U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman (New York, New York)
For Immediate Release September 6, 2000
ON-THE-RECORD BRIEFING BY
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE STROBE TALBOTT
September 6, 2000 New York Foreign Press Center
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I am happy to do this on the record.
QUESTION: So we can set up our cameras?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: You can tape record it, you can use it
on the record, but why don't we just do it as a conversation.
But everything I say is on the record. And I don't have an
opening statement. Mr. Prikhadko and I were the notetakers in
the session between the two presidents this morning, and I have
been in that capacity for nearly eight years, going back to
Vancouver, so I have some historical perspective on the
relationship that has developed between our president and your
two presidents during that period. And since your president is
here in the States for the first time as president, and since
there is only one more meeting that we know of at least between
President Clinton and President Putin -- President Clinton is
coming to the end of his term -- I thought it might be of some
interest to your readers and viewers if we were to not only talk
a little bit about the immediate event and not only talk about
the future, but maybe look back over the last seven years or so
and analyze together where we started, how far we have come, what
some of the difficulties have been. That kind of thing.
I'll just, to get to the ball rolling, tell you that President
Clinton was most satisfied with the meeting this morning. They
spent almost 90 minutes together, which was longer than had been
anticipated. The relationship between the two presidents is
easy, in a human sense. The subjects aren't always easy, but the
rapport between them is easy. It's no-nonsense. I think the best
Russian translation of that would be delovoy. It is personal.
They now are "Bill and Vladimir" and "na ty," coming from the
Russian. They don't waste much time. A number of the tough
issues that they have been dealing with have come up between them
in their previous meeting and of course -- hi, everybody. We're
on the record, by the way, so you are welcome to tape if you
want. They had met twice when Mr. Putin was either prime minister
or acting president -- or I guess -- no, twice when he was prime
minister and three times now since he has been president. So not
only have they developed a personal rapport, but the agenda
between them, even though there is always some new issue to be
discussed, it also includes some fairly familiar issues. So they
can speak about these and compare views and recommendations in a
fairly economical way.
They covered quite a bit of ground this morning. They started on
the subject of Kursk, at President Clinton's initiative. He
expressed his profound sadness and sympathies, not just to the
bereaved families but also to the Russian people and indeed to
the Russian leadership. And they talked a little bit about the
lessons of this, which I can come back to you if you want.
By the way, throughout this I am going to limit myself to
characterizing the American view and President Clinton's view. I
assume you have got pretty good sources on the Russian side, so
you don't need me to tell you what your president said and
thinks, nor would it be appropriate for me to do so.
President Clinton talked a little bit on the subject of Kursk
about a subject that is of big interest to him, and that is the
way in which the world has changed because of the communications
revolution. So that when some Russian sailors die a terrible
death in the Arctic Ocean or farmers in Mozambique are driven out
of their homes and have to take refuge in the trees, literally,
from floods, or an American federal office building is blown up
by terrorists, people all over the world feel a sense of identity
with the victims and with the people who are most influenced by
those -- (inaudible).
And President Clinton talked a little bit about how this is a
good thing and a difficult thing. It's a good thing in that it
sort of reinforces common humanity. It's a good thing in that it
makes it harder to hate other people when you have sympathized
with them or you know more about what they are going through. At
the same time, it can be a complicating factor in governance and
in political leadership. They talked about that.
They also discussed some issues which have been difficult
challenges for us, both difficult in their own right and also
difficult as issues between the United States and Russia: the
Balkans, Milosevic, Kosovo, the Gulf, Iraq, the posture that we
should take together in the United Nations vis-*-vis Saddam
Hussein's defiance of the inspection regime, Iran, the importance
from Russia's own standpoint as well as from ours of making sure
that dangerous technology doesn't reach Iran.
Now, the issue of the strategic relationship -- START, National
Missile Defense -- actually did not figure that prominently in
this meeting for a fairly simple reason. It was so prominent in
the first two meetings -- that is, in Moscow and Okinawa -- that
the issue has been put into other channels now. Secretary
Albright will be talking about this with Foreign Minister Ivanov
tonight. It came up during discussions between Sergei Ivanov and
Sandy Berger over the last couple of days. I have held another
round of the so-called Strategic Stability Group dialogue with
Deputy Foreign Minister Mamedov, who has been my principal
counterpart in the Russian Government.
And as a result of the work that has been done since the Okinawa
meeting and today, President Clinton and President Putin were
able to sign a new document on cooperation between the United
States and Russia and reinforcing strategic stability. That is
one of the more concrete outcomes today.
They looked ahead to their next meeting, which will be at the
APEC forum in Brunei, the leader summit in Brunei. And President
Clinton talked a little bit about the foundation of a stronger
US-Russian relationship that he would like to leave to his
successor, whoever that turns out to be. Because whoever wins
the American presidential election, whether it's Vice President
Gore or Governor Bush, that person will be dealing with Vladimir
Putin -- soon, often, intensively, and on a lot of tough issues.
And President Clinton wants to leave office at the end of January
with the US-Russian relationship in the strongest possible shape.
He has given no issue in the world more attention than this one
consistently over the last eight years. And we've been through
some very rough times together, and they are not over. And
Russia has been through some rough times of its own, and they're
not over. And President Clinton feels very strongly that when
Chelsea grows up and has children and when Chelsea's children
have children, they will live in a safer world if the United
States and Russia are on the same side and on the same team and
sitting at the same tables, including here in New York, and
working with a common view on the same set of issues.
That doesn't mean that we ever will agree on everything. We
don't agree with some of our closest allies on everything, by a
long shot. We don't agree with ourselves on everything, by a long
shot. But for most of the 20th Century, and certainly for 50
years of the 20th Century called the Cold War, we practically
didn't agree on anything -- anything -- except that we didn't
want to blow each other up. We agreed on that. And it's to our
great credit and to the credit of the leaders of the Soviet Union
and of the United States during the Cold War that we succeeded in
not blowing each other up. But that's a rather -- while it's a
spectacular aspiration in some ways, it is also a rather modest
one. And we would like to think that we have gotten beyond that
now and there are other issues where we can build, broaden and
deepen our common ground between us, such as the Balkans, the
Gulf, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, European
security, the Middle East, where the two presidents did some good
work in the last day.
So why don't we take the conversation in any direction that you
want?
QUESTION: Mr. Talbott, it's Nik Vlasov of Russian Information
Agency, Novosti. You mentioned about a meeting that will take
place today between Madeleine Albright and Mr. Ivanov.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Igor Ivanov.
QUESTION: Yes, Igor Ivanov. Can you specify what they are going
to talk about? And you mentioned about a National Missile
Defense. Are they going to discuss only this subject?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Absolutely not. In fact, I don't
think they will probably spend a lot of time on that. It will
come up. But first of all, let me just characterize the meeting
in advance, which is a little dangerous. It hasn't happened.
But I remember attending a dinner that Secretary Albright gave
for Foreign Minister Ivanov just after he became Foreign
Minister. I'm looking at my colleagues to see if they can help
me remember or reconstruct, but it was in the dining room of the
residence that Secretary Albright had lived in when she was
Ambassador to the UN, just a few blocks from here in the Waldorf
Towers. And you all can fill in the blanks. You know when he
became Foreign Minister.
Since then, they have met many, many times on virtually every
continent, except maybe Antarctica, and they have developed an
extremely close, confident, both in personal and professional
terms, solid relationship. And there is a lot of business, of
course, that we are working on together at the UN. Tonight they
will have several colleagues with them. Ambassador Lavrov will
be there, Ambassador Holbrooke, Deputy Foreign Minister Mamedov
and myself. And I assume Ambassador Ushakov will be there. Do
you know?
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I'm not sure about that.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: But the ones that I have mentioned are
for sure. And we'll have a couple of experts, Balkan experts, at
the table. So they will certainly be talking about the
forthcoming local elections in Kosovo, the forthcoming elections
in Serbia, the tensions that have arisen -- the tensions and the
dangers, I would say, that have arisen because of the pressure
that the Belgrade regime has put on Montenegro. They will talk
about the Iraqi sanctions regime for certain.
On NMD and START, this, as I said earlier, is an issue that has
been put into other channels but there are, I think, a couple
points that will probably come up between the ministers as well.
QUESTION: Yuri Crilchenko, TASS News Agency. Just one more
question about the meeting of the presidents. Have they touched
upon, in any way, an economic aspect, since, basing on the
example of the recent disasters in Russia, it is quite evident
that nothing good will come out in the future if Russia does not
do a lot of work on its infrastructure and other things, if it
doesn't improve social conditions in the nation.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: There was not a great deal of
discussion about the economic agenda, although they have talked
about that in the past. And at the end of the meeting between
the two presidents, President Putin did express appreciation to
President Clinton for American and this Administration's support
for the Russian economy, and he mentioned some specific projects,
including some that are going to be coming to fruition fairly
soon.
QUESTION: For instance?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I think I'll leave you to your Russian
sources on that. I said before you came in that I was going to
-- I have already slightly crossed the line that I had set
earlier. I'll let your side background on that. But there are
some issues that we have been working on together which we are
hoping will come about fairly soon.
But the premise of your question is certainly one that has been
kind of a theme in conversation on both sides. Remember that
Bill Clinton, many, many, many, many years ago, 1992, won the
Presidency of the United States on the slogan, "It's the economy,
stupid." He was talking about our economy, but he believes very
much that the health of an economy determines the health of a
nation as a whole and the strength of that nation in the world
market. And in an interdependent world, that's even more true.
QUESTION: They are slightly different.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I am aware that there are some
differences. But there is also, I think, a fundamental point of
similarity. Our President has studied Russia for a very long
time. I have had a chance to observe his study of Russia for a
very long time. And even when he was a graduate student, he read
a great deal about what was then, of course, the Soviet economy.
And he believes deep in his gut that the choice made by the
Russian people, with all of the difficulties that attended it at
the time and that have attended it since, was the right choice,
the brave choice, and a choice that will be vindicated; namely,
the choice to move away from a command economy to a market, and
from a command political system to a democratic political system.
He has always been acutely sensitive to the hardships, the
setbacks that have occurred, but he feels that it is a matter of
vital self-interest for the United States to do everything
possible to support and assist that transformation because, if
Russia succeeds, basically we'll have a better 21st century than
if Russia doesn't. And when I say "we" I mean the American
people. That's kind of the basis for his policy.
QUESTION: Alex Guermanovich, Vedomosty. I wanted to know your
opinion about Mr. Putin's general appearance at this summit and
his speech especially, especially two aspects: first, the
proposal that he made regarding the nuclear -- regarding the
energy that can be produced from nuclear utilization; and,
secondly, his desire to really strengthen the United Nations and
let it play a much stronger role than it plays now and maybe
bring it into solving the problems of different military
conflicts and stuff like that. These two particular things.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: I am going to be honest with you, I
hope in answering all questions, including when I can't give you
an answer. I can't comment on his intervention or his
presentation today because I was otherwise engaged. I was very
preoccupied today, first with preparations for this presidential
meeting, then with the meeting, and then with writing up the
notes afterwards.
So I have heard reference to it. I can tell you that his
proposal -- I want to read it as soon as I can. I came straight,
for example, here from a meeting with the Foreign Minister of
another country who was very struck by the speech and who wants
to learn more about the science behind the idea that President
Putin put forward. So you can certainly say that it has
generated a lot of curiosity and interest. I can't comment on
the substance of it because I haven't had a chance even to read
it, much less to get the opinion of our own experts.
On the United Nations, though, I would say a few things. And I
should have, by the way, in summarizing what President Clinton
and President Putin talked about, stressed the United Nations.
They did talk about the United Nations. They talked about the
reorganization of the United Nations. They talked about a highly
specific technical and financial issue which is called Scale of
Assessments, which countries are assigned how much by way of both
dues and also contributions to peacekeeping operations. And they
talked more generally about the role of the United Nations in the
future.
On the one hand, President Clinton is a very firm believer in the
importance of the United Nations' role to date and even greater
importance that he hopes the United Nations will have in the
future. And one reason for that is because Russia, as the Soviet
Union, was a founding member, because Russia is a Permanent
Member of the Security Council.
On the other hand -- and we can come back to the specifics of his
hopes. On the other hand, while the United Nations is a good
instrument, it can be much better. And even if it were much
better, it would not be a perfect instrument. It would not be an
all-purpose solution to every problem on the face of the earth.
And we have to be realistic about that.
Among other things, the structure, or the governance structure of
the United Nations, is such that there will be cases where the
Security Council, and particularly the P-5, the Permanent Members
of the Security Council, will not be able to agree on taking
action on some issue where the United States or other member
states of the United Nations will feel that either individual or
collective action is required. All of us would hope that over
time such cases would become increasingly the exception. We have
had a few such cases during the life of this Administration, and
those cases -- I'm speaking of course about Iraq and, most
spectacularly, Kosovo and the military campaign in Kosovo.
We have had reminders that there are going to be situations where
the UN, to the extent possible, must play a role in trying to
avert the crisis, must play a role in trying to negotiate a
peaceful settlement to the crisis, must play a role in
implementing the peacekeeping operation that goes into place
after the use of military action but, for one reason or another,
the United Nations will not be directly and actively involved in
the use of force. And President Putin clearly hopes very much,
as does President Clinton, that such cases will over time become
rarer, but we have to deal with the world that we have right now.
And the world that we have right now includes a country called
Iraq that is misruled by a person named Saddam Hussein. The fact
that there is not total agreement and total coordination between
the United States and Russia in the Security Council on what to
do about Saddam Hussein we feel is prolonging that crisis and is
aggravating that danger. So I think it was a healthy thing that
the two presidents were able to talk candidly about that and will
do so again tonight.
But there is no question what the long-range hope is here. Keep
in mind that you've got something quite extraordinary in the
American leadership at the moment. You have a President who is a
committed internationalist, who has fought hard -- including with
our own Congress -- for greater support for the United Nations,
and you have a Secretary of State who spent four years as the
American Ambassador up here. And President Clinton said that
when he leaves office in January he wants to do everything he can
to make sure that his successor, whoever it is, continues a
policy of support for the UN.
I will tell you that the judgment of the American people and the
American Congress on this subject will depend in large measure on
whether the UN is seen to be a forum in which the United States
and Russia compete with each other, in which they disagree and
come to loggerheads with each other, in which case support will
diminish for the UN, or if it's an area where increasingly the
United States and Russia work together. And that's our hope.
QUESTION: May I ask my question in Russian?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Mozhno.
QUESTION: (In Russian.) Izvestia Newspaper. I would like to
ask, what do you think about -- because you pay attention all the
time, stress all the time -- Ivanov -- Igor or Sergei -- so what
is your opinion of the fact that Sergei Ivanov is playing an
increasingly important role in foreign relations? And what do
you think -- does this mean that the Russian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs is weakening? And what balance should be struck in this
matter, in your opinion, and is such a balance possible between
the Security Council, not the UN Security Council but our
security council, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: First of all, let me say what a
delicious irony it is for me to be able to take a very
intelligent, provocative, and mischievous question, but
nonetheless an excellent journalistic question, from a reporter
representing a newspaper that once described me as being iz
molodoi porosli TsRU, as I recall. So obviously maybe nothing
has changed with me, but things have changed in the country I
have spent a lot of time studying over the years. And by the
way, I have a lot of respect for Izvestia and the way in which it
has championed the principle of free press in the new Russia, the
new Izvestia and the role it has played in the new Russia. And
President Clinton never misses an opportunity in his
conversations with President Putin to underscore the importance
that the United States attaches to a healthy, genuinely free
press as an instrumental -- really, as a requirement for civil
society, for democracy, and for the success of Russia's
transformation. And, of course, one indication of free press is
that good reporters come up with tough questions.
Now for your question. In one sense, if you know this American
expression, "I'm not going to touch it with a ten-foot pole,"
which is to say how the Russian leadership and the Russian
president and the Russian prime minister, who is of course the
head of the government, decide to balance and divide up duties
among different personalities and offices is entirely their
business and not something that we should comment on even if we
had a view and an opinion.
I will tell you this, though. I think it has been a very good
thing that there has been a variety of channels at a fairly high
level operating between us. The relationship that has developed
between the White House and the Kremlin you knew very well and we
can talk about. And then of course early in the Clinton
Administration former Foreign Minister Kozyrev suggested the
creation of a new channel between the Russian Prime Minister,
then Mr. Chernomyrdin, and our Vice President. And under the
aegis of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission, a great deal of
important business got done. A very solid relationship I've
already described between Foreign Minister Ivanov and Secretary
Albright. I feel lucky to have had a chance to develop and work
with the relationship I have had with Deputy Foreign Minister
Mamedov.
But now, on top of that, in recent years we have also had almost
on an institutionalized basis a relationship between our National
Security Advisor and your approximate equivalent. Sandy Berger
did some good business with Andrei Kokoshin when he was in that
job. He even, for the few minutes that was available to him, did
some good business with Vladimir Putin when he was in that job.
But he now has had a number of occasions to work hard with Sergei
Borisovich Ivanov. I sat in for some, though not all, of the
conversations -- John, when were they? On Monday? No. Yes,
Monday, Labor Day, a holiday, when we're not supposed to work, we
worked. We had Sergei Borisovich Ivanov and his team here.
My sense is that there is a high degree of coordination between
the Foreign Ministry and the president's office. I would
certainly like to think there is similar coordination on our
side. It is a healthy thing in way when -- if you know the
expression we have in Washington, inter- agency -- when when the
American inter-agency can sit down with the Russian inter-agency
so that you have people from the Ministry of Defense, from
Minatom, from the intelligence services, from the Foreign
Ministry, from the president's office, all on one side of the
table and their American counterparts on the other, it saves a
lot of time. It helps develop positions that are not only
coordinated within the two governments but are easier to
coordinate between the two governments because you don't have to
then wait and see if something that you've heard from one agency
is going to be approved by the other agency on the other side.
So I think that the role that Sergei Borisovich Ivanov and Sandy
Berger have played is quite significant. And, in fact, in the
meeting today between President Putin and President Clinton, a
couple of issues that came up were delegated to that channel, to
Sandy and -- as we put it -- "his Ivanov," as opposed to
Madeleine and "her Ivanov." That's the best I can do. But we'll
continue to read what all of you write about -- what shall I say
-- what's going on. I would never say kto kogo, but what's going
on in your government.
QUESTION: ONO, Japanese newspaper. My question is about a
meeting of the two presidents. Was there any discussion about
missile program of North Korea? Also, the -- (inaudible) -- of
the Chairman of North Korea, he rejected after -- (inaudible) --
he rejected to take part in -- (inaudible) -- with any summit or
United Nations.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: The answer to the latter question is
no, there was no discussion between the two presidents about the
incident that has resulted in the unwillingness of the DPRK
delegation to come to New York. It did not come up.
Now, in this meeting today between Mr. Putin and Mr. Clinton
there was not much discussion of the North Korean missile issue.
It was referred to kind of by reference and in passing. The
reason is twofold. First, they spent a great deal of time on
this in Okinawa. That was, I would say, one of the two or three
principal topics in Okinawa. And we have worked it in other
channels since then. A senior official of the State Department,
a colleague of mine, Wendy Sherman, has been to Moscow. She has
had discussions with a number of the appropriate people on the
Russian side. And I think we kind of know the Russian view on
what President Putin heard from Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and
we're working closely and cooperatively with Russia. The real
question is: What is on the North Koreans' mind here? And I
think we are just going to have to get more directly from the
North Koreans through the appropriate channels at the appropriate
levels.
QUESTION: You have mentioned that there is only one more meeting
between the Russian and American --
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Scheduled.
QUESTION: Scheduled, okay -- while Mr. Clinton is still in
office. Can you say anything about the preliminary agenda of that
next meeting? Or maybe they have touched upon some questions of
their official meeting.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: A couple of the issues that were
discussed today will definitely come up at the next meeting. One
is the question of nonproliferation and Iran. This has been,
frankly, a great difficulty for the relationship. Going back --
when was Helsinki -- '97?
STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: March '97.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Certainly at the presidential level,
since March '97, Helsinki, and I think at the vice presidential
at the Gore- Chernomyrdin level. Do you understand what we're
talking about? At the vice presidential-prime ministerial level
it goes back longer than that. And until this issue is more
satisfactorily resolved, it is going to be a burden on the
relationship; it is going to be an obstacle to our ability to
cooperate in areas like space, by which I mean both space
exploration and cooperative space launch, commercial space
launch, and in other areas. So you can be sure that that will be
on the agenda for Brunei.
I suspect the same could be said of the Balkans. We hope to do
perhaps a bit more in the area of strategic stability, both
further work on kind of laying the ground for START III and also
laying the ground for what we hope will be productive discussions
between the next President of the United States and President
Putin on the relationship between strategic offense and strategic
defense.
QUESTION: And maybe you could say just a few word about the case
of Edmond Pope. Has it been touched upon?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Yes.
QUESTION: And the reason I am asking you this question, there
have been some reports that President Clinton mentioned this case
at the time when he was calling Mr. Putin in regard to the
possible rescue mission on Kursk submarine. And some of my
colleagues in Russia supposed that maybe Mr. Clinton set the
release or something else with Mr. Pope as a precondition of the
American assistance. Is that the right impression, and what was
exactly said?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: You have asked two questions. The
answer to the first question is categorically yes; the answer to
the second question is categorically no. That is, President
Clinton did raise the case of Edmond Pope again today, as he has
before. He has raised it on a number of occasions. To be honest
with you, I simply do not know whether it explicitly came up in
the telephone call between the two of them that you referred to.
What I can promise you without any ambiguity or reservation is
that no linkage of the kind you are suggesting was every implied.
Nothing could have been further from President Clinton's mind.
We don't play cheap linkage games where human life is at stake.
Our offer of assistance during the Kursk catastrophe was
immediate; it was unconditional; it was heartfelt. And it would
have been inconceivable that any connection of that kind would
have been suggested. Nor do I have any reason to believe, having
participated in a number of the conversations between the two
presidents, that Mr. Putin ever inferred or suspected such a
linkage. No evidence of that, either.
So I think, as with some other reports that have come out today
about the Pope matter, this is simply false. There have also
been some reports today about possible trades -- Pope for X .
Wrong. No discussion of that either.
QUESTION: Maybe you can tell us for how long Mr. Clinton and Mr.
Putin have been on the "Vladimir and Bill" terms.
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: You know, I was actually trying to
think of that today. I was also trying to think when Mr. Putin
went from "na vy" to "na ty". You might ask your side. I have
the impression that maybe Okinawa. But I don't know your
language as well as you do, but my impression is that sometimes
it takes a while. It's like other transitions in Russia. It
doesn't take place instantaneously. You know, you're "na vy" and
then maybe you're a little bit "na ty" and then you're back to
"na vy". My sense is it's now "na ty".
As for "Vladimir and Bill," I think it sort of started in
Okinawa. In Moscow it was a little bit more Mr. President/Mr.
President.
QUESTION: I'll probably ask the last question. What do you
generally think about Putin as a foreign policy maker, as a
person, especially still the way he acts here having these
face-to-face discussions. Generally, very generally, what do you
think about him playing the role --
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Well, I might start with a personal
observation. I have had the opportunity -- and I should say the
honor -- of dealing with him in an official capacity since June
of last year when he was the head of the Security Council. And I
was visiting your country and your capital almost literally every
week in connection with the joint -- and I want to stress this --
the joint US/Russian/EU/Finnish effort to end the war in Kosovo,
an effort that was successful in no small measure because of the
role of the Russian president, the Russian Government and, of
course, Mr. Chernomyrdin. And it was in that context that I first
met Mr. Putin. I saw him subsequently. I guess I saw him twice
in that capacity; at least once when he was prime minister, once
when he was acting president, and now I've seen him three times
as president.
My comments would be the following. He impresses his
interlocutors on the American side with his obvious considerable
intelligence, his straightforwardness, his confidence, his
command of facts and his command of arguments -- arguments
sometimes on behalf of positions with which we agree and, on
other times, on behalf of positions with which we do not agree.
But there is a kind of clear-cut quality to the way his mind
works and the way he presents things that makes for, I think,
economical, businesslike and, if the positions are close enough
together, productive discussions. And I know that President
Clinton values him as a partner. That's an overused word. It's
a controversial word. It's the right word. Defining exactly
what partnership means is something we are going to continue to
do for the next several decades. Lots of American presidents and
lots of Russian presidents are going to be involved in that.
But I think the way in which the word partnership has been
defined since it first popped up on the Russian side, which was
still in the Soviet period, but the way in which it has been
defined particularly by President Clinton working first with
President Yeltsin and now with President Putin, points the
process in the right direction. And that is, among other things,
a credit to President Putin, the way he has started his job and
his dealings with President Clinton.
It is our sense, those of us who have both dealt with him and who
have watched President Clinton deal with him, that on one issue
there is no disagreement between us. And it's an important
issue. And that is that Russia wants to be strong, Russia
deserves to be strong, Russia should have a place in the world
and in international and regional organizations that befits its
greatness as a country, the greatness of its culture, the immense
talent of its people, its huge size, its vast natural resources
and its great potential. Russia is not going to achieve that
aspiration unless and until it is able to plug into the global
economy and really have a role in the whole phenomenon of
globalization that is commensurate with its potential.
In other words, to put the point in the negative, autarky -- that
is, going it alone -- and confrontation with the rest of the
world, looking at the world in Leninist-"kto kogo" terms, to use
that expression again, is a disastrous course. It is one Russia
has already been down in the past. It is one Russia rejected.
We didn't reject it for Russia. We were against it, but Russia
rejected it -- the Russian people and the Russian reformist
leadership. And there is no question in our mind that President
Putin firmly believes that there is only one right path forward
for Russia, and that is to achieve strength through integration
with the international community.
It is our hope that as he defines strength, he will define -- and
applies that definition to way in which he governs the country as
its president -- he will do so in a way that doesn't only have an
economic dimension but that also has a dimension of politics in
the purest and most essential sense of the word. And that is the
relationship between a government and its people, a relationship
that is based on a sense of the government serving the people, a
government working for the people, a government being in place by
the choice of the people and the people having the freedom not
only to choose their leaders but to argue a lot, including in the
free press, about a government and its policies.
So that is, I hope, a responsive answer. And I was looking as I
came over here at the transcript of Secretary Albright's
interview last night on Charlie Rose. I don't know if any of you
saw it, but I think she describes Mr. Putin's presidency as a
work in progress. And we have questions about that work in
progress. We have seen things that concern us deeply. You know
the depths of our concerns about Chechnya, which doesn't just
have to do with Chechnya; it has to do with Russian democracy and
the nature of Russian society and not just tolerance but
protection of minority groups and their rights in Russia.
We have concerns about the evolution of civil society which we
have expressed from time to time. And I think going back to your
question about Mr. Putin, he is the kind of leader with whom our
leader feels that he can have a totally candid, no-holds-barred
conversation, and a very economical conversation. There is not a
lot of wasted time on protocol and euphemisms.
There is a great expression in Russian which always struck me, by
the way, as ungrammatical, but nazyvat' veshchi svoimi imenami,
which I don't think is 100 percent grammatical, but you know your
own language and you could tell me that. There is a sense that
Mr. Putin is the kind of leader who calls things by their own
name and doesn't object when his interlocutor or partner does the
same. And that was very much the quality that the conversation
today had.
QUESTION: My question was on the meeting of the two presidents.
Was there any discussion about Chechnya or the problem of
international terrorism or Central Asia?
DEPUTY SECRETARY TALBOTT: Yes, Chechnya came up. Terrorism came
up. Central Asia came up. It comes up, I might say, every time
they talk. And I would summarize it -- I can't go into detail
about it because if these two gentlemen are going to be able to
have the kind of open conversations that I have described, there
has to be a high degree of diplomatic confidentiality. But I
will tell you the essence of the issue between us.
I spoke earlier about everybody's hope that the United States and
Russia, to the greatest extent possible in the real world, two
big countries with different interests, can be on the same side.
We certainly have to be on the same side in the struggle against
terrorism. No question about that. The Russian people have had
bombs go off and explode buildings and kill people. So have we.
We have been there. We know how horrible that is. We have seen
what the -- we know how the horror reverberates in a democracy.
At the same time, we hope very much that Russia will be able to
define both the enemy and the means necessary to deal with the
enemy -- the enemy being terrorism -- in a way that doesn't make
enemies where there weren't enemies before. And the essence of
our concern about Chechnya is that while Chechnya unmistakably
had become a hotbed of criminality, banditry and terrorism and
extremism, Islamic extremism -- there is no question about that
-- that doesn't mean that all of the people in Chechnya are
enemies of the Russian people. But they are going to become that
if they suffer massive and indiscriminate violence at the hands
of the Russian military authorities.
So President Clinton's concern and the reason that he has made
sure that Chechnya comes up in every single discussion that he
has had with President Putin is not just with the innocent
victims of indiscriminate force in Chechnya; it's also his
concern with what this is doing to the Russian body politic as a
whole.
But we have actually had some quite concrete and serious and
potentially useful collaborate discussions between what are
called in Russian -- a wonderful phrase -- the competent organs,
as well as other appropriate experts. We do have a common enemy
here, but there has to be a high degree of commonality in the way
we see that enemy and what we are prepared to do about it if we
are going to work on it together.
All right? Thank you very much.
(###)
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