For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
June 16, 2001
Press Conference by President Bush and Russian Federation President Putin
Brdo Castle
Brdo Pri Kranju, Slovenia
5:30 P.M. (Local)
PRESIDENT BUSH: Good
afternoon. President Putin and I have just concluded two
hours of straightforward and productive meetings. We had a
good discussion of our views of Russian-American relations, and of the
changing world at the beginnings of this new century.
Our countries have common interests and we
share responsibilities. My
meeting with President Putin today is an important step in building a
constructive, respectful relationship with Russia -- a relationship
that has the potential to benefit not only our two countries, but also
the world.
Russia is an important country, with vast
potential. When Russia and the United States work together
in a constructive way, we can make the world a safer and more
prosperous place.
I enjoyed the opportunity to meet President
Putin in person for the first time. I am convinced that he
and I can build a relationship of mutual respect and
candor. And I'm convinced that it's important for the world
that we do so.
More than a decade after the Cold War ended it
is time to move beyond suspicion and towards straight talk; beyond
mutually assured destruction and toward mutually earned
respect. As we work together to address the world as it is,
not as it used to be, it is important that we not only talk
differently, we also must act differently.
We have great opportunities to cooperate on
economic, commercial, regional and security
issues. President Putin and I have agreed to launch an
extensive dialogue about a wide range of issues that we can
constructively address together. We also discussed the
importance of sound
investment climate to improve Russia's future economic prosperity.
I was so impressed that he was able to
simplify his tax code in Russia, with a flat tax. I'm not so
sure I'll have the same success with our Congress.
We must continue a dialogue, so I'm prepared
to send both Secretary O'Neill and Secretary Evans to Moscow soon to
further our discussions. I want to encourage Russian and
American businesses to become more involved in our discussions, so that
together, we can foster meaningful investments. President
Putin agrees with this approach.
And we've agreed to launch regular detailed
and serious consultations on the nature of our security
relationship. I said to President Putin that
we need a new approach for a new era, an approach that protects both
our peoples and strengthens deterrence by exploring and developing our
new attitudes towards defenses and missile defenses. I've
directed Secretary of State Powell and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to
work with their Russian counterparts, to begin discussing a new
security framework.
I have invited President Putin to Washington
this fall. He accepted. He invited me to
Russia, and I accepted. And I look forward to the visit.
We also agreed to continue our cooperation and
work toward common solutions on important regional issues, from the
Balkans to Nagorno-Karabakh to Afghanistan. And we discussed
our common interest in developing the energy resources of the Caspian
Basin in a way that benefits
all the countries of the region.
Respectful relations require
honesty. And we did discuss areas where my country has
differences with Russia -- over Chechnya, and over media
relations. I also expressed my hope that Russia will develop
constructive relations with its neighbors, like Georgia, that are
trying to find their own way in a challenging, but hopeful world.
This was a very good meeting. And I
look forward to my next meeting with President Putin in
July. I very much enjoyed our time together. He's
an honest, straightforward man who loves his country. He
loves his family. We share a lot of values. I
view him as a remarkable leader. I believe his leadership
will serve Russia well. Russia and America have the
opportunity to accomplish much together; we should seize
it. And today, we have begun.
And, finally, I'm especially pleased we're
able to have this meeting in Slovenia, one of the success stories of
Southeast Europe.
In my meetings today with the President and
the Prime Minister, I reaffirmed America's support for Slovenia's
integration with Europe and the
Euro-Atlantic community. I especially thank the people of
Slovenia, and I want to thank the leadership for such warm
hospitality, and congratulate the people on the 10th anniversary of
its independence on June the 25th.
I only regret not staying long enough to see
Lake Bled or to climb Mount Triglav. Who knows, maybe I'll
have the opportunity down the road.
Mr. President.
PRESIDENT PUTIN: First of all, I
wanted to confirm everything that's been said by President Bush when he
characterized our meeting. I could even add that I was
counting on an open, frank dialogue, confidential
dialogue. But in this regard, as they say in cases like
this, reality was a lot bigger than expectations. Because
this was not only a confidential discussion, but all the way to more
than what you could expect from frankness, because President Bush, as a
person who has studied history, proposed a very global, wide-scale
approach and view to history. And it was very interesting
and positive.
We sat, talked about the past, about the
present, about the future of our countries and about the development of
the situation in the world for many years into the
future. This was really a very interesting discussion.
I think that we found a good basis to start building on our
cooperation. We're counting on a pragmatic relationship
between Russia and the United States.
We compared our approaches in key
areas. And, once again, we established our common
ground. I want to return now to what the President said very
recently -- that Russia and the United States are not enemies, they do
not threaten each other, and they could be fully good
allies. And taking into account the fact that the United
States and the Russian Federation, as no one else, as no other country
of the world, have accumulated huge amounts of nuclear weapons, weapons
of mass destruction, we bear a special responsibility for maintaining
the common peace and security in the world, for building a new
architecture of security in the world.
All of this presupposes a very close
cooperation for strengthening security in the 21st
century. And saying this, any unilateral actions can only
make more complicated various problems and issues.
One of the central topics of our discussion
was the strengthening of strategic stability. We exchanged
our views on our approaches. It was very important for me to
hear how and what the President of the United States thinks, and to
hear directly from him.
In turn, naturally, I expressed the approaches
of Russia in this sphere. The differences in approaches do
exist and, naturally, in one short moment it's impossible to overcome
all of them. But I am convinced that ahead of us we have a
constructive dialogue and the will to talk about
these topics, to discuss, to hear, to listen -- to listen and to hear
each other. And to my mind, this is very important.
The President and I have agreed that we're
going to tell our Ministers
of Defense, Secretaries of Defense, Foreign Ministers, to continue in
this vein, to continue this discussion, without any pauses.
Of course, we discussed some very difficult
regional issues -- the Near East and Afghanistan and the
Balkans. I have to say that this discussion showed that the
differences in our approaches in the very fundamental areas are much
less than that which unites us. The differences
in our positions, positions of the two countries, really are not of a
fundamental nature, a global nature, something which cannot be solved
-- not at all. I think that it would be very incorrect for
us to start forcing out issues and arguments, and not take into account
the very fundamental, main concepts and issues in our relationship,
which are the basis and the whole foundation of the relationship
between the Russian Federation and the United States of America.
The President and I are united in saying that
the economic ties between our two countries do not correspond to the
potential of our two countries. The government of the
Russian Federation, businessmen of both countries and the U.S.
administration of course can do a lot more to support the effectiveness
of our economic ties. And the President expressed that we
need an additional impulse from our businessmen, that we will do
everything possible to receive a very high-level business delegation of
the United States to Russia; moreover, especially if it is headed by
one of the senior officials of the U.S. administration.
Here there are a lot of very specific
issues. We talked about energy resources; we talked about
using the Caspian Basin. You know, very soon the new
pipeline system is going to go into effect, which is going to be
transporting energy resources from the Caspian region through Novie
Russkie. And this is a joint project of two companies,
Russian and American companies. I'm sure that this will not
be the last such project.
I want to stress here that the issues that
were discussed at Ljubljana
are going to be the subject of our continuing dialogue. And
we really, in fact, did agree that we're going to talk in Genoa, we're
going to talk in Shanghai at the APEC Conference. And I'm very
grateful to the President of the United States for inviting me to the
United States. I would do it with
great pleasure, especially because he invited to have me over at his
ranch. And I'm going to receive him in my own home, not just
in Russia, but in my own home.
And the last. In the last few
months, and at the very threshold of our meeting, there was a lot of
discussion about the fact the U.S.-Russian relations are overburdened
by problems and issues that are somehow reaching
a critical stage. I think the very nature and the result of
our discussion today between myself and the President of the United
States will
put an end to all of these rumors. We see very clearly a
very prospect of our relationship in the future. And we are
all geared up to work in the future constructively, pragmatically, and
to establish very good, predictable relationship.
And, of course, I cannot but say the very
highest about the hospitality of our hosts, who provided us with all
the conditions necessary
for holding this very good meeting -- good, moral
atmosphere. Thank you. Thank you ever so
much.
MODERATOR: Dear colleagues, we have
said that we're going to give the
first opportunity to ask a question to journalists from Slovenia,
please.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I don't think the
interpreter could have done it in English, but anyway, go ahead.
Q On the next summit in
Prague, where, according to Lord Robertson,
enlargement will happen, and what is the Russian position on
enlargement?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I went to my first
NATO summit, and there appears to be a uniform desire to expand
NATO. This is certainly the position of my
country. But as I reminded the leaders today, that there is
a process, and
the countries must work toward that process. I am impressed
by the progress being made in this country, and we will take that
under consideration when we meet in Prague a year from this fall.
Q A question for you,
Mr. Putin. You're leaving from Slovenia, straight to
Belgrade. Do you have any concrete solutions for the Balkan
crisis?
PRESIDENT PUTIN: As I understand
you, what you have in mind is the situation in the region.
Yes, it's working. It's
working. It's good to have dealings with effective people
that make things work.
As I understand it, what you have in mind is
the overall situation in the Balkans, right? Macedonia,
Kosovo, et cetera, right? Well, we do have
our own idea, vision of what's happening here and how we should act.
Today we did discuss with the President of the
United States, Mr. Bush. The most important things that we
have to really pay attention to is
to put an effective block, an end to any kind of extremism and
feelings of intolerance -- religious intolerance. People
who are trying to solve, no matter how complex an issue of national or
ethnic or religious conflict -- weapons simply are not those kinds of
things which can solve these problems.
In some of the countries of the former Soviet
Union, for instance -- you probably know, we talk about this very often
-- in the Baltic states, for instance, we feel that human rights are
damaged, especially of the ethnic Russian populations. In
Latvia, for instance, 40 percent of the population is Russian-speaking
-- a huge number of non-citizens -- in other
words, people who can't even get citizenship. We don't send
weapons there. We don't support those people. We
don't call it terrorism. We don't try to get people to rise
up on the basis of national or ethnic origin or religious
feelings. We don't encourage people to take up arms to
fight against it.
I stress against, and I insist that people who
try to do this do not deserve the support of the international
community. But, on the contrary, the international community
must say once and for all, everybody who does this will receive --
answer. These things can only be solved through
negotiations. This is a very difficult process, it requires
patience, but there is no other way.
Q A question to both of
you, if I may. President Putin, President Bush has said that
he's going to go forward with his missile defense plans basically with
or without your blessing. Are you unyielding in your opposition to his
missile defense plan? Is there anything you can do to stop
it?
And to President Bush. Did
President Putin ease your concern at all about the spread of nuclear
technologies by Russia, and is this a man that Americans can trust?
PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. Do
you want to go first?
PRESIDENT PUTIN: Now, as far as the
issue of antimissile defense, the
official position of the Russian government is known. I
don't think we need to spend time to yet again declare
it. We proceed from the idea that the 1972 ABM Treaty is the
cornerstone of the modern architecture of international
security. We proceed from the premise that there are
elements which unite us with our partners in the United States.
When we hear about things like concerns of the
future and about threats from the future, we do agree that together, we
have to sit down and
have a good think about this. But we proceed from the idea
that these concerns and threats are different kinds of
things. Threats have to be defined. We have to
look at where they come from and then make some decisions as to how we
have to counter them.
We feel that we can do it best
together. Based upon today's dialogue,
I've come to the conclusion, and the impression, that we might have a
very constructive development here in this arena; at least the
President of the United States listened carefully. He
listens to our arguments very carefully. But I think the
specialists, as I have said before, have to sit
down, have contact to identify the overall platform that we're going
to work from, and try to find a way together to solve these problems.
Now, as far as the issues of proliferation and
nonproliferation, I have to say that in our opinion, this is a topic
that's very, very closely tied to the ABM Treaty, because many other
things are hooked onto this same
string, and many threshold states, when it comes to the destruction of
a previous accord, can only be happy and say, look,
fantastic. Yesterday, we
were threshold, nobody agreed -- nobody took any account of us; now,
today, recognize us. This is a problem we're going to have
to really think
very hard about.
Can we trust Russia? I'm not going
to answer that. I could ask the very same question.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I will answer the
question. I looked the man in the eye. I found
him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a
very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul; a
man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his
country. And I appreciated so very much the frank dialogue.
There was no kind of diplomatic chit-chat,
trying to throw each other off balance. There was a
straightforward dialogue. And that's the beginning of a very
constructive relationship. I wouldn't have invited him
to my ranch if I didn't trust him. (Laughter.)
Secondly, I appreciate the opportunity to be
able to talk about a new relationship, and we will continue these
dialogues. The basis for my discussion began with this
simple premise: that Russia and the United States must
establish a new relationship beyond that of the old Cold War
mentality. The Cold War said loud and clear that we're
opponents and that we bring the peace through ability for each of us to
destroy each other.
Friends don't destroy each
other. People who cooperate do not have a basis of peace on
destruction. Our nations are confronted with new threats
in the 21st century. Terror in the hands of what we call
rogue nations is a threat. I expressed my concern, and so
did the President, very openly, about nations on his border and
nations that can't stand America's freedoms
developing the capacity to hold each of us hostage. And he
agreed.
I brought up concerns about
Iran. And I'm hesitant to put words in the President's
mouth, but he said he's concerned, as well -- I think that accurately
categorizes your position -- and we'll work together to stop the
spread of weapons of mass destruction. And I believe as we
go down the road that we'll be able to develop a constructive
relationship as to how to
use our technologies and research and willingness to keep the peace,
in a way that makes the world more peaceful.
I was so pleased that we were able to begin
constructive, real dialogue between our Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
and Mr. Andrei Ivanov. These will be fruitful discussions, and I
believe what people will see is a
strategy, a joint strategy. The President's a history
major, and so am I. And we remember the old
history. It's time to write new history, in a positive and
constructive way.
Q This is a question to
both Presidents, if you allow. Mr. Bush, you partially
answered -- you talked about issues of strategic security, you talked
about the future. In this connection, could you tell us
anything about what you talked about in the expansion of
NATO? Thank you.
PRESIDENT BUSH: -- to expand, so
long as nations met their obligations and fulfilled their -- met what's
called the MAP process. I said yesterday in Poland, I felt
like a secure border for Russia, a border with safe and friendly
nations, is positive. And I expressed my government's
position very plainly. And the President, of course, had a
reaction, which I'm sure he'll give you right now.
I thought he was going to give it to you right
now. (Laughter.)
PRESIDENT PUTIN: Yes, I'm going to
lay it out for you. I'm going to lay it out for
you. Look, I'm going to read to you something which was
recently de-classified. Speaking for myself -- look this was
printed a while back, but there's a document -- attached addendum
documents which were secret. Copy
declassified. It was top secret. Look, here it
is. This is a note of the Soviet government from 1954, sent to the
countries of
NATO. Here's what it says: The leadership,
holding to its inalienable policy and taking into account all the
tensions, this Soviet government announces its intention to enter into
discussions with NATO countries about
its participation in NATO, with the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization.
And this was the answer -- look, here's the
answer: the Soviet government proposed -- they were talking
about the widening of the NATO pact and what they're going to do about
bringing the Soviet Union in. There is no need to stress the
completely unrealistic nature of such a proposal from the Soviet
Union. That's the answer that NATO gave.
So what we're talking about here, you remember
about a year ago I think somebody asked a question about, what's your
attitude, is it possible
that Russia is going to join in NATO or not. I said, why
not? And right away, Mrs. Albright, former Secretary of
State -- she was some place on a trip to Europe -- she said, look,
we're not talking about this right now.
Look, you understand that our attitude toward
NATO was not one toward an enemy organization; of course
not. And I'm very grateful to the President of the United
States that finally, from the territory of the United States, these
words were heard. This is very important for
us. We value this. When a President of a great
power says that he wants to see Russia as a partner, and maybe even as
an ally, this is worth so much to us.
But if that's the case, then, look, we ask
ourselves a question: Look, this is a military
organization. Yes, it's military. They don't want
us there, they don't want us there. It's moving towards our
border. Yes, it's moving towards our border. Why?
So this is the foundation of all our
concerns. Not just to bring it in, or not bring it in, or
accept NATO or not accept NATO. Look, the positive feeling
that we now have developed today with President Bush, this
could be a separate subject of discussion. Because you know
Russia is cooperating with NATO, we have an agreement; we have
association; we have various accords and treaties -- and there's no
need to fire up this whole situation.
Q Mr. President, did
you offer President Putin any inducements in this conversation to ease
his opposition to a U.S. missile defense plan?
And, President Putin, to follow up on your
comments just now, does the
simple fact of President Bush saying that Russia is not an enemy
actually change your strategic or military planning?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I offered
something: Logic. And a hopeful tomorrow.
I offered the opportunity, which the President is going to
seize, for us,
as leaders of great powers, to work together.
We have a unique opportunity to address the
true threats of the 21st century -- together. We have a
great moment during our tenures to cast aside the suspicions and doubts
that used to plague our nations. And I'm committed to do
so.
I said in Poland, and I'll say it
again: Russia is not the enemy of the United
States. As a matter of fact, after our meeting today, I'm
convinced it can be a strong partner and friend; more so than people
could imagine.
The leader of Russia is working hard on behalf
of his people to promote prosperity and peace. And I believe
our nations can work together to achieve prosperity and peace not only
within our respective countries, but around the world. I
believe that.
And so we didn't have a bargaining
session. We had a session of two men who have come to office
for the right purpose: not only to represent our countries,
but given our standing, our respective standings, to work
together to deal with the threats of the 21st century: A
threat of the 21st century is energy. A threat of the 21st
century is poverty. A threat
of the 21st century is the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
And as the President said to me clearly, he
said that, you're not the only nation that cares about weapons of mass
destruction; we care. And we have an opportunity to do
that. We have an opportunity to reject extremists that could
threaten our respective nations and respect our -- and threaten our
alliances. And we will do so. We will do so.
And today has been a very constructive
day. Everybody is trying to read body language -- mark me
down as very pleased with the progress and the frank
discussion. We will meet again in July, then later in the
fall. Then we'll have the great Crawford, Texas
Summit. And I believe that people who watch carefully our
relationship will see that it grows and emerges. It starts
with trust. Ron asked a great question: can I
trust him? And I can. And from that basis we can
begin a very fruitful relationship.
Q So there were no
specific -- that you offered in this meeting, just logic?
PRESIDENT BUSH: We did not -- well,
first of all, our relationship is
larger than just security relationships. It's bigger than
figuring out how to deal with the ABM Treaty, it's much bigger than
that. It deals with
two leaders who share values.
The President told me something very
interesting. He said, I read where you named your daughters
after your mother and your mother-in-law. And I said, yes, I'm a great
diplomat, aren't I? (Laughter.) And he said,
I did the same thing. (Laughter.) I said, Mr.
President, you're a fine diplomat, as well. We share our
love for our families. We've got common
interests. And from that basis we will seize the moment to
make a difference in the world. That's why he ran for the
presidency, and it's why I ran for the presidency.
This is not a bargaining
session. The President didn't say, you know,
if you do this, I'll do that. It's bigger than
that. It's a bigger relationship than that, and it's
important to understand that.
Q Question on whether
the simple fact of President Bush saying that
you are no longer -- the United States is not your enemy actually
changes your military thinking or your strategic thinking and
planning?
PRESIDENT PUTIN: This is not a
question; I think this has become an
interview. (Laughter.) But, look, nonetheless,
I'll respond. It's not by
accident that I said that's it's important for us. And it
seems to me that if you start with a mutual understanding that we are
partners, that's the way we're going to move, to try to solve this very
important issue.
Look, we didn't just sit down and say that our
specialists are going to meet, and they're going to have an exchange of
views. But we agreed that they're going to discuss very
specific questions which cause concern to both sides. Very
specific items. I'm not prepared right now to get into this
publicly, but we're talking about specifics.
Moreover, I have to say that between Russia
and the United States, we have two protocols that we signed on
non-strategic ABM systems -- in New York, and I think it was in
Helsinki. And this, too, is a subject of very special
review. I think the specialists should define all these
things. Again, I define -- I repeat -- define the threats and those
things which just stand in the way; to look at the power that both
countries have to neutralize these threats. I think we can
work out a common approach.
Q To both Presidents,
if you allow. Getting back to trade and economic issues,
ties between our two countries, how soon do you think we can expect a
delegation of American businessmen to Moscow? And do you
have
any plans on creating an intergovernmental commission of various
agencies, which could stimulate economic ties between the United
States and Russia? Thank you.
PRESIDENT BUSH: I'll talk to the
Secretary of Commerce as soon as I get back and tell him of our
agreement and get him moving. Sometimes I worry a little bit
about commissions. If commissions exist just to exist, then
I don't think it's fruitful. If commissions exist in order
to stimulate action, then perhaps.
Let me say one other area where the United
States is in agreement with
Russia. We think Russia ought to be admitted into the World
Trade Organization. And we'll work toward that
end. The Russian President has expressed a desire to join
the WTO, and I think it makes sense. I think that will help
a lot. And there's a lot of areas in our business
relationships.
I reminded the President that oftentimes,
people speak in terms of -- they say Russia is a country of great
resources, only referring to the energy resources, the mining
resources, the timber resources. That's true.
But Russia has got a resource that's invaluable in this new
era, and that's brainpower. Russia's got great
mathematicians and engineers who can
just as easily participate in the high-tech world as American
engineers and American mathematicians. And that's an area
of great interest to me, and it's an area of great interest to the
President. It's an area where we
can begin a fruitful dialogue. The
deployment of capital is something that's very important to Russia;
it's important to our businessmen. The President understands
it's important to have rule of law, a reasonable tax system,
transparency in the
economy. And he's working toward that, and I am
grateful. Our businessmen and our Secretary of Commerce
will hear that when they travel to Russia.
PRESIDENT PUTIN: You know, I agree
with the President in that to overload our relationship by a variety of
bureaucratic structures and organizations, that's not always
justified. The most important thing is to
create favorable conditions for effective work by the business
community. We know the plans of President Bush with
respect to his taxation policy and with respect to other measures which
he is planning, with respect to the economy of the United States.
From our part, we still have to do so much
that would make Russia attractive for foreign
investors. Although among international investors, the
Americans are in first place. Naturally, first and foremost,
we have to take care of the issues of the energy problem in the world
at large. American business is showing a great interest in this
sphere.
But we also know that President Bush has plans
in the atomic energy field. Here, too, we think we've got a
couple of things we could talk about. We have a very
fruitful area of cooperation we could work in. We have a
number of various structures that are working very appropriately now
in reprocessing uranium. We've got pretty good cooperation
in space now. It seems to me that to a significant
extent, that which exists now, it is
functioning very successfully now. The Space Station, the
International Space Station and the participation of the United States
and Russia. We have so many other areas we'd like to work
in. But when the businessmen come -- that depends, of
course, on the U.S. side -- but we'll receive them
at any time that's appropriate to them.
END 6:15 P.M. (Local)
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