ACCESSION NUMBER:320470
FILE ID:POL204
DATE:01/11/94
TITLE:CLINTON-KRAVCHUK AGENDA TO FOCUS ON NUCLEAR ARMS AGREEMENT (01/11/94)
TEXT:*94011104.POL
CLINTON-KRAVCHUK AGENDA TO FOCUS ON NUCLEAR ARMS AGREEMENT
(Official assesses arms pact, NATO summit, Bosnia) (760)
By Alexander M. Sullivan
USIA White House Correspondent
Prague -- President Clinton wants to discuss "a number of issues" related to
Ukraine's agreement to eliminate nuclear warheads when he confers with
President Leonid Kravchuk in Kiev January 12, says a senior administration
official.
Clinton January 11 telephoned the Ukrainian leader from the presidential
aircraft Air Force One as he was en route from the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) summit in Brussels to Prague for discussions with the
Visegrad group. "I want to thank you for the courage you have shown,"
Clinton told Kravchuk, according to the official. The conversation was
reportedly brief, in part because of a bad telephone connection.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, the official suggested that
France and the United States had decided independently to address the
situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the NATO summit and had reconciled their
differing approaches late last week.
The United States, Ukraine and Russia will sign the nuclear agreement in
Moscow January 14. It provides Ukraine with incentives to carry out its
agreement under the Lisbon Protocol to dispose of the nuclear weapons left
1n its territory when the Soviet Union was dissolved. The agreement will
provide $175 million in U.S. funds to help dismantle 176 intercontinental
ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and move them to Russia for de-nuclearization.
In all, Ukraine will ship almost 1,800 warheads from ICBM and cruise
missiles and will share with Russia about $1,000 million in proceeds from
commercial sale of the enriched uranium taken from the warheads.
The president told a questioner at his news conference at NATO headquarters
that he expects the agreement to stand, noting that it includes advantages
for Kiev not contained in previous arrangements. Clinton said he believes
Kravchuk agreed to the pact "with the full understanding that he would have
to sell it" to the parliament or Rada. Executives, Clinton added, "often
have to sell to their legislative branches what they know is in the
national interest of their country."
The official said Clinton's confidence in the pact is backed by intelligence
reports stating the most dangerous class of missile, the SS-24, is already
being dismantled.
Also commenting on Bosnia-Herzegovina, the official said the onset of winter
and the deteriorating conditions in Sarajevo make the situation seem more
alarming than it had been in August, when NATO ministers warned the Serbs
that "strangulation" of the city could precipitate NATO air strikes. "It
is simply not true," the official said, "that we were pushed by the French
into addressing this issue."
Clinton, the official said, had approved language in the NATO Declaration
concerning rotation of U.N. troops in Srebrenica and opening of the air
strip at Tuzla, but he linked that to renewal of the NATO warning against
strangulation of Sarajevo. The president explained that stance in his NATO
news conference, saying the primary U.N. mission of distributing
humanitarian relief would be vastly complicated if Sarajevo were to be
destroyed.
The British and French, the official said, were more enthusiastic about use
of air power in Srebrenica and Tuzla because in each case close air support
of NATO troops would be ordered. Use of air power in Sarajevo -- where
both nations have troops in exposed conditions -- might be construed as a
commitment to Muslim forces defending the city.
After meeting European Union officials in Brussels, Clinton told a
questioner that NATO acted in part because of "the frustration of all of us
that no peace agreement has been made." He added that he believed an
"explicit debate" underlining the point that the countries that voted for
the declaration were prepared to use air strikes "should give this vote the
credibility...it deserves."
Responding to the suggestion that a NATO warning may have become "an empty
threat" because of failure to follow through on earlier statements, Clinton
said in the case of Sarajevo, the behavior of Bosnian-Serbs is a key
factor. Noting that Serb shelling of the city has escalated recently,
Clinton said if the current level of violence continues, "we'll see if our
resolve is there. My resolve is there. And I believe the people in that
room (at NATO) knew what they were doing when they voted for this
resolution."
What happens next, the president suggested, "depends in part on what will be
the conduct from this day forward of those who have been responsible for
shelling Sarajevo."
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