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U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing #19, 97-02-04

U.S. State Department: Daily Press Briefings Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

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 na&iuml;ve 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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