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Pompeo Meets Israeli and Bahraini Leaders in Jerusalem; Graham Denies Suggesting Georgia Should Toss Ballots; Pfizer Vaccine 95 Percent Effective; Ethiopia Unrest Triggers Humanitarian Crisis. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired November 18, 2020 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): My hand is broken, my leg is broken. The police are still shooting at us. If I don't make it through the night,
let it be known I died fighting for our freedom.
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BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight a CNN investigation uncovers what really happened when a peaceful protest turned deadly in
Nigeria.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the government, for political (INAUDIBLE) they're going to have to think again. We're running out of options here.
ANDERSON (voice-over): We'll connect you to Bangkok as Thailand sees its most violent protests in months, as people there seek to challenge what has
been unchallengeable.
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ANDERSON (voice-over): And we have some breaking news on the development of a vaccine and of new details on crucially how it works for people in
their 60s and older.
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ANDERSON: Hello and welcome to CONNECT THE WORLD, live from CNN's Middle East programming hub here in Abu Dhabi. I'm Becky Anderson for you.
We start this hour with historic images. The foreign minister of Bahrain in Jerusalem, being given a copy of the Quran as a gift from the president of
Israel. We're connecting you to history unfolding this hour, right here in this region.
America's top diplomat is in Jerusalem; these are live pictures of secretary of state Mike Pompeo, alongside his Bahraini counterpart and
Israel's prime minister. While there, Pompeo plans to do something that's never been done by any of his predecessors: visit a West Bank settlement.
Settlements that most of the international community view as a violation of international law and, as such, a major obstacle to peace in the Middle
East.
We might be thinking, isn't this the twilight of the Trump administration?
Well, yes, but there's still a lot that's being done or could be done, from troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan to new peace deals, even new
designations of terror groups.
Of course, what President-Elect Joe Biden may do with Iran, an arch nemesis of Pompeo; how the Islamic Republican holding its arms open to the incoming
Biden administration. CNN's Oren Liebermann is connecting us to the facts on the ground in Jerusalem and their likely implications going forward.
And Sam Kiley here in the Gulf with us in Dubai.
Let me start with you, Oren. Just explain what is going on today and why it is so significant.
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So this is the first official Bahraini visit to Israel, led by the Bahraini foreign minister, who you saw there
just a moment ago, speaking next to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
He already met with the president of Israel Reuven Rivlin as well as the foreign minister Gabi Ashkenazi. And this comes about a month after the
first Israeli delegation visited Bahrain. There were agreements signed in Bahrain.
And this is the next step, working on implementing those. In addition, Israel's foreign minister announcing the two countries would open embassies
and exchange ambassadors.
These are big steps forward for the Abraham Accords and for the normalization agreements between Israel and the Arab states. That's what
makes this day historic and significant, as we saw Bahrain's foreign minister there, speaking next to Netanyahu and Pompeo.
Of course, Pompeo's plans tomorrow are very different in regards to his visit to the settlements, Becky.
ANDERSON: Let's just have a listen to some of the sound from today.
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ABDULLATIF BIN RASHID AL-ZAYANI, BAHRAINI FOREIGN MINISTER: Mr. President, the people's of the Middle East deserve no less than achieving peace for
all and achieving prosperity. Mr. President, I welcome thee (ph) to his majesty the king your kind invitation and your best regards.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: What do you make, Oren, of what we are hearing today?
And what are the implications, the possible implications?
LIEBERMANN: Well, these are significant steps perhaps expected over the past -- certainly the few weeks. But even before that, as Israel and
Bahrain had relations behind the scenes. Netanyahu even acknowledged that when he spoke a few moments ago. The implication is these are serious, it
wasn't just the UAE acting alone; Bahrain joined in and then, from Africa, Sudan joining in as well. Each country here has their own motivations
perhaps.
[10:05:00]
LIEBERMANN: But there is a movement and there is a direction for the Middle East.
Netanyahu saying today, as we've heard from both Pompeo and from president Donald Trump, that more countries will soon cross what they're calling this
bridge of peace as the region moves forward and essentially an anti-Iran alliance but also an alliance of Arab states that want to take advantage of
what Israel has to offer, from technology, to tourism and beyond.
That's what Netanyahu spoke mostly about, the different partnerships that will be built here. And that's what the Bahraini foreign minister is here
doing, building on the new partnerships and this essentially new and open relationship between Israel and Bahrain, something everyone here is happy
about. And that, at least for this evening, is where they want to keep the focus.
ANDERSON: Let's just have a listen to what the Palestinian prime minister has had to say.
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MOHAMMAD SHTAYYEH, PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY PRIME MINISTER: Israel actually never wanted to commit itself to these agreements. We have frozen our
relationship between us and Israel simply because we wanted Israel to say that they are committed to these agreements.
And consequently, we stopped the transfer of our taxes; we stopped security coordination; we stopped all this and that. And today Israel has sent us a
letter to say that they are committing themselves to the signed agreements.
Consequently we will resume the Israeli-Palestinian relations accordingly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: How significant is this announcement by the Palestinian prime minister, Oren?
LIEBERMANN: The Palestinians remain furious and, to some extent, betrayed by the normalization agreements between the UAE and Bahrain and Israel. But
this is different. This is relations between the Palestinians and the Israelis, frozen in May when it became apparent, at least at the time, that
Israel was going to move forward or intended to move forward on annexation plans on parts of the West Bank.
The Palestinians froze the transfer of tax revenues, about $150 million a month, that makes up a significant portion of their budget. Over the course
of six months, that's something like $900 million that they were missing from their budget. They were forced to cut salaries. It put a strain on an
already fragile economy especially in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis.
So it is a significant step forward for the Palestinians to decide at this point to resume relations with Israel, resume security coordination as well
and get back to essentially one of the bedrocks of stability here between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Israelis essentially said our position has never changed; this is purely a change in Palestinian policy. But it is a significant one, it has
faced backlash, especially from Hamas and Gaza.
ANDERSON: Sam, what do you make the developments that we are witnessing in Jerusalem, the sound that we've heard from the Palestinian prime minister
and, indeed, let's take a sort of wider perspective here.
The Donald Trump decision to draw down troops in Iraq and, indeed, in Afghanistan. And I ask this because I want to get your perspective on what
this all means for an incoming Biden administration and its potential policy in the Middle East.
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think it presents -- it seems to present the Biden administration, on the one hand,
with a policy lock, something of a series of problems, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, where, in Iraq, troop numbers will go from 3,000 to 2,500.
More significantly in Afghanistan, from 4,500 to 2,500 on January 15th. Now that's just a couple weeks or less than a couple weeks after the one year
anniversary of the killing of Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Iran-backed Shia militia in Iraq, who have continued to be a significant destabilizing
force in Iraq in particular.
Iranian allies and proxies remain very powerful in Syria; they're close to the Damascus government. Then there's Hezbollah in south Lebanon. Oren
referred to this anti-Iranian bloc. The Iranians have got their anti- western bloc, what they call their resistance.
Now the opportunity here, though, for the Biden administration is twofold.
First, when it comes to trying to advance the idea of a two-state solution, which the Biden administration signaled it's very committed to, the
Israelis now have something to lose.
Increasing their relationship with the Gulf states with Bahrain means those states can bring pressure to bear. They have a voice, they can be listened
to in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, by whichever administration comes to rule the Jewish state going forward.
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KILEY: At the same time, Biden has also signaled very strongly that he wants to go back to the deal that he was part of getting off the ground in
the Obama administration, that led to the Iranians agreeing to scale back their nuclear program.
If he returns to that, the Iranians have signaled that they would play ball, too, but they want to see the Trump-imposed sanctions lifted first.
So there are both strictures on him but also opportunities.
ANDERSON: Sam is in Dubai and Oren in Jerusalem.
To both of you, for the time being, thank you very much indeed.
Former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, knows more than most about the Israel-Palestinian conflict and about the wider Middle East tension. He
has been weighing in saying, and I quote, "In the Israeli-Palestinian arena, this is a time to sow. The time to reap will come later."
The former ambassador is also a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, an awful lot to get through with Martin, who joins me
live now from New York.
It's a pleasure having you. It feels like we are seeing some significant developments and you've just heard the analysis of my colleagues, both in
Jerusalem and here in the Gulf.
What do you make of what we are seeing?
Let's not relegate the controversial plan by Mike Pompeo, of course, to visit a West Bank settlement; that would be unprecedented by a secretary of
state from America.
MARTIN INDYK, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ISRAEL: Thanks, Becky. Both really interesting reports.
I would say that the Pompeo visit is just a kind of a sideshow, a political stunt on his part, going to a West Bank settlement just months before he
leaves office, to underscore the difference between a Trump administration approach and a Biden administration approach.
But he will be gone soon and with him will go Trump's "deal of the century," which was severely biased in Israel's favor and against the
Palestinians.
I think that the move by the Palestinians yesterday was very much directed at the incoming Biden administration. It's really something that I think
Biden would have wanted, to get the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians stabilized again.
And with annexation off the table, the Palestinians had the ladder, by which they could come down from the tree that they branched, that they
managed to put themselves in, a high branch. This was hurting the Palestinian people. Civil servants were not receiving salaries. The economy
was in crisis, not to speak of the pandemic.
People couldn't travel to Israel, get permits to leave. So I think that this will alleviate hardships on the ground. It will also cause a split
between Palestinian Authority and Fattah on the one side and Hamas on the other. They are in the process of going through a kind of reconciliation
dance, which has never led anywhere before and is unlikely to do so now.
But nevertheless, it kind of, again, sets the Palestinian Authority up in a better position to deal with an incoming Biden administration.
And then there is the normalization part of it, which is so clearly manifest today with the Bahraini foreign minister in Jerusalem, a historic
visit. And that's something that I think that the Biden administration can pick up and build on in a way that could benefit the effort to move the
Israeli-Palestinian process forward as well.
ANDERSON: So let's talk about the potential for a solution to this intractable crisis.
You wrote recently, quote, "The sad fact is that both sides are so disillusioned with the failed efforts by successive administrations to end
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that resolving it will take time and patience."
This, of course, in the days after the death of Saeb Erekat. You know what it takes to be patient when it comes to these negotiations. You were very
much involved in the sort of Oslo Accord era.
What prospect at this point that we are one step closer, as it were, to the prospect for peace?
[10:15:00]
INDYK: Well, I think that that's not what I know so much as what President-Elect Biden knows, not only from his years of experience but
because he was there in the room with President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry.
And I was there, too, when we were discussing the difficulties in the final status negotiations that Secretary Kerry had managed to launch and that I
was responsible for overseeing.
So he knows very well just how far apart the two sides are when it comes to final status negotiations to get a final peace agreement.
So I suspect -- I don't know this, I don't speak for him, it's my personal assessment -- that he is not likely, with everything else on his plate, to
want to try to resume the final status negotiations now, particularly with Bibi Netanyahu and Abu Mazen still in place.
There is no reason to believe that their positions have softened in some way and that either of them are prepared to make the final deal now. So the
idea is, prepare the ground; use the normalization process to try to encourage the other Arab states to support the process and try to prepare
for a negotiation later on. But don't try now.
ANDERSON: A time to sow, as you said, rather than to reap. I've got about 90 seconds left. I want to read you part of a Joe Biden op-ed for CNN back
in September. And this is with regard to Iran.
"Now because Trump let Iran off the hook from its obligations under the nuclear deal, Tehran's breakout time is down to just a few months. I will
offer Tehran a credible path back to diplomacy. If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the
agreement as a starting point to follow -- for follow-on negotiations."
He said, "We will continue to push back against Iran's destabilizing activities which threaten our friends and partners in the region."
You have 60 seconds.
What will Joe Biden do and will he bring in some of the Gulf allies for the sort of second part of any potential agreement with Iran?
INDYK: Right, well, you've basically outlined what he will do in the first stage, which is to try to get Iran back into compliance with the JCPOA. Of
course, the United States would have to come back into compliance, too, since Donald Trump left the agreement.
ANDERSON: True.
INDYK: And that would require the lifting of multilateral sanctions. But then, as you read out, President-Elect Biden intends to conduct follow-on
negotiations to deal with the problematic aspects of the agreement; particularly the sunset clause, which is coming very soon in the next three
years, and also Iran's support for terrorism and efforts to promote its hegemony in the region and its ballistic missile program.
So all those things are on the agenda. But President Trump has left incoming President Biden with considerable leverage in that regard, with
all of the unilateral sanctions that Trump has piled on as part of his maximum pressure campaign, is now leverage that Biden can use to get the
Iranians to negotiate on the other things in return for reducing some of those sanctions, lifting them.
ANDERSON: To be continued, sir. It is always a pleasure. We will have you back very soon. Thank you, Martin.
Fascinating stuff. While the U.S. secretary of state breaks norms in the Middle East, back home, American democracy is under what some see as
growing post-election strain.
In his latest move after losing to Joe Biden, President Trump fired the man who led the successful effort to keep the election in the U.S. free of
fraud and outside interference. Chris Krebs has vocally pushed back at the president's baseless claims of widespread fraud.
He paid for defying the president with his job. His firing, as Trump allies continue to lose court cases seeking to overturn what are valid election
results.
And now Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump loyalist, is getting involved. He said he calls officials in Georgia and two other states that
Biden won by close margins to ask about mail-in ballots.
Well, Georgia's Republican secretary of state told CNN, Graham seemed to be asking him if his office could invalidate legal votes. Listen.
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BRAD RAFFENSPERGER, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, it was just an implication that, look hard and see how many ballots you can throw out. And
I think that they are looking at that as part of a court case.
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[10:20:00]
ANDERSON: Well, Graham calls that allegation ridiculous, even though an official who works with Brad Raffensperger confirmed to CNN his boss'
version of events.
Graham says he was trying to learn how states validate signatures on mail- in ballots as part of a fact-finding effort to determine whether changes need to be made.
While the president and his allies refuse to acknowledge the election results, America's COVID crisis grows worse by the day. There is important
vaccine news to tell you about in a few minutes. But first, the harsh reality in the United States. Nearly 77,000 people across the country are
in hospital, as we speak, the most ever during the pandemic.
And we know thousands of them will die there. Just yesterday, more than 1,700 succumbed to COVID-19, a record number in the last six months. Iowa
just one state seeing a huge increase in COVID hospitalizations. It is now considered a red zone. CNN's Miguel Marquez visited one hospital there,
absolutely strained to the limit.
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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Butch Hansen, 84 years old, diagnosed with COVID-19 last week.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going to get a CAT scan of your chest. You got some junk, so probably have pneumonia but I want to make sure you don't
have a blood clot in your lung.
MARQUEZ: Today, he's back in the emergency room.
Why did you come back today?
BUTCH HANSEN, DIAGNOSED WITH COVID-19: I had a rough time with that phlegm last night. That's all I did, cough up that phlegm. And I thought, well,
it's either the COVID or something else. Let's find out what it is.
MARQUEZ (voice-over): Hansen, a retired farmer, says he's been careful.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open your mouth. Say ahh.
MARQUEZ: But he may have picked it up by a family member.
Regional Health Services of Howard County, in Cresco, Iowa, it's the hospital, the ambulance service, the public health department and hospice
for the entire county. The 19-bed facility moves most its sickest patients to larger hospitals.
With Iowa, the Midwest and the rest of the country seeing a sharp increase in cases and patients, finding an available bed in a larger facility, not
so easy these days.
DR. JOHN KAMMERER, REGIONAL HEALTH SERVICES OF HOWARD COUNTY: The biggest concern in the last week is when we call and ask for them to help take care
of our patients who may be sicker than we're used to taking care of, they don't have beds for us. And so, that's where the strain really comes on.
MARQUEZ: Over the last month, hospitalizations across Iowa have skyrocketed, under 500 COVID hospitalized in the mid-October. Now nearly
1,400 Iowans hospitalized with COVID-19.
And if there's a surge with nowhere to send critically ill patients --
So this is the in case of emergency, open this?
BRADY NORMAN, DIRECTOR, AMBULANCE SERVICES & EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, HOWARD COUNTY, IOWA: Pretty much, pretty much.
MARQUEZ: How many more people could you surge up to with everything here?
NORMAN: We have the capability of adding up to 50 beds. My hope is to never have to open this trailer.
MARQUEZ: Today, the entire health care system here pushed to its limits.
CHAD RASMUSSEN, REGIONAL HEALTH SERVICES OF HOWARD COUNTY: It's starting to stress us out.
MARQUEZ: In the first month of the pandemic here, Howard County saw 13 coronavirus cases. Over the last month, there were 411.
With holidays around the corner, the fear, it's going to get a lot worse.
MARQUEZ: With Thanksgiving coming up, how concerned are you with what you're going to see around Christmas?
RASMUSSEN: I have a feeling it's going to be out of control. I really worry about health care in general around Christmas because if everybody
gets together on Thanksgiving, has all their big gatherings, within two weeks we will start to see the outbreaks start.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ANDERSON: That is the story in Iowa.
The fight to stop the coronavirus did just take another important leap forward. Pfizer moving closer to making its vaccine available to the
public. The new stunning stats on its vaccine success are coming up.
Plus --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): What's happening is political and we would have died if we stayed. We would have been killed.
ANDERSON (voice-over): Tens of thousands of people flee violence in Ethiopia. More on the humanitarian crisis and who the government says is to
blame. That's ahead.
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ANDERSON: And --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (from captions): The police came. We are peaceful. They came and start shooting at us.
[10:25:00]
ANDERSON (voice-over): And in our next hour, a CNN investigation sheds new light on a dark and disturbing story from Nigeria. Earlier this year, our
exclusive report from CNN's award-winning Nima Elbagir.
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ANDERSON (voice-over): German police used water cannons as they attempted to break up protests against the coronavirus containment measures. The
protests came as the German parliament discussed new COVID rules that are widely supported across the country.
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ANDERSON: Breaking news in the past few hours, Pfizer now ready to apply for emergency use authorization for its COVID vaccine. The company has now
completed phase three of its vaccine trial and the results are quite frankly astounding. The final data now shows the vaccine is 95 percent
effective.
Earlier data had put it at 90 percent efficacy. There were 162 people who caught the coronavirus in the placebo group but only eight cases amongst
those who got the actual vaccine. The study found no meaningful side effects and the vaccine is just as effective for people over 65 as it is
for younger people.
Let's just connect you to how astounding this is with CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.
You know, your response, if you will, briefly.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SR. MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So this really is exciting for all the numbers that you just gave but also just the numbers in
general. This is more data. And more data is always better when you are talking about achieving statistical significance.
Also to note that Moderna, the other company that has gone very far along with the United States with their COVID-19 vaccine, they have come to very,
very similar data. Two companies independently using essentially the same vaccine but independently doing their trials have come to very, very
similar results. That is a good thing.
ANDERSON: This tweet struck me, Elizabeth, I just wanted your thoughts on this. This is from a lecturer at the University of Cambridge reacting to
the news and saying, and I quote, "We have collectively now shown that, with money no object, some clever and highly motivated people, an unlimited
pool of altruistic volunteers and sensible regulators, that we can do amazing things.
"These trials have been nothing short of miraculous, revolutionary."
We know and you -- and I have discussed -- that these trials, the development of these vaccines normally can take upwards of 10 years and yet
we have seen these vaccines developed at such speed and we also know that that has worried people.
Your thoughts?
[10:30:00]
COHEN: So my thoughts on that are like, first of all, let's sort of hold our horses here. The FDA, the U.S. regulatory body, has not looked at this
data yet. So before we sort of say we have achieved victory, let's let them look at this.
At the end of the day, three different independent bodies, a Data and Safety Monitoring Board, an FDA advisory committee and an advisory
committee at the Centers for Disease Control will look at this data. I will feel a lot better and we all should feel a lot better after all three of
those groups, including and also the FDA, have looked at this data.
But yes, if it turns out that these vaccines should go on the market, that is astounding. It shows, when you really put the pedal to the metal you can
make things move much more quickly.
Do we always want to move this quickly?
It's not always necessary but it is good to see that it is possible.
ANDERSON: Yes, absolutely. Elizabeth, thank you for that.
We're going to have a lot more on this major vaccine news. Coming up, Pfizer's partner is the German drug manufacturer BioNTech. CNN's Frederik
Pleitgen has been granted an exclusive interview with the CEO and we will bring you that in the next hour.
Well, it isn't just U.S. and European companies that are working on coronavirus vaccines.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Chinese vaccine companies are making every effort to promote vaccine research and development. Several
vaccines have already entered phase 3 clinical trials.
ANDERSON (voice-over): We will get you a lot more on China's vaccines. One of them is running one of the world's largest trials here in the UAE. That
coming up later.
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ANDERSON (voice-over): Up next, the United Nations reports tens of thousands of Ethiopians fleeing violence in the north of the country and it
is impossible to get aid in. I will talk to an Ethiopian spokesman about that and more just ahead.
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ANDERSON: Civil unrest in Ethiopia appears to be coming to a head. A government spokesman says federal troops are closing in on Mekelle, the
capital of the Tigray region.
This conflict began earlier this month when the prime minister launched a military offensive against the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the ruling
party. He accused them of attacking federal troops in Northern Ethiopia.
The United Nations is warning that the chaos in the Tigray region is triggering a full scale humanitarian crisis. International aid groups are
struggling to deliver supplies. Every day over the last week, some 4,000 people have crossed into neighboring Sudan.
[10:35:00]
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HALKA BARKHAT, REFUGEE (through translator): We are hungry and we do not even have clothes to replace what we are wearing. Yesterday we went to the
nearby lake to wash what we were wearing. The international community has not helped us yet.
MARAS BALAI, REFUGEE (through translator): We were attacked at night by these army with guns, fire, knives and sticks so we fled on foot. We spent
two days on the road to the border as we had to hide ourselves in the forest during daytime and move by night to avoid being targeted.
ALAM PERHEYH, REFUGEE (through translator): What's happening is political and we would have died if we stayed. We would have been killed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON: The prime minister has declared a state of emergency in the north of the country.
Joining me now, the spokesman for the state of emergency task force, Redwan Hussein.
We welcome you to the show. Thank you for joining us. You say the Ethiopian national forces are in control of Shire, northeast of Mekelle. Thousands of
refugees are living in camps in the area and last year the prime minister won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the border conflict with Eritrea.
How your government protecting civilians at this point?
REDWAN HUSSEIN, STATE OF EMERGENCY TASK FORCE SPOKESPERSON: Thank you, Becky, for having me. As (INAUDIBLE) aid, there had been an attack on our
defense forces, which have been very much becoming an treasonous (ph) act.
The government's now trying to make sure that in areas which have been outfitted (ph) by the (INAUDIBLE) forces, now we are considering
(INAUDIBLE) so that U.N. agencies and other partners in government would provide, when (INAUDIBLE) medical staffs.
But some Ethiopians, because they were afraid and (INAUDIBLE) because they were made to be afraid, (INAUDIBLE) created hysteria for the (INAUDIBLE)
forces to flee their environment (INAUDIBLE) campaigned the humanitarian crisis. So many of them crossed to Sudan, yes.
Now the government is trying to convince them to bring (INAUDIBLE) back and then provide shelter and (INAUDIBLE) items for within the areas which have
been (INAUDIBLE) from the (INAUDIBLE).
ANDERSON: Sir, the United Nations says delivery of humanitarian supplies in Tigray remains, and I quote, "impossible." The region has been sealed
off and is running out of food. Your government and you yourself have said corridors are being established.
So why is the U.N. saying it is still impossible to get aid in?
HUSSEIN: In the first instances, there were the conflict and then some areas were unsafe so the government had to send a fact-finding machine. Now
a fact-finding machine is on the ground and then they are finding out which areas would be safer for the U.N. agencies and the government to send food
items.
Now we've been talking with different (INAUDIBLE) agencies so as to how to provide food. But the (INAUDIBLE) forces have now making it harder because
they are breaking (INAUDIBLE) but while they are fleeing away, now they have already broken four (INAUDIBLE) and we still have to grapple with
(INAUDIBLE) areas, which one would be safer to provide food and medical items in the inter center of Tigray.
ANDERSON: You have accused Tigray's People's Liberation Front Forces of sheltering military equipment in schools, in mosques, in churches and that
the Ethiopian government is avoiding those. You have so far not provided any evidence of this and CNN has been unable to verify that.
What evidence do you have that that is what the forces are doing, that is where they are sheltering?
HUSSEIN: The government forces have intelligence information where these armaments are located and they have been kept on moving, changing the
locations so that they can be nearer to schools and churches.
No, you can witness we have a weeklong airstrike and then no individual, no person have been actually died because of this. So that tells you, one,
there is a very precision target, the other one is while it's simply avoiding targets which are nearer to the churches and schools.
But there still are some possibilities whereby some schools or some houses could be inflicted because they are too much near. We know we have avoided
a number of targets and we know churches whereby this even the leadership now left their houses and hotels and now they are using churches for
(INAUDIBLE) armaments and also to send the propaganda within the churches. We know where it is --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: Let me ask you this --
(CROSSTALK)
ANDERSON: -- Let me ask you this one question very, very briefly.
[10:40:00]
ANDERSON: The Tigray People's Liberation Front Forces are not unfamiliar to the Ethiopian government.
Where does this go?
How does this end, sir?
HUSSEIN: The objective of the operation has already been made clear. There are three objectives. One is to arrest the soldiers, the generals which
have been subdued, when the heinous attack was ordered (ph) against them.
The second objective is to uphold the rule of law within the country and uphold (INAUDIBLE).
The final objective is there are about 100 ringleaders, again, as to which (INAUDIBLE) issued and if they surrender peacefully, then the operation
would be unnecessary. So, one, it reduces the time that it takes; two, it reduces casualties that might come; third, it paves the way for a peaceful
(INAUDIBLE) dialogue to bring about lasting peace.
But there are (INAUDIBLE) which are criminals which are now being -- using the human shield and also using churches and schools and mosques for these
criminal acts. They don't hide them, they kept it open and then openly say they took a tentative (ph) strike against (INAUDIBLE) forces. That is
(INAUDIBLE).
ANDERSON: OK. Sir, we are going to have to leave it there. I have got to take a break. But for the benefit for those who are being displaced by this
conflict, we hope that a ceasefire will happen sooner rather than later. Thank you, sir.
And we will be right back.
(WORLD SPORT)
[11:00:00]
END
