May 13, 1998
[EXCERPTS] PRESS BRIEFING BY PRESS SECRETARY MIKE MCCURRY
9:02 P.M. (L)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Berlin, Germany)
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release May 13, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
PRESS SECRETARY MIKE MCCURRY
Radisson SAS Hotel
Berlin, Germany
9:02 P.M. (L)
...............
Q France has said they're opposed to sanctions,
and I think Russia. That's not a very good start --
MR. MCCURRY: I think that other -- everyone here is
well aware of the view that other governments take on the use of
economic policy as a tool of diplomacy. Very few, hardly any
other countries in this world view economics as the useful tool
for diplomacy that the United States sees. It may reflect our
own status as an economic superpower, but it also reflects maybe
some different ways in which people think about market flows and
their own positions as market capitalist democracies.
Prime Minister Blair has indicated this will be a
subject that the leaders will take up and address when they meet
in Birmingham, and we'll see how ideas have developed as we look
ahead to the coming discussion in a few days.
Q How do you pursue that given the reluctance --
MR. MCCURRY: They will meet and discuss this issue,
as the Prime Minister indicated.
.............
Q If the U.S. urges economic sanctions against
India and most of the other G-8 nations refuse, does that send a
mixed message to India and undercut the effect of the U.S.
sanctions?
MR. MCCURRY: Depends on what other ways in which
those other governments choose to express the displeasure that
they have all, to my knowledge, expressed in the wake of these
tests. They have all universally, as far as I know, condemned
the tests, and no doubt, each of those governments will have
different ways of expressing their displeasure.
Q So does that mean that Clinton will tell them
that if they don't want economic sanctions, they should take some
other kinds of steps?
MR. MCCURRY: That means that many of them may move,
and maybe already some -- obviously, Japan is one -- are already
moving to do exactly that. And I think that there will be some
discussion in Birmingham about how to coordinate the work that
all the governments around the table would want to do to remind
India of its obligations and to express the displeasure that has
been voiced by each of those nations.
Q Is the situation with the media at this point
such that we learn about these nuclear tests at roughly the same
time the administration learns about them -- do you consider that
the President gets a good jump on that information or is such now
that --
MR. MCCURRY: Well, it depends. It depends. We've
had in the period of time that Bill Clinton has been President,
there have been tests by a number of governments and there have
been different -- a different quantity and quality of information
available in each and every instance, as far as I recall.
Q In these instances -- everybody is getting
information around the same time as the President --
MR. MCCURRY: Well, whatever information that you
had access to and whatever information we had access to is
something that I imagine that Admiral Jeremiah and the
President's foreign intelligence advisory board are going to be
looking at carefully in the next week or so.
................
END 9:11 P.M. (L)
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