The Upcoming Meeting of the Gore-Primakov Commission
Leon Fuerth, National Security Adviser to Vice President Al Gore
Carlos Pascual, National Security Council Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia
Thursday, March 18, 1999, 11:00 A.M. EST
MR. CHARLES SILVER: Good morning. I'm Charles Silver and I'm the director of the USIA's Washington Foreign Press Center. Next week the United States and the U.S.-Russia Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation -- often called the Gore-Primakov Commission after its cochairmen -- will meet in Washington. This is the 11th Plenary meeting of the two nations. And to give us an overview of the event, we're delighted to welcome Mr. Leon Fuerth, who is the National Security Adviser to Vice President Gore. With him is Mr. Carlos Pascual who is the senior director for Russia, the Ukraine and Eurasia at the National Security Council. This is an on-the-record briefing. I would like to remind everyone and especially those who are reading this transcript that all our on-the-record briefings are carried on live video on the Foreign Press Center website and audio transcripts will be archived on the same site.
I'd like to turn without any further ado to Mr. Fuerth.
MR. FUERTH: Thanks. The vice president did have what we called an executive session meeting of the commission with former Prime Minister Kiriyenko when he visited Moscow a number of months ago. So one might think of this as the 12th meeting, if you want to count that.
But this will be the first full-up meeting of the commission in quite a while. And so we're looking forward to it as an opportunity to get ideas and projects that have been marching in place moving forward. As you said, the vice president (sic) arrives on the 23rd. There will be full days of meetings the 24th, the 25th. He has an ongoing schedule in New York and will leave the United States on Saturday.
We hope that this will be a productive session. The cabinet- level agencies on our side and the ministerial level agencies on the Russian side have been working hard on this, and there are areas of significant progress that we are hoping will be formalized when the meeting occurs. In addition that, there will be so-called off-line discussions between the prime minister and the vice president to deal with issues that don't naturally fit into the commission format.
So with that, I'd like to turn to questions.
MR. SILVER: Let me remind everyone. Please wait for the microphone and identify yourself and your news organization. Let's start right here.
Q Good morning, Mr. Fuerth. My name is Haran Kazaz (ph). I'm with Turkish Daily News and Turkish Pro (ph). You just mentioned that the vice president will talk about those issues that don't fit other works. Among those issues that doesn't fit within the agenda, are you going to cover issues like Iraq and Kosovo? And if so, in what length do you predict that it may take place?
MR. FUERTH: I'm still in the stage of working out a detailed agenda with my opposite number in the Russian government. So I will not say definitively that this will happen. But it would be natural for them to talk about these matters. Also, the prime minister has a meeting with the secretary of state on his final day in Washington after the commission is completed as well as a pending meeting with the president I think on the first full day of meetings. So there will be plenty of opportunities for discussion of major foreign policy issues. And I anticipate that he and the vice president will cover these matters as well.
MR. SILVER: A question in the back.
Q My name is Nikolai Zeman (ph), Russian newspaper Segodnya. Mr. Fuerth, Mr. Primakov told many times that financial help from the IMF is critical for Russia this year. Can Russia expect that the United States are going to support Russia in this particular question? Thank you.
MR. FUERTH: What the United States has been saying at various levels to Russia is that it's vital for the Russian government to take counsel with the IMF and to review the IMF's numbers and analyses carefully and with an open mind. We think that that process is underway. But in the end it is up to the Russian government and the IMF to find a path towards agreement.
We are somewhat on the sidelines. We are hopeful that this will happen because we know that it is very much needed. But in the end, what is absolutely essential is a budget that the IMF can certify to the rest of the world as well as to itself is realistic. And in fact I would say that perhaps at this stage of the game, the ability of the IMF to certify the realism of the Russian budget to the rest of the world is almost as important as the particular tranche of funding that would flow if the IMF agrees.
MR. SILVER: Let's take one from this side.
Q (Name inaudible), I'm with the Hungarian daily paper (affiliation inaudible). Will you discuss who will represent Russia on the NATO summit in April?
MR. FUERTH: Probably. Certainly if the vice president and the prime minister don't get into it, there will be discussions when he sees Secretary Albright about the intentions of the Russian government about being represented at the NATO summit.
Q Jim Berger from Washington Trade Daily. I just wanted to know if any trade issues might be highlighted at this meeting next week in particular.
MR. FUERTH: Yeah. Trade issues are part of the main line stock and trade of the commission. So for example, there could be continued discussion of the situation in the Russian steel. There may well be continued discussion -- in fact, I'd expect it -- of pending changes in Russian tax law that could help attract reinvigorated American investment in Russia.
As you may know, the Russian Duma recently passed production sharing agreements. And specifically, there is a need to incorporate some of those agreements into tax legislation to create a unified financial picture for investors. If that happens, and even though the oil market around the world is not so good, it would put in place for the first time a true foundation for long- range and strategic investment in the Russian energy.
So I expect there will be plenty of discussion, first and foremost when the Business Development Committee meets. That's under the chair of the Russian trade minister and the U.S. secretary of commerce.
MR. SILVER: Let's take a question from here.
Q My name is Ken Alaliyev (ph), I'm from the Azerbaijani News Agency Turan (ph). I have two questions. According to news reports, the authorities in Moscow have been providing Armenia with weaponry. And the weapons for delivery secretly recently. There were many reports about that.
And my question is what is the position of the U.S. government on this development? And what implications does it have for U.S. foreign policy objectives in the South Caucasus? And the second question --
MR. SILVER: One question.
Q Okay. Could you discuss the Caspian energy issues and the issues relating to Armenia and Azerbaijan conflict? Thank you.
MR. FUERTH: That sounded like three in one, but --
MR. SILVER: Pick the one you like best.
MR. FUERTH: Well, that's a tough trick also. But let me start with the Caspian. I would expect that there would be some discussion of energy investment in general, and inevitably a discussion of the Caspian because, among other things, U.S. and Russian investors are interested in this and perhaps looking for ways to make business together, along with other partners who would be interested in the region. And of course we may want to hear the Russian government's views about the trans-Caspian pipeline and so on.
As regards to the first question, I honestly don't know what our view of the facts on the ground might be. What you've said to me I have not heard before, and so I can't answer the rest of it, since I don't have the foundation for this.
MR. SILVER: Okay, let's go to the front row then. Yes, we'll get you a microphone.
Q (Name and affiliation inaudible), Tokyo, Japan. I'd like to ask you whether both leaders will pick up the ABM Treaty issue at this occasion. And are they going to talk about NMD which is going on on Capitol Hill. And I'm just curious to know also are they going to pick up the talk about the nuclear technology transfer from Russia to Iran? Thank you.
MR. FUERTH: Anything else? (Laughter.) I may have to have your help in scrolling back through that set of questions. But the first one was the ABM Treaty?
Okay. There's bound to be discussion of arms control as a whole. These things interlock. We are interested in moving forward in strategic arms control talks with the Russians. We are hoping day by day that there may be action in the Russian Duma to ratify START-II.
As you may know, there is legislation in the U.S. Congress that has been amended in a way that the administration is able to support, because what it says about ballistic missile defense is not to move forward until you've got a technologically sound approach, not to move forward until it's been authorized and appropriated, which means that, you know, any such concept will move through the Congress. And to bear in mind that the interaction between such a development and existing arms control commitments is extremely important as a factor in the decision itself. So those are fairly common-sense provisions.
Did I miss one?
Q How about technology transfer from Russia.
MR. FUERTH: Yeah, they will be discussing that.
Q (Off mike) -- I wanted to ask you about the format of the commission itself. Has it been decided to hold the commission once a year instead of twice a year? And will it be rotating between the capitals, and stuff like that?
MR. FUERTH: I think it will always rotate in order to demonstrate that there's parity and an equal footing. As for the format, we have been talking for some time about whether to have a different cycle in which there might be one full session of the commission with all the committees and one stripped-down session that's basically an executive session focused on direct conversation between the two principals.
But no decision has been made. I think there may well be discussion of this after they have this session behind them.
Q (Name and affiliation inaudible.) Russian Minister for Atomic Energy Yevgeni Adamov said that last week he presented the proposal to U.S. side to give guarantees that Russia stops all the contacts in the nuclear sphere that's provoking suspicions from the United States if the U.S. will lift sanctions against two Russian entities, in particular --
MR. FUERTH: Nikeyev (ph) and the -- Mendeleyv University.
Q So what can be your response to that proposal?
MR. FUERTH: A diplomatic response, which is that the place for us to have this discussion and continued analysis of it is in private discourse with the Russian government. We are interested in any sign that we get from the government of Russia that it will engage the problem of proliferation with the greatest of seriousness. And we're prepared to respond to that. But we need to talk through what it is that Minister Adamov has in mind and see whether it will lead us to a solution.
MR. SILVER: Let's go over here.
Q Arkady Orlov (ph), with the Russian news agency RIA. Mr. Fuerth, do you expect any discussion about space? Do you expect anything new in this sphere this time?
MR. FUERTH: This in some ways is related to the question just put, although your question related to the nuclear side of the proliferation problem. The U.S. position as is now pretty well known, is that we would not find it possible to expand the quota for commercial space launches to geosynchronous orbit until we have reason to feel that technology transfer to other countries is under firm control. And this has been a matter of very serious discussion for some time now.
And we are interested in making progress on it. But we have to get this session under our belts before we can see really where we are.
What I would like to stress at this time is that the potential for this kind of commercial cooperation in space is extremely great. And I know that the Russian side realizes that, as do we. We need very serious discussions about how to get to the point where this potential can be realized.
MR. SILVER: Let's take a question from here.
Q (Name and affiliation inaudible.) Mr. Fuerth, can you tell us about the personal attitude of the vice president to Mr. Primakov? Mr. Primakov has quite a negative image in the United States as anti- American, he has too many communists in his government. What is Mr. Gore's attitude to the Russian prime minister?
MR. FUERTH: I think the vice president sees him as a seasoned professional, a master of the facts behind the Russian case, a serious defender of Russian interests in a negotiation and as a working colleague with whom he would like to have the best possible working relationships.
MR. SILVER: We probably have time for one or two more questions. Let's take one from the back -- from Poland.
Q (Name inaudible), Polish television. Do you expect to discuss the NATO enlargement issue and how Polish, Czech and Hungarian membership in NATO could influence the Russian-American relationship?
MR. FUERTH: If the Russian side wants to raise that, I suppose we would. But the fact is you are members of NATO. So it's my impression that circumstances are moving on and we and the Russians are addressing other matters rather than this one, which is a fact.
MR. SILVER: We'll take one -- and then this will be the last question. So two.
Q (Name inaudible) called Mainichi Shimbun. Good to see you, Mr. Fuerth.
MR. FUERTH: You have another multiple question? (Laughter.)
Q About Kosovo. I came in late. I'm sorry if it's covered already. But do they talk about Kosovo issue? And there's speculation that NATO's bomb raids might happen early next week if the talks in Paris collapse. And so what is the political timing with this imminent -- (off mike) -- in Kosovo?
MR. FUERTH: What happens next still depends upon positions to be taken by Mr. Milosevic. So I would not like to speculate about what's going to happen next week. He still has time to consider what is in his country's best interests. I would definitely expect that Kosovo will be discussed when the prime minister is in town.
MR. SILVER: Okay, let's take one last question.
Q (Name inaudible) with the USIA. And I was wondering if you could be a little bit more specific about what initiatives the U.S. will pursue. The commission involves a wide range of committees, and I'm wondering if the administration has zoned in on certain issues they want to pursue.
MR. FUERTH: Yeah, and it always makes me superstitious to talk in advance about what I would like to see happen at the end. I'd rather see the ink on the documents before I talk about them.
But let me suggest a few general ideas, okay. One of them goes back to Minister Adamov's interview that appeared in the New York Times. We would like to see ink drying on the paper to stabilize the HEU agreement. This is an agreement whereby bomb- grade uranium from Russian weapons is converted to reactor grade fuel and purchased by the United States. I mean, we've been doing this for some time. But this would put in place more stable financial relations and guarantee the thing continuing on into the future. If that happens, that will be a big deal. It's taken a long time and a lot of effort to get to that point.
But if I can knock wood, I would. Because you never know whether something will come up at the last moment to get in the way. Nevertheless, that's a thing that we would like to see done.
We would like to talk to the Russians about ways to promote further economic growth. We think the Russians have ideas relating to small business. So do we, and we're interested in exchanging ideas about that.
We want to talk to the Russians about matters pertaining to public health. These are subjects that we have discussed before. And it's important to start that theme again, because there's been a change in leadership overall and a change in leadership in the Russian health ministry. So it's important for us to find out what their approach is going to be.
In fact, in general, there are ideas that have been waiting for springtime in each one of the commission's committees. And springtime means the point at which the Russian government knows where it wants to go in these areas of policies, and we can then see how to adjust our concepts and theirs and go forward to do something constructive together.
MR. SILVER: On that note, I'd like to say thank you to our guests today. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
END
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