ACCESSION NUMBER:00000
FILE ID:95062303.ECO
DATE:06/23/95
TITLE:NO AGREEMENT YET ON BRINGING RUSSIA INTO POST-COCOM REGIME
TEXT:
(Gore, Chernomyrdin could wrap up Iran arms problem) (490)
By Bruce Odessey
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- As Vice President Al Gore prepares to meet Russian Prime
Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, uncertainty persists whether
negotiations can begin on Russian participation in a proposed
export-control regime.
Gore will visit Moscow for the fifth meeting of the Gore-Chernomyrdin
Commission June 29-30 and for a private meeting between the two men
July 1.
According to a senior Clinton administration official who asked not to
be identified, one issue on the private-meeting agenda concerns
Russian participation in a proposed export-control regime, a successor
group to the Coordinating Committee on Multilateral Export Controls
(COCOM).
COCOM dissolved in March 1994 after 45 years of successfully blocking
exports of advanced technology to the former Soviet bloc. Even before
that, 23 COCOM members and other cooperating countries started talking
about creating a COCOM successor regime aimed at denying exports of
advanced technology and conventional weapons to pariah states.
Disagreements among the 23 about membership for Russia have stalled
those negotiations ever since. Especially troublesome for the United
States were continuing Russian conventional weapons sales to Iran.
After the May 11 meeting between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin, a
State Department official disclosed that the two leaders had resolved
the problem to U.S. satisfaction.
He said then that Gore and Chernomyrdin would prepare by their June
meeting a document recording the latest understanding, including
assurances that Russia would make no new arms sales to Iran and, in
fulfilling a 1988 contract, would give Iran no new capabilities or
alter the regional military balance.
With the Gore-Chernomyrdin meeting now only days off, the unidentified
administration official indicated that work still remains unfinished.
"Do I know if we got the final words in the bag and all they have to
do is sign?" the administration official said. "I don't know that yet,
but I am hopeful that they will."
A deal would allow negotiations to start for the post-COCOM regime,
destined potentially to include not only Russia but also the Czech
Republic, Hungary and Poland, he indicated.
As for the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, he said, the eight sub-groups
will focus attention June 29 on trade and investment issues and June
30 on space and science issues.
The trade issues include assistance for Russia and investments there,
especially energy-related ones, as well as agriculture, the subject
for a just-added sub-group.
Among the science issues are joint space program activities,
especially support for an international space station, protection of
the Arctic and application of intelligence data to environmental
problems.
The administration official said he expected announcement on the
opening of a civilian research and development foundation to employ
Russian scientists displaced from their jobs, similar to a foundation
already opened for Russian scientists in the defense sector.
NNNN
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