The White House Briefing Room
October 1, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release October 1, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
MIKE MCCURRY
The Briefing Room
1:45 P.M. EDT
..............
Q Mike, President Carter was the last U.S. President
to visit India 20 years ago and, of course, it's well known in the
world that the U.S. is the most powerful and the richest democracy
and India is the largest. But as far as China and India are
concerned, why is the U.S. treating differently, because President
Clinton decided to go to China earlier than later, and now he has
postponed his trip to India? But he is not going to -- his wife who
said that he is going to bring him to India --
MR. MCCURRY: I think I indicated yesterday that the
President has been anxious for most of the time he's been President
of the United States to go to South Asia, to visit India, to visit
Pakistan. He has enormous personal interest in the subcontinent, and
his wife and daughter have traveled there and have told him many
things about it, which has only increased his interest in that. And
we recognize that India is the most populated democracy on Earth,
Pakistan is key to the security interests that we have in the region,
that a close working relationship with both countries is vital.
Those two countries jeopardized their working relationship with the
United States by their decision to conduct nuclear tests. And we
have been dealing with the fall-out, so to speak, of that decision
ever since.
I indicated to you yesterday we hope that the work that
we've done with both governments, we hope the work the two
governments are doing together by exchanging visits between their
foreign secretaries will lead us to a situation where we can resume
the kind of constructive working relationship we want to have with
both countries.
Q But Mike, China is a nuclear power. China has been
transferring nuclear high technology to Pakistan, Iran, and other
nations and still --
MR. MCCURRY: And is also a member of the U.N. Security
Council, and we have enormous interests across the broad sweep of
that bilateral relationship that we conduct with them. We've been
able to effectively press our concerns -- whether it's in the
security area, the economic area, our political interests that we
share in the region -- by conducting the kind of high level dialogue
we have been, even though we have differences. We hope to have that
kind of working relationship with the government of India.
..............
Q Mike, Pakistan has said that it would consider
signing the test ban treaty if the sanctions are lifted. Next
weekend, I understand that there's a bill that would waive some of
those sanctions. Do you anticipate being able to move on that?
MR. MCCURRY: I don't think that the sanctions in
question are the ones that the government of Pakistan had in mind.
The sanctions waiver legislation pending in our Congress is more
narrowly focused. It deals with the agricultural sanctions that were
automatically imposed after the nuclear test by India and Pakistan.
I believe there would be some relief or the President would be given
some flexibility under those sanctions. I believe the ones the two
governments are concerned about are economic sanctions and
prohibitions on certain types of military exchanges. And I'm not
aware of any proposal in our Congress to change those sanctions.
Q Are you conditioning a visit on the signing by both
India and Pakistan on the --
MR. MCCURRY: We have had good, constructive
presentations to both governments. I think that they know the type
of progress we want to see in our discussions related to
proliferation issues, to the nuclear programs that both countries are
now operating in. I think both countries are well aware of our
concerns could be addressed sufficient for the President to again
consider a proposed visit.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
