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U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

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QUESTION: On India and Pakistan, looking ahead to the meeting in London later this week, what can you say about what the United States plans to do to try to move this process forward?

MR. RUBIN: Well, first of all, the idea of this meeting was to bring into play a larger group which includes countries like Germany and Japan, who have sought membership in the international community body, the permanent membership in the Security Council, and have seen their greatness through economic power and political power rather than by pursuing a nuclear weapons program. So their presence is extremely important -- in addition because they are very much involved in assistance programs in the region.

So we need to broaden the circle of countries who want to see the steps that the United States and others laid down in Geneva pursued; who want to see the steps laid down in the Security Council resolution pursued; and thereby get a larger group that is pursuing the same strategy.

As far as what we will specifically be doing at that meeting, how we will try to provide a better path for Pakistan and India to make the right decisions, I'd like to leave that for the meeting. Today is Tuesday; the meeting is on Friday. But the concept of the meeting is, as I said, to bring in a broader group. I would expect there to be participants outside, as well.

QUESTION: I mean, is the thinking that you would just have this broader group sign on to the same kind of communiqué that happened in Geneva?

MR. RUBIN: I don't expect there to be a communiqué or further resolution. What we're trying to do is develop a group that can coordinate its activities to try to bring to bear the same positions, and decide how each one of us can pursue bilaterally these efforts and coordinate through the imprimatur of a foreign ministers' session so that all the governments involved who have unique influence that can be brought to bear are sharing information with each other about what messages they're delivering bilaterally so that we are in a position to make sure that neither India nor Pakistan seeks to play one of the major countries off against each other. But in order to do that, the best way to do that is to have the meeting grow, and have participation from countries who've made different decisions who also might have unique influence.

QUESTION: Have you seen any sign that the meeting - last week's meeting - has had any positive influence?

MR. RUBIN: To the extent that there haven't been any additional nuclear tests or missile tests, that is better than it was last week and the week before.

With regard to what Pakistan and India's objectives are in the international arena, their initial reactions to these communiqués and resolutions were not terrific, as you probably saw. But we hope that by expanding the group and making clear that to rejoin the mainstream that India and Pakistan need to follow the recommendations that have been made and work with the countries that is now going to be a growing group of countries that are trying to bring them back from the brink. This is the way you conduct diplomacy; you have a greater and greater group of important countries delivering the same message so that hopefully none of the decisions that would be dangerous that we're concerned about will be taken in the coming weeks.

QUESTION: There's been a different message addressed to the leaders of both countries by Saddam Hussein, who defends the tests and says they have sovereign rights to acquire nuclear weapons and presumably the implication is that so does Iraq. Do you have any comment on that?

MR. RUBIN: Well, two points. I think the dumbest thing any country can do would be to follow the advice of Saddam Hussein. As he has shown, he has destroyed his country's role in the world; he's harmed its economy; he's made it an outcast and pariah. There's probably no country that is a greater outcast or pariah in the world than Iraq. It would certainly not be advisable to follow the advice of someone who has continually harmed the interests of his own country.

With respect to Iraq's rights, the international community, as a result of the Gulf War, set forth quite clearly that it needs to monitor the assurance that Iraq is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program and that its rights in this area were effected by its wrong in deciding to invade another country in 1990, and it is governed by Security Council resolution that changed its rights.

QUESTION: Jamie, can you tell us what other nations are being invited to the G-8 meeting?

MR. RUBIN: When the British are in a position to invite them, then we will do that.

QUESTION: Henry Kissinger has suggested in an editorial today that instead of opening the NPT to India and Pakistan, there could be some kind of ad hoc regime of inspections and control of their arsenals and nuclear size. Is that something that's being talked about?

MR. RUBIN: Generally speaking, we found Dr. Kissinger's views very similar to our own, in terms of getting international and multilateral support for discouraging India and Pakistan from pursuing the path that they're on. We think the best way to resolve this problem is to get a process going by which they sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, join the international regimes that are being pursued on the fissile material cut-off, to refrain from testing of nuclear weapons, and refrain from testing of missiles.

We've also said, as the Secretary did in Geneva, that we are prepared to look at confidence-building measures to try to avoid miscalculation by either side of what the other's intentions or capabilities are and we are willing to pursue ideas in that area. We've talked about risk reduction centers; we've talked about hotlines; we've talked about other steps such as open skies to permit inspections. We've come up with some ideas in that area. What we don't want to do is take steps in the technical assistance area that provides any reason for India or Pakistan or any other country to think that there has been a reward for this behavior that is outside the mainstream.

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(The briefing concluded at 1:55 P.M.)

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