[EXCERPTS] WHITE HOUSE DAILY BRIEFING,
MARCH 20 THE WHITE HOUSE,
Office of the Press Secretary, (Helsinki, Finland)
March 20, 1997 - PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
.........
Q: Mike, are we likely to see any movement on the Russian request to extend the 2003 deadline? And if we did agree to anything along those lines, is it your understanding that that would require reratification by the Senate?
MCCURRY: Well, there will be a lot of discussion about where we are with START II, what the status of ratification is in the Duma, what the implications are as we look beyond START II and what the timing will be for, perhaps, a third round of strategic arms reductions. I don't want to preview that now because we clearly will be doing a lot of work on that tomorrow.
........
Q: Mike, what does the United States hope to accomplish in holding out the prospect of arms control concessions coming into these talks? What do you gain by dangling that possibility?
MCCURRY: Well, we are hoping, of course, to point ahead to the future of strategic arms reductions as we alert the Duma to the possibilities that exist beyond the ratification of START II. And obviously we think about how we can make the world a safer place as we delimit the size of the strategic arsenals on both sides and how we look ahead to the future. We are, in short, taking advantage of the enormous change in history that is represented by the end of the Cold War and the reduction of tensions from both sides, and codifying that or looking to codify that in how we approach the question of structuring the nuclear arsenals of both sides.
Q: So, if I could follow up, the U.S. is essentially trying to say to the Russian Parliament, look, there's a lot to be gained from going forward with this and we will offer some good faith here if you're willing to act?
MCCURRY: We certainly are trying to show what the possibilities are beyond START II, but we also want to address questions that are important to us, too -- how do we -- as we think about reducing the threat of intercontinental nuclear weaponry, we need to also address what the dangers are in regional theater-type ballistic missiles and we need to think about what the implications are for treaties that we've reached in the past, specifically the ABM. So how you fit those things together in the arms control equation will be a large part of the discussion tomorrow, and there are some outstanding issues there. There are some things, in short, that we want and expect, too, in exchange for looking ahead out on the horizon with respect to arms control.
................
Q: Mike, if the cost to the United States proceeding with NATO expansion is further intransigence by the Russians on arms control, is that in the U.S. national interest to proceed for the good of Central Europe and NATO at the expense of the nuclear arms reduction?
MCCURRY: Oh, I think that the reverse of that is the case -- that proceeding with adaptation of NATO to address the needs of the post-Cold War era and to prepare for the 21st century, while simultaneously advancing the objectives we have in reducing the size of the nuclear arsenals in the Russian Federation and the United States, is manifestly in the interests of all the people in Europe, and indeed all the people on the planet.
So that's what we're trying to make happen. And we believe we've got some opportunity to make that happen.
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