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State Department Noon Briefing

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2001 1:15 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

Q: Two questions on the upcoming meeting with Ivanov. Will Secretary Powell bring up the - I guess at this point it's unclear what the status of this agreement not to have any future contracts in arming Iran. Will this come up? It was at one point called the Gore-Chernomyrdin Agreement. I guess that's no longer applicable.

MR. BOUCHER: I hesitate, the closer we get to the meeting, to predict specific subjects as coming up or not coming up. Meetings sometimes have their own dynamic. But certainly the issue of nonproliferation efforts is very likely to come up, and I think as we have explained to you when you have asked about National Missile Defense and how it's discussed, and the Secretary has explained to you that he sees the need to discuss with partners and friends like the Russians issues of the overall strategic concept, which includes questions of offensive weapons but also of diplomacy of nonproliferation and of defense. So that I think that that whole - all those issues are likely to come up.

Q: To follow up, have there been any discussions at all with Moscow regarding potentially new contracts, arms contracts, with Iran? I know this was a hot issue at the end of Madeleine Albright's term.

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not aware that there are any specific new contracts. I would have to double-check on that point, but I don't think I've had any reported.

But certainly we've had, as you know, in late November or early December we had discussions with the Russians over the need to avoid sales to Iran and that we - I'm not sure we've had the same kind of sort of envoys, but this has been a subject of continuing discussion, I am sure, by our Embassy that the issue of proliferation is one of great concern to us. And I think all of us want to make sure that we aren't faced with sales now that might cause problems down the road.

Q: The first thing is that Ivanov was asked today if he expected the Hanssen case to come up, and he said, no, we have enough better things to talk about. Is that the position from this podium as well?

MR. BOUCHER: Again, they're going to talk about a lot of subjects. Whether one particular one comes up or not, I don't know, but I'm not anticipating any particular discussion about it.

Q: Okay. And the other thing is is that not only have the Russians come out very loudly in protesting today's Allied bombings in Iraq, but Ivanov has also gone back and talked about how - talked about the inviolability of the ABM Treaty. Does this make the meeting in Cairo any more tentacious - contentious?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. I guess that's one you can ask him whether he is trying to raise attention but --

Q: (Inaudible.)

MR. BOUCHER: Well, you will. You can ask this afterwards. We're anticipating a positive meeting and a chance for them to talk to each other face to face for the first time. As you know, they've talked a couple times on the telephone. There are certainly issues to bring up and issues that we want to pursue. Secretary Powell will do that in a straightforward manner, I am sure.