U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
Briefer: Philip T. Reeker, Deputy Spokesman
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2000, 1:43 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
QUESTION: Do you have any requests from the Russians regarding
the sub yet? Where do things stand?
MR. REEKER: As I was coming out, my good friend, Admiral
Quigley, was briefing at the Pentagon on that very subject and I
would refer you generally to the Pentagon as having the most
up-to-date information on that. But let me tell you what I did
have.
Obviously, as Admiral Quigley indicated, we are continuing to
follow the situation very closely. This is clearly a great
tragedy and we are not going to just look away until we see what
happens there. Rescue attempts are reportedly continuing and I
understand from the media reports that weather conditions and
strong currents and poor visibility at those depths are causing
difficulties. I believe some Russian officials have reported the
situation as extremely desperate.
We are in close contact with the British and Norwegian
governments who have informed us that sub rescue efforts are
moving toward the area where the submarine, the Kursk, went down.
I would want to refer you to those governments for the details
of that. I think, as we discussed a bit yesterday, over at the
Pentagon, NATO as well as some individual NATO countries, like
the UK and Norway, have been in touch with Russia with offers of
assistance if the Russians could follow up.
We, as we talked earlier in the week, also offered assistance and
the President in a phone call with President Putin reiterated our
offer of assistance should they need that. I'm not aware at this
point that they've taken up specific offers from us. But, as I
indicated, I think the UK and Norway were working with them on
sending some assets up there.
QUESTION: You moved a little bit into the Russian submarine
problem which opens the door to other questions, because State
seems to be tracking this. You say that the US offered help.
Did the US wait for Russia to be open to help before offering
help? And was that an approach that the US thinks maybe was not
too wise to hold off for days and depend on their own, apparently
unsuccessfully, depend on their own facilities. Because
everybody else was willing to and I'm sure that the US would have
been happy to do what it could, but everybody waited for Russia
to say, please help us. Is that true of the US as well?
MR. REEKER: If you - maybe you weren't here earlier in the week,
Barry, but I think it was Monday when the reports of this
accident first came out that we had offered assistance. I
believe it was National Security Advisor Berger who in a
pre-scheduled phone call with his counterpart Sergei Ivanov,
offered help, and at that time, we had thanks and appreciation
for our offers. The Russians were looking at what steps might be
taken.
We've reiterated those offers ourselves through NATO, with
allies. And as I indicated, the President of the United States,
in his phone call with the President of Russia, also reiterated
our concern, and if there was anything we could do to help, we
might offer, so that has been out there.
(The briefing concluded at 2:08 p.m.)
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