Obama aide: “each set of peoples is going to make their own determinations”

Ben Rhodes, Barack Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting, with regard to Catalonia’s desire to hold a referendum on independence, said that “we support there being a process for reviewing these issues in each country”. Concretely, he defended that “different solutions are appropiate to different countries”. In a conversation with Xavier Vilà, correspondent for Catalunya Ràdio in Washington DC, Rhodes said, ‘Sometimes autonomy works, sometimes peoples end up being independent states, sometimes there are unions, and so I think as a general matter we support there being a process for reviewing these issues in each country, but ultimately each country, each set of peoples is going to make their own determinations.’ Notwithstanding, Obama’s assistant said that he didn’t want to interfere in an internal matter of the Spanish state.

Here is the audio from Xavier Vilà’s conversation on Catalunya Ràdio with Ben Rhodes:

Here is the full transcript of Rhode’s remarks:

With respect to the Scottish referendum, we would very much defer to the process that the United Kingdom has set up, that Prime Minister Cameron is leading. On my mother’s side of the family, the MacNutts, can trace their origins to Scotland, I can tell you, so somewhere in me is the blood of a Scotsman, but that doesn’t mean that I take any opinion on the referendum. It just means that I have a deep appreciation for the contributions for the Scottish people over their history. Clearly though the United Kingdom is you know, we have no closer ally in the world, and so we’ll watch with that interest in mind and again with respect for the process that’s been set up over many years in that country.

I also think that these decisions are unique to different countries. Ultimately different countries have to work through their own process. So, for instance, I wouldn’t infer, the US is not going to take a position for instance on some issues that Spain may be considering in this space. Ultimately, I think history shows that different solutions are appropiate to different countries, different regions, sometimes—again I’m not speaking specifically of any one particular region or country—I’m just saying that sometimes autonomy works, sometimes peoples end up being independent states, sometimes there are unions, and so I think as a general matter we support there being a process for reviewing these issues in each country, but ultimately each country, each set of peoples is going to make their own determinations.