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02 September 1998

TEXT: CLINTON/YELTSIN ON PROTOCOL TO CONVENTION ON BIO WEAPONS

(Urge adopting legally binding protocol at earliest date) (430)
Moscow -- President Clinton and President Yeltsin issued a joint
statement September 2 recognizing the threat posed by biological
weapons, and expressing strong support "for the aims and tasks of the
Ad Hoc Group of States Parties to establish a regime to enhance the
effective implementation of the 1972 Convention on the Prohibition of
the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological
(Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction.
"We urge the further intensification and successful conclusion of
those negotiations to strengthen the Convention by adoption of a
legally binding Protocol at the earliest possible date," the two
Presidents said.
Following is the text:
(begin text)
JOINT STATEMENT
ON A PROTOCOL TO THE CONVENTION
ON THE PROHIBITION OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
The Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation,
recognizing the threat posed by biological weapons, express strong
support for the aims and tasks of the Ad Hoc Group of States Parties
to establish a regime to enhance the effective implementation of the
1972 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and
Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on
their Destruction. We urge the further intensification and successful
conclusion of those negotiations to strengthen the Convention by
adoption of a legally binding Protocol at the earliest possible date.
We have agreed to contribute to accomplishing these tasks.
Consequently, the United States of America and the Russian Federation
will make additional efforts in the Ad Hoc Group to promote decisive
progress in negotiations on the Protocol to the Convention, to ensure
its universality and enable the Group to fulfill its mandate.
We agree that the Protocol to the Convention must be economical to
implement, must adequately guarantee the protection of national
security information, and must provide confidentiality for sensitive
commercial information. We also consider it extremely important to
create a mechanism for implementation that will be consistent with the
scope of the measures provided for in the Protocol.
We recognize the necessity for the Protocol to include those measures
that would do the most to strengthen the Convention.
We express our firm commitment to global prohibition of biological
weapons and for full and effective compliance by a States Parties with
the Convention prohibiting such weapons.
We support the language in the Final Declaration of the Fourth Review
Conference of the States Parties to the Convention (1996) that the
Convention forbids the use of bacteriological (biological) and toxin
weapons under any circumstances.
Moscow
September 2, 1998
(end text)