U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing #19, 97-02-04
From: The Department of State Foreign Affairs Network (DOSFAN) at <http://www.state.gov>
1503
U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing
I N D E X
February 4, 1997
Briefer: Nicholas Burns
DEPARTMENT/ANNOUNCEMENTS
1,10 Secretary Albright's Remarks/ Embassy Statement issued re:
Ambassador Harriman
1-2 Secretary Albright's Activities on 2/4; Trip to Houston
6-10 Information on Secretary Albright's Family
14-15,17-19 Senator Helms Proposals re: UN Reform/Consolidation of Foreign
Affairs Agencies/CWC
PAKISTAN
2,5 National Assembly Elections
FORMER YUGOSLAVIA
Serbia
2-5 --Recognition of Election Results
3-4 --Demonstrations
TURKEY
5 Report of Military Movements near Ankara
IRAQ
10-12 Compliance w/Internat'l. Commitments
12 Food Deliveries
RUSSIA
12-13 Gore-Chernomyrdin Mtgs. in Washington
13-14 Russia-NATO Agreement/Negotiations
NORTH KOREA
14 Future Mtgs. w/US
25 Negotiations w/Cargill
MISCELLANEOUS
15-17 Nazi Gold/Tripartite Gold Commission
CYPRUS
19-20 Sir David Hannay's Discussions in Washington
NATO
20-22 NATO Expansion
ZAIRE
22-23 Eastern Zaire-U.S. Urges Immediate Ceasefire/ Non-Involvement
of Outsiders in Conflict
CUBA
22-24 Arrest of Hector Palacios Ruiz
24 Helms-Burton
24 Cuba/Canada Understanding re: Human Rights
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
DPB #19
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1997, 1:33 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
MR. BURNS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the State
Department. I want to begin today by just saying how sorry all of us were
in the State Department to hear the news about Ambassador Pamela Harriman
last evening.
Secretary Albright, this morning, led off her meeting with Assistant
Secretaries with some very moving remarks about her friend, Ambassador
Pamela Harriman. She has a lot of friends in this building -- Secretary of
State, Strobe Talbott, Peter Tarnoff and many, many others. We are praying
for her.
I think you've all seen the statement from our Embassy in Paris that was
issued at 10:00 a.m. this morning, Paris time.
I just talked to the Embassy a couple of minutes ago. That is the only
statement they have issued today. It's likely to be the only statement
that they will issue throughout the day, and I'll just read it to
you.
"Ambassador Harriman was taken ill at about 7:00 p.m. in Paris on Monday
while at the Ritz Hotel in Paris where she had gone for a swim. She was
taken by ambulance to the American Hospital at Neuilly where she is being
treated and her medical condition evaluated.
"The initial diagnosis is that the Ambassador suffered a cerebral
hemorrhage. She remains in serious condition.
Members of Ambassador Harriman's family are with her."
As I said, I think the appropriate thing for all us to do now is pray for
her and to think of her, and that is certainly what people are doing here
at the Department of State led by Secretary of State.
I wanted to also let you know a little bit about what the Secretary of
State has been doing today. She has had a normal day today; probably the
first normal day she has had since becoming Secretary of State where she's
been able to go through a range of things on her schedule.
She began the day with an 8:30 staff meeting with her senior staff. She
then attended a meeting with Assistant Secretaries.
That is normally chaired by Strobe Talbott. She is having lunch right now
with former Secretary of State James Baker up on the Eighth Floor. That
was at her invitation. She will be meeting with the Ugandan President,
President Museveni at 4:00 p.m. today.
She's going to be attending very briefly a dinner honoring Zbigniew
Brzezinski at the National Endowment for Democracy. Then she'll need to
leave that dinner a little bit early to go off to Capitol Hill for the
State of the Union address. Of course, she'll be participating in that for
the first time as Secretary of State, witnessing that event.
I also wanted to say a word about the elections in Pakistan.
The Pakistan Muslim League, led by Nawaz Sharif yesterday, won a majority
of seats in the National Assembly of Pakistan.
International observers have not reported any significant electoral
irregularities, and the election results, of course, are not yet fully
complete but we certainly congratulate Mr. Nawaz Sharif upon his apparent
victory. Should he indeed form the next government of Pakistan, the United
States Government will work with him cooperatively to strengthen our
relationship with Pakistan.
So those are the items I wanted to begin with. Barry, I'll be glad to go
to your questions.
QUESTION: Let's try Serbia, if we could -- what State's impression is
of Milosevic's latest moves. We know there's a certain up and down quality
to his public statements. What's the analysis here? What is he up to? Is
he saying goodbye in some way?
MR. BURNS: We've seen just quite recently in the last couple of hours
the statement made by the Serbian Government this morning -- by Mr.
Milosevic this morning. If accurate, we welcome this as a first step
forward in the right direction in Serbia.
We have believed all along that a solution to the political crisis ought
to be found based upon the recommendations of the Organization of Security
and Cooperation in Europe. However, we will remain skeptical until we see
concrete actions by the Serbian Government to implement the commitment made
this morning.
We need to see concrete actions that demonstrate, indeed, that the
Serbian Government will recognize and respect the results of the November
17th elections. That means that the people who won the elections and the
Zajedno coalition, which was the primary victor in 15 of the 18 constituencies,
that they will actually take their seats in the city councils all over
Serbia and begin to govern. Until we get there, we're going to reserve
some judgment.
We will remain skeptical, and we'll look for these deeds by the Serbian
Government.
In the meantime, we certainly expect that if the Serbian Government is
offering an olive branch, if it indeed intends to reverse itself and
recognize these elections, we and others around the world will see no
further actions by the Serbian police to beat up demonstrators who are
exercising their political rights in the streets of Belgrade and in the
rest of the country. The kinds of actions that we saw over the weekend
were fundamentally anti-democratic.
QUESTION: Were the Federal Government to strip some of the powers that
city councils have had heretofore away from them, were it, for example, to
remove from the city councils in the 15 relevant districts control of the
local media, would you regard that as -- how would you regard that?
MR. BURNS: That would not be fair play. That would not recognize the
fact that when the elections were held in November, people ran for seats in
the city councils assuming that they had jobs with specifically --
positions, with specifically designed responsibilities, and if part of this
-- if the Serbian Government is going to play games here and say they're
going to recognize the elections but then take away the power from those
who win the seats, that would not be fair play and that would not be
accepted by the rest of the world and certainly would not meet the
requirements, the spirit or the letter of the OSCE recommendations to the
Serbian Government. So that's why we remain skeptical.
We will look very closely at the actions of the Serbian Government, not
just at these words, however welcome they are, that we have seen today.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) a few weeks was saying they will allow these
people to take office but it has to be through the internal procedures of
the Serbian state and the judicial process.
Now, he seems to be circumventing it completely.
MR. BURNS: If you trace the course of Mr. Milosevic's behavior
throughout this conflict since November 17th, we've seen before -- I think
two previous instances -- some nice words where we believed or some
believed that perhaps there was a chance to move forward. That's why we
are reserving fundamental judgment on this action and why we have a healthy
degree of skepticism about this statement this morning. The words are
important. But what is much more important would be actions.
QUESTION: How do you analyze the fact that they're beating up -- on the
eve of this announcement, they are beating up demonstrators right and left.
How do you put those two together?
MR. BURNS: They are contradictory impulses by the Serbian Government.
The United States has clearly and unequivocally condemned the use of police
force against demonstrators who, on Sunday, were actually disbursing from
the demonstration and who, in all cases, by independent media accounts --
Western media accounts, objective ones -- were demonstrating peacefully and
not inciting violence or engaging in acts of violence.
So, again, because of this ironical juxtaposition, we need to see
commitments and actions by the Serbian Government.
QUESTION: Nick, one of the leaders of the opposition to Mr. Milosevic --
and pardon me -- Mr. Djindjic -- is that correct --
MR. BURNS: Djindjic.
QUESTION: Djindjic, yes. Excuse me. Mr. Djindjic says that the
opposition will continue, and I would quote: "Will continue its protest
until those responsible for the police crackdown that injured 80 protesters
late Sunday and early Monday are punished and until the media was freed
from state control." What is the reaction of the U.S. Government to these
continued, or what are at least forecast to be continued protests?
MR. BURNS: The United States has said clearly and repeatedly that the
people have a right to be in the streets to demonstrate for their basic
political rights and that includes press freedoms.
We support press freedom in Serbia. We support political and human rights
in Serbia. We have supported the right of the demonstrators to be in the
streets peacefully.
QUESTION: I understand your position that Milosevic is not indispensable
for the Bosnian peace process. But what is the legal mechanism? Who, then,
would become the responsible signatory to the Dayton Accords should he
disappear?
MR. BURNS: Should Milosevic disappear?
QUESTION: Yes.
MR. BURNS: Secretary Albright has said, repeatedly, in her first
couple of weeks in office, and as we have noted even since the signing of
the Dayton Accords, these are states that made commitments at Dayton.
They're countries that made commitments.
Now, governments come and go all the time. That's true of any country,
but the state commitments will last. So even if Mr. Milosevic should pass
from the scene, hypothetically, we would expect that the Serbian Government
that succeeded him, or those whoever succeeded him, would be responsible
for the Dayton commitments.
That's true of Bosnia, it's true of Croatia. It's true of the United
States. It's true of any signatory to these Dayton Accords.
QUESTION: But, Nick, if I remember correctly, Milosevic's participation
serves a double purpose. He spoke for Serbia but he also vouched for the
Bosnian Serbs --
MR. BURNS: That's right.
QUESTION: -- who, reasonably enough, the U.S. didn't want to -- what? --
leave that out. But he was the vehicle for bringing in the Bosnian Serbs
sidewise. He vouched for them. Can any other leader that the U.S. can see
on the horizon vouch for or be held responsible for the behavior of the
Bosnian Serbs?
MR. BURNS: We don't believe that anybody is indispensable to preserve
the peace in Bosnia. We believe that you need the collective action of
states to preserve peace. It's true that from September 1995 on, even
before the signing of the accords, Mr. Milosevic undertook to work with the
Bosnian Serbs in a joint Serbian delegation. You remember at Dayton -- you
remember who initialed, and you remember who signed at Paris on December
14 of '95, the Bosnian Serbs initialed and signed. They are responsible.
So Madam Plavsic and Mr. Krajisnik are also responsible as well as the
Serbian authorities in Belgrade for maintaining the Dayton Accords. We
expect that they will do that.
QUESTION: Back to Pakistan for a moment. I was surprised in your
statement -- you took no account of the extraordinary circumstances in
which this election has taken place. The politics in Pakistan has not been
at all normal. Mrs. Bhutto's ouster has not been (inaudible) normal. So I
wonder how you can be congratulating her successor so lightly without
taking account of that?
MR. BURNS: Roy, I just didn't think I wanted to give a dissertation on
Pakistani politics. We normally don't do that kind of thing. You're right,
there's been a lot of turbulence in Pakistani politics in the last couple
of months. But elections were held; people had a chance to vote. The
international observers -- and they're were many of them, including some
from the United States -- did not notice or publicly cite any significant
irregularities in the voting.
In a democracy, when elections are held and votes are counted, you need
to move on. The United States did not interfere in these elections, and we
will not have a lot to say about internal Pakistani politics but we will
have a lot to say about our continued interest in strengthening cooperation
between our two countries because it's important for us and it's important
for Pakistan and for stability in south Asia.
QUESTION: These elections take place in anything approaching normal
circumstances. Maybe the voting was error-free or corruption-free more or
less. It's the broader circumstances that I'm wondering about.
MR. BURNS: You know, it's always better to let the people decide
questions that are sensitive in any country. Obviously, there have been
charges back and forth between the major political parties in Pakistan.
The people have voted, and they have voted, it seems, in great numbers. At
least, there's a great decisive voice here for a particular government. So
we Americans, who have not interfered, I think should not interfere in that
process but certainly welcome the opportunity to work with a Pakistani
Government because that's in our interest.
QUESTION: Nick, can I ask you about Turkey? Do you have any insights
into what may be going on? For example, there was some military movement
in a suburb of Ankara which suggested an incipient coup. Do you see it
that way?
MR. BURNS: Jim, it's not been my practice here to comment on the
movement of military assets in a democracy. Turkey is a democracy. It's a
stable country; it's a NATO ally. I see no reason here, having talked to
our experts in the building, to be concerned about political stability in
Turkey.
We will continue to work with the secular democracy that Turkey is and
trust that Turkey and the United States will remain very close NATO allies.
But I don't know much about these reports.
There have been a few wire service reports, but we have no comment to make
on them.
QUESTION: Same area. Yesterday, I asked about the Secretary's letter
to the Greek Prime Minister, Pangalos. Did you check the letter?
MR. BURNS: I had so many questions yesterday. I'm not sure that we
did check into that. I can't remember ever having checked into that. You
wanted us to just give you the letter?
QUESTION: No, no, no.
MR. BURNS: Give you the private correspondence?
QUESTION: The Greek press has already published the letter, you
know?
MR. BURNS: Is that right?
QUESTION: Yeah.
MR. BURNS: I would like to congratulate the American press for their
forbearance on this issue. I haven't seen it in the American press today.
I think it's a very good thing that leaders get to communicate with each
other without seeing it on the front pages of their newspapers. We don't
talk about private correspondence between leaders. If there is anything
significant, I'd let you know about it.
QUESTION: Nick, can you describe Madeleine Albright's reaction to the
story that appeared today about her Jewish ancestry -- her alleged Jewish
ancestry? I wonder whether or not she is satisfied, in fact, of the
accuracy of this report or if she is going further in her own way to verify
what happened to her grandparents during World War II. And also how this
might possibly affect her, in any way, shape, or form, whether it be the
relationship with the Arabs, with Israel, with Eastern Europe, with Germany,
or any of these countries? I'm not sure that this is pertinent.
MR. BURNS: This is obviously a highly personal and highly emotional
issue for Secretary Albright and her family members.
I think you can understand that, given what that family has gone through
and particularly what that family went through before, during and after the
second World War, having twice been driven from their home, first by Hitler
and the second time by Stalin.
I would do this, Ben. I would refer you to Michael Dobbs' article this
morning. Michael did personal research on this.
I think he's done an outstanding job. The Secretary was quite interested
in this information when it was presented to her late last week for the
very first time. I think this remains for her a personal issue for she and
her family. It in no way, shape or form will have any impact whatsoever
on her performance or her outlook as Secretary of State.
Betsy.
QUESTION: Has she received any of the documentation that was turned
up?
MR. BURNS: Yes. Some of the research that was done by the Post was
given to her, and she's very grateful for that.
As you know, she intends -- as she has said before -- she intends to
follow this up -- she and her family -- and to look into it further. You
can imagine the situation for her. She has lived all of her life, as you
know, since she left Czechoslovakia -- when she was in Czechoslovakia and
since she left in one way, and this information was quite interesting to
her, and she will follow it up.
QUESTION: Nick, in all of the extensive background checks this
government did before she became a U.N. representative and now Secretary of
State -- none of this ever came up? Not an inkling?
Not an investigation? Not an inquiry on the ground by the U.S. Embassy in
Prague, for example?
MR. BURNS: But, Sid, let me ask you, why would there have been
inquiries. The fact is that Secretary Albright came to this country in
1948 as an 11-year-old. She's a naturalized American citizen. She has
lived the great majority of her life in this country, and she's been in
public service for a long, long time. She's been in the public spotlight
for a long, long time. She didn't know anything about this until this
information was presented to her last week, and therefore, she's going
to look into it.
But when you do background checks on individuals -- whether it's me or
Glyn (Davies), or John (Dinger) or anybody else, what the investigative
people are looking for is your actions here in the United States. You know,
have you been involved in drugs.
Have you been involved in excessive consumption of alcohol, and have you
undertaken any extra-constitutional acts. That's what investigators are
looking for. I mean, they don't normally go back and research who your
family is. So I don't believe that was ever done, nor should it have been
done by any of the investigative services. It would have been highly
intrusive and inappropriate for that to have been done.
QUESTION: I know from my own experience in getting credentials here
that when you fill out a form, you put down every trip you've taken
overseas and the type of people you --
MR. BURNS: And I'm sure Secretary Albright did that when she received
her first security clearance, I guess, back in the 1970s, when she worked
at the National Security Council.
But I don't see that as an issue, Sid. I really don't. I don't think
that's part of this issue at all. From my understanding of background
checks, it's just not normal to do that.
QUESTION: So the answer was no, there was no investigation into --
MR. BURNS: Sid, I wasn't present in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security
back in the 1970s when I assume the first background check was done. So I
can't answer the question, what did they look into, what they didn't. I
can just tell you what the norm is, and I'd be highly surprised if they
were asking -- I know when I got my security clearance, no one went back
and asked me about my grandparents or my great-grandparents or my
parents.
QUESTION: This is quite interesting. Could you take that question?
MR. BURNS: I'll consider it, Sid, but I don't know where that
information lies. I have no idea where that information lies. I don't
think it's a pertinent question. I'm trying to be helpful to you. The way
that this information came out is that Michael Dobbs did an extraordinary
amount of research on his own in Prague, and I think we need to -- I would
really point you towards his article. I think it's a very interesting
article, very well done.
QUESTION: But she got information apart from that -- information that's
been coming into her -- bits and pieces, some credible, right? Some off
the wall, right?
MR. BURNS: I can tell you from my discussions with Secretary Albright
over the weekend and just in the past day or two that she did not have any
inkling of this -- any true inkling of this until last Thursday when this
was presented to her by The Washington Post, and she was quite surprised by
it, quite interested in it, and she's certainly going to look into it
further, as you can imagine she would, having received this information.
As you know, she's 59. She's lived her entire life as a practicing
Christian, and now to get this information is quite surprising and
quite important to her, and she will look into it.
But I want to stress one thing. It goes back to Ben's original question.
This is a personal issue. This is a personal issue for she and her family.
It's not a political issue. It is not a foreign policy issue, and it's not
going to have an impact on the way she does her job.
QUESTION: How did she look into it?
MR. BURNS: Excuse me?
QUESTION: Sorry. I was asking the other question preliminarily --
MR. BURNS: Again, that's up to she and her family. I assume in the way
that one would normally do that. You know, you inquire among people in
Prague.
QUESTION: Let's back up further. You want to leave the impression that
all the information, all the credible or at least provocative or intriguing
or interesting information that came in, came from one reporter's material,
because I had another impression that apart from that, since she's become
prominent, things have been coming in -- you know, almost in a torrential
flow, because prominent people get all sorts of mail. Some of it is wacky
and some of it isn't. So I was going to ask you if I'm wrong in that
impression -- which I don't think I am -- and, secondly, when we keep
hearing she's going to look into it, I just wondered -- in other words, if
you're describing this information as having been received passively, as
interesting as it is, but not having looked for this, inquired about this,
but it having come to her, and she finding it surprising and startling and
interesting and that even fairly compelling I believe is the phrase she
used --
MR. BURNS: That's right.
QUESTION: How does she then look into it, or how does the family "look
into it"? What will they do?
MR. BURNS: Thank you, Barry, for raising one issue that she has shared
with some reporters who have talked to her about this. Since she was
nominated as Secretary of State, she has received a lot of mail from
Eastern Europe. A lot of this mail referred to stories about her father or
her, which were clearly inaccurate, and so she didn't pay much attention to
it. A small part of it I think referred to the fact that her family may
have Jewish roots. Frankly, so much came in a very busy time that
she didn't look into that in a formal way.
But when she received the information last week from The Washington Post,
it's compelling information. It's very interesting, and it's all about her
family story. So, of course, she and her family are going to find some way
to try to take what the Post has given them and look into it. I think
anybody in this room who was in her position would, I'm sure, do the same
thing.
QUESTION: All right. But, Nick, there are ways to look into this
information. She is not the only person of this - in this situation,
having had this kind of information available to them. There are ways to
look into this. There are resources.
I mean, 50 years of records have been compiled by various groups and
individuals. If you don't know how she's going to pursue it, I'll drop it.
But we keep hearing that she's going to look into it, and, since she never
looked into it before, it's interesting how she will now take the
initiative to look into it. I don't know what she intends to do.
MR. BURNS: Barry, I'm not sure -
QUESTION: By the way, were birth certificates among the information
that came to her?
MR. BURNS: Birth certificates of -
QUESTION: Her parents, grandparents.
MR. BURNS: I don't know.
QUESTION: Okay.
MR. BURNS: I don't know if that was part of the information given to
her. I just don't know at all.
QUESTION: This is not an inquisition. I'm just wondering how she's
going to look into it?
MR. BURNS: I think it's appropriate that it not be.
QUESTION: All right.
MR. BURNS: Look, she just found out this information Thursday, so she
and her family will have to decide how they pursue this. If you put
yourself into her shoes, I think you'd probably conclude the same thing.
She has not indicated to me exactly how she will go about this, and I
believe that this process is a family decision for her and her family
members to undertake together, and that's how she sees it, and I think
that's the way it's going to be.
QUESTION: Not to move away from the focus on what you feel is kind of
inappropriate - I suppose I do, too - focus on her personal life. You
mentioned earlier that it wouldn't be a foreign policy issue.
MR. BURNS: I said that in response to Ben's question.
QUESTION: But there's already newspapers in the Middle East that are
commenting on it. One wonders how President Assad would take it, given the
makeup of the rest of the peace team.
You don't think it's going to have any impact in the Middle East?
MR. BURNS: No, I don't, because Madeleine Albright is the Secretary of
State of the United States, and when she travels around the world and when
she speaks around the world and meets with foreign leaders here in
Washington, she is the highest ranking Cabinet official, and she speaks for
the President of the United States. I think that we can trust that leaders
around the world, particularly those in the Middle East, will be sophisticated
enough to understand who she is and who she works for. I don't anticipate
any kind of - I don't anticipate this being an issue whatsoever.
Betsy.
QUESTION: Nick, on Ambassador Harriman, can you say if any specialists
have gone from this country to help in her treatment?
MR. BURNS: No. I just don't have any information on that, Betsy. I
just don't know.
QUESTION: Has John Kornblum come home, or did he go to Paris?
MR. BURNS: John, I believe, is on his way home from Frankfurt. That's
the latest information I have. I'm looking at Glyn (Davies.) I think it
is.
QUESTION: Can I change the subject to Iraq. There's a story in the
German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung that the United States is
contemplating new action against Iraq because of it's failure to comply on
missiles.
MR. BURNS: We've seen some of the press reports that you have seen.
Let me just make two brief points. First, the Iraqis lied to the United
Nations for five years about their development of advanced missile
technology and of chemical and biological weapons. They now say they're
telling the truth. We'll see.
We're going to watch the Iraqis closely, relying upon Ambassador Ekeus
and the United Nations inspection team to watch them. But we will want to
make sure that Iraq complies with its international commitments and with
the United Nations.
QUESTION: Could you be a little more specific, as you've just touched
on this. There's a long history. What I'd like you to try to address, if
you could, is the inquiry based on a continuing uncertainty whether Iraq
can be trusted, and you have a long history that would lead you to some
uncertainty; or is there new, hard evidence from Mr. Ekeus, who spoke here
in Washington before lots of reporters and think tankers last week? Is
there something new and concrete, or is it the continuing uncertainty?
They don't really expose all their plans? They have a cheat-and-retreat --
as a previous Administration used to say - policy? Have you come upon - or
has he and his group come upon any hard evidence of violations that bear
exploring now?
MR. BURNS: There's continuing interest in watching the Iraqis like
hawks. No, we do not trust the Iraqis. We would be naïve to trust the
Iraqis. But, as President Reagan used to say, you've got trust and you've
got verification, and we intend to verify to the United Nations that the
Iraqis are indeed complying with their international commitments. The
Iraqis don't have a right to be a normal country and develop normal
weaponry because of their violations of international rules in invading
Kuwait nearly seven years ago. So we will watch them, and they have
to understand that we'll continue to watch them very closely.
QUESTION: You're not saying there's new evidence. You're saying that
we have a good track record - we have a track record to go on, and it
causes us to keep a careful watch.
MR. BURNS: We have continued interest, and we'll have continued
vigilance in watching them.
QUESTION: Well, they didn't say in the reports there's new material
available. You're not verifying.
MR. BURNS: I can't. I'm not in a position to do that, Barry.
QUESTION: You didn't answer Patrick's - the second half of Patrick's
question, which some of us (inaudible) from the story, that as a result the
United States is contemplating further military action against Iraq.
MR. BURNS: I can't remember a time when the United States tried to
flag a military action for any rogue state around the world. Listen,
there's no change in our policy here, and there's no heightened interest -
there's no heightened concern in Washington.
There's continuing vigilance in Washington on this issue, but I simply
can't comment on any prospect of the use of military force. We never
do.
QUESTION: We gave them a date of invasion. We gave Haiti a date. So it
has been done. Not usually.
MR. BURNS: I didn't do that, Barry, no. I don't believe so.
QUESTION: But the Administration worked -
MR. BURNS: I don't remember people doing that.
QUESTION:15th of January -
MR. BURNS: Barry -
QUESTION: War's over. You get out of Kuwait or we move in, period.
MR. BURNS: You know, we have under - in 19 -
QUESTION: Sometimes you talk real -
MR. BURNS: In 1994 and in 1996, we did undertake certain military
actions to counter the Iraqis, and we didn't flag that action for them.
But I don't want to raise any undue concerns here. We have an ongoing
level of interest regarding the Iraqis, which is a dishonest government.
But I'm not trying to flag anything new. And in answer to Barry's question,
I'm not in a position to confirm any of these stories about new contradictions
in Iraqi performance.
David.
QUESTION: You're not flagging anything new, but does the United States
regard as one of its options in the event of Iraqi violations of these
various undertakings the use of military force to eliminate whatever
violations or -
MR. BURNS: The United States always reserves the right to use its
military force to defend its national interests anywhere in the world -
anywhere in the world - but I see no reason to heighten your concern in any
way pertaining to the situation in the Middle East.
QUESTION: Nick, vaguely the same subject. Has Iraq started receiving
yet its shipments of food and humanitarian supplies?
MR. BURNS: I'll have to check on that. U.N. Resolution 986, of course,
is underway - the implementation is underway, and I assume some of those
food deliveries are underway. But let me check and get back to you
tomorrow on that.
QUESTION: Do you have anything on the Baker - I'm sorry.
QUESTION: Gore-Chernomyrdin. Still on track, and what focus is the
United States going to try to direct these meetings toward?
MR. BURNS: The Gore-Chernomyrdin meetings are very much on track.
They'll be held here between the 5th and 7th, Wednesday through Friday.
The Vice President and Prime Minister Chernomyrdin have an excellent
working relationship. The purpose of the Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission is
to focus the two governments in eight working groups, each led by a
minister on the respective sides, on moving forward with technological
cooperation, scientific cooperation, cooperation in space, cooperation
between our two militaries, and on political and foreign policy issues.
This is, I think, one of the more important meetings that we've had.
This idea was germinated at the Vancouver Summit in April 1993. Since then,
there have been a variety of meetings.
But I think this meeting will be the broadest meeting in terms of its
scope but also the most important. We'll certainly be interested in
discussing a lot of the major political issues concerning European security,
and I might add we continue to believe that NATO enlargement is good for
NATO and it's the right way, coupled with the NATO-Russia charter and the
reform of NATO to provide for security in Europe in the next century. So
we'll be talking about all these issues with Prime Minister Chernomyrdin.
QUESTION: Chernomyrdin, in an interview in The Washington Post today,
complained that the so-called NATO-Russian charter was a bit vague. Do you
share his assessment of the "vague" concept at this point?
MR. BURNS: There is an agreement between Russia and NATO that we ought
to negotiate the terms of a NATO-Russia charter.
Secretary General Solana has begun to do that, and he has his second
meeting in Moscow on February 23rd. That document will become much more
specific and much less vague the further we go along in the negotiations.
Our objective is to have a decision taken on the NATO enlargement by July
7th to 8th in Madrid, and we'd like to have a Russia-NATO charter worked
out by then to couple the steps forward on NATO enlargement.
However, we will go forward on NATO enlargement if we are not able to
proceed satisfactorily on the NATO-Russia negotiations in the meantime, and
that's a very important point to remember, because the NATO heads of state
took a decision three years ago in Brussels - in January 1994 - to go ahead
with enlargement, and it's going forward. There's no question about
that.
QUESTION: Let me ask about last week. Christopher, I think, first used
the word "charter," the reference - he embellished it as well in a speech
in Germany. Then it sort of dropped out, and you brought it back last
week. I asked if you were still thinking of a charter. I asked you then.
I'll ask you again. Are you speaking of a legal document, something
that has some legal requirements on the NATO alliance?
MR. BURNS: I think it's not possible to predict at this point what the
final result is going to be. We have referred to it as a charter. It's
essentially a rules of the road that will allow NATO and Russia to work
together. But the final document - what it's going to look like, how many
pages, what it's going to be called - that's going to be up to NATO and
Russia.
QUESTION: It will be written down.
MR. BURNS: I assume there are going to be words attached to it,
yes.
QUESTION: Speaking of meetings, when do you expect to see the North
Koreans?
MR. BURNS: We'd like to see the North Koreans. We had two meetings
scheduled. Now both of those meetings have been postponed. The North
Koreans have very important grain negotiations underway, and they prefer to
consummate those negotiations before they get on to the meetings with us
and the South Koreans in New York. So we're not going to give out any
dates for future meetings until we know that the North Koreans actually
intend to attend the meetings.
We'll continue talking to them in New York, as we do roughly once per
week, and we hope that they'll agree that they ought to come to the
briefing, because we ought to move forward with the issue of a peace treaty
for the Korean peninsula.
QUESTION: Nick, another question on Secretary Albright.
When she went up to Capitol Hill and talked about the Chemical Weapons
thing, did she get as discouraging as The Washington Post makes it
seem?
MR. BURNS: Let me just say a few words about that. You saw the
statement by Senator Helms yesterday, as reported in The Washington Post
this morning.
QUESTION: Last week?
MR. BURNS: Excuse me?
QUESTION: Did she learn that last week from him?
MR. BURNS: No, she didn't. She has had a number of discussions on
this, but the letter, I think, she learned about the first time about some
of the proposals made by Senator Helms.
Secretary Albright understands Senator Helms' views concerning reorganization
of the foreign affairs agencies and his views on United Nations reform.
She shares the view that both are important issues, and she strongly
desires to pursue a bipartisan approach in addressing each of these issues.
Secretary Albright strongly disagrees that these issues should be linked to
Senate advice and consent to ratification of the Chemical Weapons
Convention. Each is an important issue - U.N. reform and consolidation of
the foreign affairs agencies - that should be addressed on their own and on
their own merits.
She wrote last week in her op-ed in The New York Times a couple of days
after being sworn in that the American people deserve a healthy public
debate on the Chemical Weapons Convention, in which American interests are
weighed and a final vote is taken.
I would just note this. The Chemical Weapons Treaty has enjoyed
bipartisan support for a number of years. It was negotiated by the Reagan
and Bush Administrations. In fact, it was President Bush that gave the CWC
its impetus. Secretary of State Baker negotiated it, and Secretary of
State Eagleburger signed it in Paris in mid-January of 1993. The United
States negotiated the agreement with the full participation of the
private sector of the U.S. chemical industries in the United States,
and the chemical industry supports ratification of the CWC.
It's also supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and by all agencies of
the Executive Branch. So I know that General Normal Schwarzkopf spoke out
about it this last week. Let me just read you what he said. He said, "We
don't need chemical weapons to fight our future wars, and frankly by not
ratifying that treaty, we align ourselves with nations like Libya and
North Korea, and I'd just as soon not be associated with those thugs
on this particular issue."
That was General Schwarzkopf speaking very frankly about why we need to
ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. Let me tell you what's at stake
here. If the United States Senate does not ratify the Chemical Weapons
Convention by April 29th, then the United States will not be able to
participate in the critical decisions concerning the implementation of the
CWC, including how it's going to be monitored and how it's going to be
enforced - how the treaty obligations are going to be enforced. We
won't have a say in that whatsoever.
A Senate delay on this means that the United States essentially will be
left out in the cold and will have no voice whatsoever in the future
international adjudication of that issue. That gets to our credibility,
and that affects negatively our leadership on a whole range of arms and
proliferation issues. So we think we ought to move forward very quickly
and encourage the Senate to ratify it.
You'll see Secretary Albright continue to speak out about this, including,
I believe, in her speech in Houston, Texas, on Friday. On that, let me
just mention about Houston. We have several reporters who want to go along
with us, and they're more than welcome. I'm going to have to close that
list at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon, so that we can make sure that we make
proper arrangements for all of you coming to Houston to see the meeting
with Foreign Minister Gurria, the Secretary's speech and to hear about
her meeting with President Bush on Saturday morning in Houston.
QUESTION: Nick, a question about the Tripartite Commission on the
frozen gold assets. Do you know why no action was taken on this sooner
before most of the gold was gone or distributed, and how do you determine
how to apportion the gold between private and public assets, if it comes to
that?
MR. BURNS: It's a very complicated issue. You know that Tripartite
Gold Commission was established after the second World War, and last fall
the Gold Commission thought it was poised to make its final payments to the
claimant countries, and it was prepared to cease operations. But in the
intervening time, there were many requests by victims of the Holocaust and
by groups that have been formed to promote the interests of victims of the
Holocaust, and they alleged - some of them alleged that there was some
gold in the Tripartite Gold Commission reserves that was not monetary
gold, but that belonged in fact perhaps to Jews who lost their lives in the
second World War or to family members of those Jews.
So because of that and because the member states - the United States,
France and the United Kingdom - wanted to be sensitive to the concerns of
the Jewish community worldwide and to others, they instructed the Gold
Commission to halt procedures for the final disbursement of the gold to
claimant countries until these assertions by the Jewish organizations could
be fully investigated.
I understand that process is underway.
As you know, the State Department is just about to release very shortly
our own study of U.S. Government information on this issue from the 1940s
and 1950s. The sad fact is that, as Under Secretary Eizenstat has noted in
the past, the majority of the gold has already been disbursed. So the full
truth about what happened to all of the assets of Jews during the second
World War may never be known. But we do have an obligation to try
to see if we can find any evidence of remaining funds or gold assets
that belonged to Jewish families in Europe and the United States, and we
will undertake action to try to see that justice is done as best as it can
be done.
So there's been a halt in the process. There's an investigation and
study underway, and at some point the Tripartite Gold Commission will have
to make a decision if any of the current gold in its stock was Nazi gold,
then how should it be disbursed to claimants, and that's a very complex
question.
QUESTION: Nick, a follow-up on a related question. Are you satisfied
now with the response of the Swiss banks and the Swiss government to the
various inquires about Swiss holdings of Nazi Gold?
MR. BURNS: I know that Under Secretary Eizenstat spoke to that in his
trip to Switzerland last week. We expect that the Swiss Government and the
Swiss banks will fully cooperate with all of the various investigations
underway, and that expectation, I think, is reflected in the wishes of a
lot of other people around the world - not just the United States
Government, but a lot of private groups and I know among Holocaust
survivors and their families.
QUESTION: Nick, on that subject, how soon do you expect the inquiry by
the Tripartite Commission to be completed?
MR. BURNS: It's not clear. I know they're working at it. I think it
may take some time. I don't know if they've even set a date for themselves
as to when this will be completed, but they have halted the final payments
so that they can study this question and see if they can contribute
positively to this dilemma.
QUESTION: Nick, is the United States open to third parties coming in
and helping with this investigation?
MR. BURNS: There's really no need for that. We have a Tripartite Gold
Commission that's been in existence for more than 50 years, and that's
operating. We have the United States Government looking into its own
archives to see what we did and did not do in the 1940s. So I think the
United States has done everything right in trying to serve justice here,
and we're deeply committed to see that Holocaust victims are given justice
more than 50 years after the end of the war.
QUESTION: Will this review look into the $4 billion that's already been
distributed or redistributed to the central banks, and whether some of that
$4 billion belonged to private citizens?
MR. BURNS: This is a full-scale review by the Tripartite Gold
Commission. They're going to review the current gold and monetary assets
that are at their disposal, under their control.
I don't know if it's going to be possible to review what happened in 1948
or 1956 on these issues. I don't know if they have the capacity to do that
or if it's even possible to do that. I think it's really a question of
what do they have now, and if any of the stocks now are not due to
claimants but are actually due to private citizens who were victims of the
Holocaust.
QUESTION: Chemical weapons for one second.
MR. BURNS: Yes.
QUESTION: Since there are problems with Congress, I missed in your
description of what she's planning to do, exactly how her future contacts
will go with Congress on this.
MR. BURNS: Secretary Albright's been up to the Hill a couple of times
since being sworn in to talk about Chemical Weapons Convention. You've
heard the President talk about it.
You'll continue to hear this is a major priority for this Administration -
early ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Certainly, we hope
before April 29th.
QUESTION: Follow-up. Is she going to see Senator Helms?
Is she indeed in touch with him, or is -
MR. BURNS: She's been in touch with Senator Helms. A member of her
staff was in touch with Senator Helms yesterday.
She intends to be in touch with Senator Helms in the coming days on
this.
QUESTION: Is the State Department planning any moves in terms of U.N.
reform or the other area - I'm sorry -
MR. BURNS: Consolidation.
QUESTION: Right, consolidation - as a way to sort of appease Helms on
this?
MR. BURNS: Let me just be clear. Secretary Albright has great
respect for Senator Helms. She wishes to work with him in a bipartisan
spirit across the board. On U.N. reform, she's already had a discussion
with him and other Senators, and you'll note that the emphasis that the
President and Secretary Albright put on this one. Secretary General Kofi
Anan was here last week, and the Secretary General has announced that he
is moving forward on U.N. reform. We applaud that. We want to see
him drive through to success on that.
On consolidation of the foreign affairs agencies, which is an issue
that's been around a long time, Secretary Albright said that she has an
open mind. She's going to think about this.
She's already met with - in fact, she visited each of the agencies:
USIA, AID and ACDA - and she'll certainly continue talking to the Senate
about this.
Those two issues, we believe, ought to stand by themselves.
We don't believe that it's proper to link them to the ratification of the
Chemical Weapons Convention. Both of those issues are going to play out
over the next year or perhaps the next several years. They are longer-term
objectives that will not be fully thought through and resolved in the next
two months.
The Chemical Weapons Convention must be ratified by April 29th; and, if
we don't ratify it by then, if the Senate doesn't, the United States will
be out in the cold and other countries will be standing alongside Libya and
North Korea, which is not a very good group to be in, by the way,
internationally, and other countries will be making the rules that we will
have to live under.
That's not a good position for the world leader to be in.
QUESTION: Nick, back into it again, do you restrict your comments about
linkage to this particular important convention?
Are you prepared to broaden it and suggest that the Chairman of the
Foreign Relations Committee is out of bounds by trying to use any of the
Administration's foreign policy agenda as leverage to force Ms. Albright
and the State Department to come to a decision on, for instance, whether
there's a need for an independent U.S. Aid agency?
MR. BURNS: I have chosen my words very carefully. The fact is, we
wish to work with Senator Helms cooperatively. He has a right to make
proposals. He is the one who has linked these three issues together. We
choose not to link them. We don't think it's wise to link them for the
reasons that I stated. We need to move very quickly to ratify the Chemical
Weapons Convention.
QUESTION: Are you aware of any scenario on the issue of consolidation
which he says he has an open mind on and which Warren Christopher had more
than an open mind on when he testified.
He thought it was a pretty good idea but that thought sort of disintegrated
in the bureaucracy after a few weeks.
MR. BURNS: Many years ago; two years ago.
QUESTION: Only four years ago. He had more than open mind. He thought
it sounded pretty interesting. ACDA was alarmed, reasonably enough - it
would disappear - and the idea went away.
How is this going to be played out? Will she come forward at some point
and present a reorganization plan? Or will she say, "I thought about it;
it doesn't make sense to me to change things?"
MR. BURNS: She has not made up her mind on this. She has an open
mind. There are no concrete plans that I know of that would take us down
the road very far right now. That's a big issue. That's a very big issue:
Consolidation. It will have an impact on our foreign policy, on the way we
conduct it, on thousands of people in the Foreign Affairs Agencies. So
we need to figure out what's rational and what's right. She has
an open mind. She'll look into it.
But here's the major point that I think you're making, implicitly, if I
can say that, and that is, that's a longer-term issue. CWC is a short-term
issue. Therefore, let's delink and let's go forward on the Chemical
Weapons Convention.
Dimitri.
QUESTION: Nick, I asked you yesterday about Sir David Hannay and his
meetings here at the State Department yesterday.
Have anything new today?
MR. BURNS: I know that Secretary Albright had dinner with Sir. David
Hannay on Sunday evening at the residence of the British Ambassador along
with Peter Tarnoff. Yesterday, Sir David was in the State Department
meeting with our experts and negotiators, including Carey Cavanaugh and
Marshall Adair and others. They were excellent discussions, and we very
much appreciate Sir David taking the time to come in and talk to us about
those issues.
QUESTION: Was there a follow-up on Rifkind's 10 proposals?
MR. BURNS: Was it follow up on Foreign Secretary Rifkind's - it was a
chance to exchange views. I think he also met with Mr. Richard Beattie who
is our Presidential Emissary. He'll see Secretary Kornblum tomorrow. It's
a chance to exchange views on next steps for Cyprus. I think you know that
Secretary Albright believes that we ought to think very, very creatively
and hard about how we all move forward together to resolve the Cyprus
problem.
QUESTION: What is the consensus on that next step?
MR. BURNS: When we reach a consensus, we'll let you know.
QUESTION: So it has not been reached yet?
MR. BURNS: The real consensus has got to be worked out between the
parties - the Cypriot Government, the other parties in Cyprus, the Turkish
and Greek Governments. That's where the real consensus needs to be formed.
Not in the State Department.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) the United States and Britain?
MR. BURNS: There's a great meeting of the minds. We've had a lot of
discussions. Secretary Albright considers Sir David Hannay to be a special
friend because they've worked together so closely. They sat next to each
other in the Security Council for many years.
QUESTION: Did you discuss about the British base in the island?
MR. BURNS: The British base?
QUESTION: Yes -
MR. BURNS: I'm not aware there was any discussion about that. There
could have been.
QUESTION: The Greek Cypriot side, they don't want them to stay
there?
MR. BURNS: You mean the Cypriot Government?
QUESTION: Yes.
MR. BURNS: The Cypriot Government. The Government of President
Clerides, yes.
QUESTION: Okay, I got the message.
MR. BURNS: I don't know if there's any discussion that the Government
of Cyprus may have had about that issue or that we may have had with Sir
David Hannay. I just don't know.
Carla.
QUESTION: Fifteen former Foreign Service officers and Ambassadors who
worked in the former Soviet Union had sent a letter to Warren Christopher
about two years ago setting forth the reasons why they thought expanding
NATO would be a very risky and provocative action. Everything that Prime
Minister Chernomyrdin is quoted saying in the Post today is almost
identical to what was set forth in the letter to former Secretary
Christopher. Did they ever receive a reply?
I know the last time I spoke to one of the Ambassadors, he had not heard
a word from the State Department in reply to the letter he wrote. I was
wondering whether that reply is now on Secretary Albright's agenda?
MR. BURNS: I frankly do not recall this letter from two years ago and
will have to check into it for you. I don't know what happened to the
letter.
But let me tell you this, on a larger issue. I participated in the early
discussions on this issue in 1993. I'm not aware of any significant
disagreement on the policy of NATO expansion in the senior ranks of the
United States Government. That's a big statement. I'm not aware of any
significant disagreement at the White House, at the Defense Department, at
the State Department on this issue.
In the Fall of 1993, there were a series of internal discussions. But by
January 1994, when the President went off to Brussels for the NATO summit,
we had a unified government.
Three years later, we still do have a unified government. I'm not aware
of Ambassadors in the field who are sending cables in saying they're
opposed to this. I don't think it's happening.
QUESTION: Think of the (inaudible) to retain opinions after a decision
is taken; loyal bureaucrats, once a decision is taken, salute and generally
carry out what is the agreed-upon decisions. They debate it beforehand.
These folks are exercising some freedom that - retirement from the Foreign
Service -
MR. BURNS: I'm not talking about the right of these people to speak
out at all. I'm just saying, the more important point is, we truly have a
unified government on this issue.
QUESTION: Since also nobody has disclosed what this will cost -- there
was a Rand study which is another way of saying a Pentagon study, because
the Pentagon financed the study and it came out with a very low cost figure
- surprise, surprise.
Does the Administration have any - Congress cares about what this is going
to cost. Do you have a cost figure?
MR. BURNS: There is going to be an Administration report that has been
requested by the Congress about the expense - long-term expense of the
enlargement of NATO. The Administration will make that available to the
Congress at the appropriate time.
QUESTION: The reason I'm raising this issue, they are retired Foreign
Service officers - United States Ambassadors.
I believe Ambassador Nitze, Matlock, and Jonathan Dean among them. Well,
he wasn't in the Soviet Union. But they had extensive experience with the
culture and with the thinking and with the history. That was the reason
they felt so strongly. So I wonder how that letter can be answered and if
it will be answered?
MR. BURNS: Again, this is two-year old question. We'll have to see
what happened to the letter. Former Ambassadors have an absolute right to
speak out. What I think is very important is that currently-serving
members of the NSC staff, the State Department, the Pentagon, and currently-
serving Ambassadors have not raised as far as I - there's no ground-swell
of opposition privately, behind the scenes, to this policy.
There's been a remarkable display of internal unity among the currently-
serving people. I know that from my own experience at the White House.
QUESTION: (Inaudible) such disagreement between former United States
State Department officials with a great deal of experience in the area -
MR. BURNS: There are people in the private sector who are opposed to
NATO expansion. They have a right to speak out.
We have a right to put forward our policy, and I'm sure we'll continue to
have a healthy debate. That's what great about America.
David.
QUESTION: On Zaire. The questions yesterday about whether forces were
being sent from a number of countries and perhaps being flown in. Can you
tell us anything about that?
MR. BURNS: Yes. I also want to just say before we go, we ought to
talk a minute about Cuba because something very important happened in Cuba
today.
Let me just say that the United States continues to urge all parties to
resolve the problems in Eastern Zaire peacefully, to accept an immediate
cease-fire and to pursue a dialogue as a way to resolve these problems.
I would note the statements of the Government of France yesterday, by my
colleague, Mr. Rummelhardt, the French Foreign Ministry Spokesman, who
spoke against the introduction of foreign troops into Zaire. I would like
to join that.
The United States has consistently urged other nations not to become
involved in the fighting in Eastern Zaire. We will continue to discourage
actively any outside country or any outside group of foreigners or
mercenary groups. We will discourage them from participating, entering
into the conflagration in Eastern Zaire because that would escalate the
fighting and just contribute to further civilian deaths which have
unfortunately occurred in great numbers.
We're staying on top of this as best we can, but I think the United
States and France have a unified view of this issue.
QUESTION: Can you tell us whether anything is actually happening in
terms of foreign troops moving in?
MR. BURNS: We have seen a lot of disturbing reports about cross-border
attacks, about the entrance by foreign troops into Eastern Zaire. We've
reminded the governments that border Zaire that we do not support this in
any way. We also support the territorial integrity and the maintenance of
the independence of all of Zaire. We do not wish to see Zaire split up
into various segments.
QUESTION: Does the U.S. Government know for a fact whether foreign
troops have gone in or not?
MR. BURNS: I think we have ample evidence. I know our Ambassador in
Kinshasa, Ambassador Simpson, has spoken to this that there have been signs
of this, evidence of this, and we've certainly spoken to the relevant
governments about it.
QUESTION: Can I ask which governments the U.S. is aware of -
MR. BURNS: I'll have to check into that for you, David.
I want to be very accurate when I say this.
QUESTION: (Inaudible).
MR. BURNS: Excuse me?
QUESTION: Is Rwanda one of those governments?
MR. BURNS: I want to be very careful in answering this question, so
I'm going to take that question.
QUESTION: Could I go back to the Korean issue? What can you say -
MR. BURNS: Anymore on Africa?
QUESTION: What can you say -
MR. BURNS: I want to talk about Cuba.
QUESTION: I know you do, Nick. I don't blame you.
MR. BURNS: Another outrage - Castro. Well, he is very bad. I'm trying
to be respectful and courteous to one of your fellow journalist. My mother
taught me not to interrupt. I'll let Bill ask his question and then I'll -
QUESTION: Would you please share with us the matter on Cuba and allow
me another question?
MR. BURNS: Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Hector Palacio Ruiz,
who is President of the Democratic Solidarity Party in Cuba, was arrested
January 9th and charged with contempt of public authority. The charges
reportedly resulted from statements he made to European journalists
concerning the Cuban Government's intentions to abide by the commitments to
democratic ideals that it accepted when Castro made his declaration at the
Ibero-American Summit in Chile last November. That's interesting, isn't
it?
The arrest of Mr. Palacio for expressing his views regarding the Cuban
Government is a clear indication of the fact that Castro continues to
disregard the basic rights of the Cuban people to freedom of speech or
freedom of the press. We deplore the continuing repression and arrest of
people who want to speak their mind in Cuba.
Mr. Castro has utter disregard for the human rights of the Cuban people.
This runs counter to where the rest of the hemisphere is heading and it's
why the European Union and the United States are looking into the human
rights situation there quite carefully.
QUESTION: The EU has thrown the issue of Helms-Burton into the WTO and
have asked the head of the WTO to personally become involved in making a
decision on the request for the EU for a ruling. Would the U.S. abide by
such a ruling?
MR. BURNS: We believe the WTO is a trade organization.
It's not the appropriate forum for resolving the differences between the
European Union and the United States on this particular issue. This is a
foreign policy issue. Therefore, it ought to be resolved bilaterally
between the European Union in Brussels and the United States Government in
Washington.
We believe that Helms-Burton which is the act cited by the European Union,
we believe that this law is consistent with our international obligations.
We will continue to enforce it and we will defend vigorously in our
conversations with the Europeans.
QUESTION: So you would not abide by any decision that comes out of WTO
that is against -
MR. BURNS: I didn't say that. I just said that we don't believe the
WTO is the appropriate forum. We believe the appropriate forum is the
dialogue that we carry on with the European Union.
This is a foreign policy issue; not a trade issue. You shouldn't use
trade organizations on foreign policy issues.
QUESTION: What does the arrest of Mr. Ruiz say about the Canadian
understanding that Mr. Axworthy got from the Castro Government?
MR. BURNS: We hope and trust that the Canadian Government will
continue to look into the human rights situation as it said it would.
Frankly, as we said at the time, we're highly skeptical that the Cuban
Government, having made a public commitment, will meet that commitment.
The Cuban Government's track record is quite poor in that regard.
QUESTION: Did the Canadian representative ever get here?
MR. BURNS: I don't know. Secretary Albright talked to Minister
Axworthy and got a general briefing -
QUESTION: Someone was going to call up.
MR. BURNS: I think we're going to have further discussions with the
Canadian Government. I just don't know how that's occurred or whether it's
occurred.
Bill, you had a question.
QUESTION: Yes. Thank you, Nick. With regard to the taken question
from Chris yesterday about underwriting with regard to the Cargill-North
Korean deal, I referred to Kevin Sullivan's article in the Post this
morning. There was a U.S. official - he spoke off the record here - "A
U.S. official involved with the deal said that North Korea is insisting
that Cargill provide grain up front before it will attend the peace
negotiations."
He further says - this official says - "they want free grain."
Can you go on the record, Nick, to say that this is what's happened?
MR. BURNS: Well, I think the North Koreans are looking for a more
active role by the United States Government in these negotiations. Frankly,
we're not going to get involved. We don't get involved in commercial
transactions.
QUESTION: The United States cannot order Cargill to give them the
grain?
MR. BURNS: No, it cannot. Thank you.
(Press briefing concluded at 2:34 p.m.)
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