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White House Briefing February 4, 1997
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY

Q What is the U.S. inclination about meeting -- the President's inclination about meeting Yeltsin in Europe next month instead of Washington?

MR. MCCURRY: His inclination is that it's very important to meet soon within the March time frame with President Yeltsin. And we've not selected a time or place, but we have got our own travel schedule looking ahead, and we can certainly have further discussions with the Russian Federation about President Yeltsin's travel plans or travel schedule.

Q But the U.S. is willing to meet outside the United States should that accommodate Yeltsin because of his illness?

MR. MCCURRY: I wouldn't want to rule it out, but it would be premature to say that at this point. I suspect that will be a subject that the Vice President and the Prime Minister get into when they conduct their meetings next week.

Q You said this morning, Mike, that you were going to check on a Washington Times story that said that the Russians were developing a new chemical weapon?

MR. MCCURRY: Well, I did and I've got a long guidance here that essentially says that the Convention itself as foreseen does not -- while it doesn't specifically list each and every novel agent or chemical under development, it does apply ways in which you could address some of the concerns raised, but it doesn't -- as a general answer, it doesn't apply specifically to something that is an intelligence matter that we can't get into.

Q Does the United Nations share with the administration the supposedly new evidence that Iraq has -- continues to develop missiles?

Q There's a story in the Frankfurt -- which says that, U.N. inspectors have concluded both that Iraq continues to develop missiles and which reports that the United States is considering a missile strike against Iraq.

MR. MCCURRY: I will have to look into that. Is that coming out of the work of Ekeus and the Special Commission or -- That's news to me. David will follow up on that.