July 15, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_____________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release July 15, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING
BY MIKE MCCURRY
The Briefing Room
1:45 P.M. EDT
MR. MCCURRY: I mentioned to some of you earlier that
the Russian government today announced that the Government Commission
on Export Control had conducted a special investigation on entities
involved in certain technology transfers and they came to the
conclusion that certain enterprises violated Russian export controls
and attempted to export goods or services which could contribute to
weapons of mass destruction or missiles to deliver them. Those
investigations may result in administrative actions and criminal
procedures. We will have a statement that indicates that those steps
certainly support the Russian commitment to stop the flow of
sensitive technologies and demonstrate the growing effectiveness of
the cooperation we have with Russia when it comes to halting
proliferation and transfer of dangerous weapons technology and
materials.
The United States and Russia will continue to work
together to strengthen controls on such exports and to enforce
compliance with the laws, policies, and international agreements on
such transfers -- the subjects that obviously will be at the center
of both the President's and the Vice President's upcoming discussions
with Russian counterparts.
Q Do the steps go far enough?
MR. MCCURRY: We believe that those steps indicate the
seriousness to which the Russian Federation has taken the expression
of concern we've made on certain technology transfers. They involve
a lot of the premier Russian enterprises that have been involved in
technology transfers and they could be very significant -- in fact,
significant enough that when we've got our own assessment that's
consistent with what the Russians have concluded, we might be in a
position to suspend some of our own U.S. government programs and
assistance to some of those same entities.
Q Who are the recipients of these improper transfers?
Who received these --
MR. MCCURRY: I've got the list, it's probably --
Q Countries? Can you just tell us --
MR. MCCURRY: No, they're individual -- the Minister of
Energy in Russia identified individual enterprises. I can give you
the list. We've got it in the written statement. I can give them to
you, there are nine entities, including the INOR scientific center,
the Grafit and Polyus research institutes, the Tikhomirov institute,
Glavkosmos,the Komintern plant in Novosibirsk, and the MOSO company,
the Baltic State Technical University and Europalace 2000. Those
are the entities and the exact spellings of those are in the written
statement we made available.
Q But none out of the country --
MR. MCCURRY: Usual spellings. (Laughter.) Glavkosmos
some of you will recognize from previous issues that we raised.
Q Are these the recipients or the sources?
MR. MCCURRY: These are the entities that were
identified by the Minister of the Economy as --
Q As making the transfer?
MR. MCCURRY: -- as having been identified as a result
of their investigation.
Q My question was, to whom did they do these improper
transfers? Who got the improper transfers?
MR. MCCURRY: In some cases -- there are different
entities from foreign governments. Some of these are transactions
that involve our previously stated expressions of concern about Iran.
Q About Iran?
MR. MCCURRY: Right.
Q And what other foreign governments besides Iran
were there?
MR. MCCURRY: I'll check on that further -- Libya, North
Korea are the others that were involved.
...........
END 2:08 P.M. EDT
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