahmad, thank you so much indeed for joining us.

And that is indeed it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and

Twitter. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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