[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1993, Book I)]
[May 21, 1993]
[Pages 713-714]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Exchange With Reporters on Bosnia
May 21, 1993

    Q. Mr. President, have you reached agreement with the Russians on a 
Bosnia policy?
    The President. Well, Secretary Christopher is talking to Foreign 
Minister Kozyrev today, and we will try to reach an agreement about what 
we do next. As you know, the United States is skeptical that we'll be 
able to satisfactorily resolve this within the framework that has been 
proposed, but we do want to work with our allies. And we're trying our 
best to reach a joint position, and I hope we can do it.
    Q. Are you still ruling out safe havens?
    The President. Well, I don't want to see the United States get in a 
position where we are recreating Northern Ireland or Lebanon or Cyprus 
or anything else. There may be some potential down the road for 
something to be done in connection with the peacekeeping operation,

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but I think it's something we have to be very skeptical about. We don't 
want our people in there basically in a shooting gallery.
    Q. [Inaudible]--the issue, though, for now of the land the Serbs 
have grabbed by force in favor of the idea of this containment?
    The President. I will say what I said from the very beginning. Our 
fundamental interests here, the United States interests, are two. We 
want the conflict to be contained, and we want the slaughter and the 
ethnic cleansing to stop. We believe in order to get that done 
ultimately there will have to be some reasonable borders, some political 
solution to this which has a reasonable territorial component. And we'll 
just have to see what happens over the next few weeks.

Note: The exchange began at 10:15 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White 
House, prior to a Cabinet meeting. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of this exchange.