Before taking off Tuesday for a two-week trip to Asia, Europe and the Middle East, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sat down with TIME diplomatic correspondent Douglas Waller for a review of the foreign policy issues this administration will be grappling with in its final months. Excerpts from the interview:
TIME: Why are you going to China and South Korea? What have you learned so far about the summit last week between South Korean president Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il?
Albright: [The visit] to China will be the first high-level visit since the House vote [approving permanent normal trade relations]. I also want to talk about other issues such as proliferation, human rights, Taiwan and Asian stability.
It's important to have more talks with the South Koreans on the North-South summit. According to the descriptions of this summit, [Kim Jong Il] is quite different from what we thought. Rather than being standoffish or secretive or opaque, he apparently was very jovial and friendly and knowledgeable about various issues in South Korea as well as generally. People were surprised. He enjoyed showing that he was different from what people thought he was. I think that he is reaching out. We are very pleased that the summit took place. So I need to assess it. We're all fascinated. There will be a lot of trading of information and trying to figure out what it means.
Q: On the Middle East, what was accomplished last week by the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators who met in Washington and what do you hope to do when you're out there?
A: What had happened here last week is the negotiators from both sides were looking at the various... permanent status issues [to reach a final peace treaty]. The fact that they have been talking at all about them is very important, because in some ways they've demystified a lot of issues that nobody ever really wanted to talk about. So I think there's progress in that regard. They are really dealing with the hardest issues. The President asked me to go [to the Middle East] to determine whether there's a sufficient basis for going forward with the summit [with Clinton, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat] or whether we have to keep working. I'm going to be looking at narrowing the gaps.
Q: What are the foreign policy issues you'll be dealing with in the coming months?
A: Clearly the Middle East is going to occupy a large portion of our time. The President wants to spend a lot of time on it and I want to spend a lot of time on it. We'll have to spend a lot of time on our relations with the Russians. The Balkans will be very important. I also want to and have to work very hard on [the State Department and foreign aid] budget, [which] is again in trouble and it's inadequate in the first place. I think it is essential for us to pay more attention to Africa. Also Colombia and how we really pursue Plan Colombia [to fight drug traffickers there].
One of the hard things has been that things just kind of emerge that require my time. I have talked to my predecessors about this. The role of secretary of state in the post-Cold War era requires a much greater assessment of all the issues all over the place. My predecessors had a very difficult and complicated life to live, but they focused primarily on anti-Soviet activities as they played out, and the Middle East. I really do have to show interest in and keep raising questions about places all over the world. Whoever is now secretary of state has a much more complex picture to deal with. It's much harder to prioritize, which is why I have surrounded myself with very strong undersecretaries who can take the lead on a lot of the issues and bring me in when necessary. I think they would probably say I often drive them nuts because I keep raising questions about various parts of [the world].