July 23, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release July 23, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
MIKE MCCURRY
The Briefing Room
1:25 P.M. EDT
..................
Q Mike, does the United States believe that the
military balance of power in the Middle East has been altered by
the Iranian missile tests?
MR. MCCURRY: The United States does not believe
that single tests of missiles that are in various stages of
research and development alter strategic balances. What they do
is to provide you a snapshot and picture of where things are
going.
And for some time, the United States has said, our
greatest -- one of our greatest concerns, among out chief
concerns in that region are policies of the government of Iran
that work against the interests of peace and stability in that
region -- to wit, their support for terrorism, their active
opposition to the peace process in the Middle East, which is so
important to Arab and Jew alike, and their persistent efforts to
acquire the technologies and weapons of mass destruction that can
threaten and intimidate neighbors.
So the balance is affected by their efforts to
develop those technologies, acquire those technologies, and they
underscore the importance of efforts by the United States to work
with our allies and others to curb technology transfers to that
region, which is why we watch this area so carefully and we do
what we need to do to make sure that they are not enhancing their
capacities in those areas.
Q Does this mean that the new moderate President
of Iran that you've been kind of reaching out to has made no
change at all in Iran's policy in terms of weapons of mass
destruction? In other words, any hopes you might have invested
in him are now --
MR. MCCURRY: One thing that is true of that regime
is that you cannot make definitive judgments like that. In a
society that is that opaque with a ruling elite that is difficult
at time to understand, it's probably not wise for us to make
those judgments. But it's certainly is evidence that they are
working in the direction that has underscored the concern we've
expressed publicly in the past, which is that they are working to
acquire those types of weapons that put them in a position to
threaten -- threatening their neighbors and others in the region
and that's contrary to the interests of peace and stability in
the region.
Q Is this a setback for those in the White House
now that have been trying to defrost relations between the U.S.
and Iran?
MR. MCCURRY: I don't -- I think it's perhaps too
early to declare a definitive answer to that, but it certainly
doesn't give evidence to support a change of view, which is what
we said we would look for. We said we would look for changes in
policies by this government that would moderate their behavior of
the past, and the effort to acquire weapons with the range of
this particular weapon works contrary to the interests of peace
and stability that would demonstrate to the world that there is a
change of heart.
Q Where did they get it from?
Q Does the administration have reason to believe
that part of the reason for this missile test was internal, i.e.,
that the spiritual leadership was sending a message to the
political leadership?
MR. MCCURRY: The truth is there will be a lot of
different people who will make a lot of different analyses of
this. And we should probably be careful in pronouncing a
government view on that. We will certainly assess this and
gather further information and see what we ourselves can learn
about it, but I don't know that we can make any definitive
judgments about what this says about the motives of the current
ruling leadership.
...................
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
