[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H1285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  REASONS WHY PRESIDENT CLINTON SHOULD NOT MEET WITH PRESIDENT YELTSIN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Roemer] is recognized 
during morning business for 2 minutes.
  Mr. ROEMER. Mr. Speaker, I rise this morning to encourage my 
colleagues to sign a bipartisan letter that I am circulating with the 
gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wolf] today. We have already gained 20 
other signatures, bipartisan signatures on this letter that would say 
to President Clinton and, in very strong terms, suggest that he not 
meet with President Yeltsin at the upcoming summit in May. We urge him 
not to do this for a number of reasons, because the United States has 
so much at stake in continuing to see Russian economic and political 
reform.
  The first reason, Mr. Speaker, is that the Russian economic and 
political reform efforts are on very shaky ground. As the Russians now 
fight this war in Chechnya, they have diverted over $2 billion that 
should be going to stabilize the ruble, to support the economic efforts 
we have supported through loans through the IMF and other world banks 
totaling over $12 billion. These efforts are critical if the Russians 
are to work their way to a free market system and to continue to work 
toward a more open and democratic system in the new Russia.
  Second, future issues are at stake, future issues that are important 
to the United States and a good, strong, healthy relationship with 
Russia. We need to be on good terms with Russia in terms of Bosnia and 
peace in that very unstable part of the world. We need to work with the 
Russians on START and other nonproliferation treaties, and we need to 
work with them on the future of NATO.
  Third, we encourage the President not to meet with Mr. Yeltsin in May 
because of the human rights violations going on in this terrible war 
between Russia and the Chechnyan people.
  I would encourage my colleagues to sign this letter. We are not 
saying that Mr. Christopher and Mr. Karazdzic cannot talk. We are 
saying symbolically the President should not at this point sit down 
with Mr. Yeltsin at this very precarious time as the Russians are 
fighting a very, very bad war in terms of diverting their resources 
away from economic and political reform.


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