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U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

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QUESTION: Another one on a slightly different technical issue - I understand that Mr. Talbott has just returned back from Moscow. Can you tell us whom he met, what he discussed, what was achieved?

MR. RUBIN: I believe he met with a variety of Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Primakov. They discussed the important subjects of arms control, and focused on the prospects for ratification of START II. They were encouraged by what they heard. We remain hopeful, and we expect to see action by the Duma this Fall. And we are hoping that they will see the wisdom of ratifying a treaty that's very much in the interest of the Russian people, because of all the reasons that we have stated many times.

They also discussed at an expert level the prospects for further negotiation under the rubric of START III to reduce further the sides' strategic nuclear forces to the realm of 2,000 to 2,500 warheads.

Finally, they discussed a matter that is of extreme importance to the United States, and that is the cooperation that we believe we need from Russia in trying to prevent the acquisition of long-range missiles by Iran. We take very seriously the problem of transfers of missile technology that could contribute to Iran's missile program. We have raised our concerns repeatedly at the highest levels of the Russian Government.

Russia has made clear that its policy is not to assist Iran's missile program. We have now established a mechanism to pursue this with the Russians, and are working hard to resolve the problem. We take very seriously reports about transfers in this area. We follow up on them. If the facts warrant, we take the steps necessary to deal with them.

Deputy Secretary Talbott followed up on the work that Foreign Minister Primakov and Secretary Albright had done, and that Vice President Gore and Prime Minister Chernomyrdin had done to intensify and accelerate our mechanism on Iran. It was a very serious discussion; a lot of work took place. I'm not in a position to discuss specific cases, but we hope to have an early date for Ambassador Wisner, our special envoy on this subject, to be able to go to Moscow and discuss this further.

QUESTION: Have you gotten a commitment from the Russians not to sell long-range missiles of any kind or their component parts to Iran?

MR. RUBIN: Yes, absolutely. That's part of the MTCR commitment that the Russians have already made. They have made clear that if there are such components or technology going, it's not as a result of Russian Government policy.

What we've been doing is not focusing on Russian Government policy, but focusing on ensuring that there are no entities in Russia that are acting inconsistently with that policy.

QUESTION: And how did the Russians tell you that they would get a handle on this?

MR. RUBIN: Well, this is a problem that occurs in many parts of the world where companies or entities occasionally are in a position to do things that their governments don't want them to do. We've seen that in other European countries. We've obviously seen that in China, where the Chinese Government has said that things haven't gone on and we've believed that certain entities have done things.

So the way you get a handle on it is, you get down to specific cases; you have the promulgation of regulations; you have enforcement of those regulations; and you have penalties for those who violate those regulations. That is the system that we use in the United States; that's the system that our European partners in the MTCR use. But that doesn't mean that things don't slip through the cracks.

The Russian Government has been responsive to our efforts when we've provided specific cases to try to solve them. In fact, they publicly stated, I believe, last week that there was a specific case that they had been made aware of, and they stopped it. So that's what this whole mechanism is about - is making sure that we and they are working from the same information base, and making sure that both we and they take that information with the same level of seriousness and that regulations are promulgated, regulations are enforced and penalties ensue.

QUESTION: Have you told them about plans to impose penalties on any specific entities? I mean, have you --

MR. RUBIN: I'm not aware at this point that we have any determinations that would yield sanctions at this time.

QUESTION: Did he raise the Total-GasProm --

MR. RUBIN: Given the sensitivity of this case, I think most discussions with the government of France and the government of Russia included discussion of this case, yes.

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