[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
[July 27, 1995]
[Pages 1155-1159]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



The President's News Conference With President Kim Yong-sam of South 
Korea
July 27, 1995

    President Clinton. On this day, as we remember the sacrifice of 
those who built the great alliance between the United States and Korea, 
President Kim has come back to the White House to look forward. In our 
discussions, we focused on the clear and common goals that our nations 
have pursued together for decades: to strengthen our alliance, to stand 
together against threats to our shared ideals and interests, and to 
increase the safety and prosperity of our peoples. Over the past 3 
years, President Kim and I have worked closely together to advance these 
goals. And in him I have found an ally whose courage is matched only by 
his commitment to freedom.
    Our talks centered on the critical strategic challenges facing Korea 
and the United States. Forty-two years have passed since the Korean war 
ended, but for the people of South Korea the threat is present every 
day. Through all these years, America's commitment to South Korea has 
not wavered. And today I reaffirmed our Nation's pledge to keep American 
forces in Korea as long as they are needed and the Korean people want 
them to remain.
    President Kim and I discussed the strategy our nations, along with 
Japan, are using to confront a new, but no less terrible, threat to his 
people, North Korea's dangerous nuclear program. Already, thanks to our 
efforts, North Korea has frozen its existing program under international 
inspection. Today President Kim reaffirmed his strong support for the 
framework and for the understanding reached in Kuala Lumpur that 
confirmed South Korea's central role in helping the North acquire less 
dangerous light-water reactors.
    I also told President Kim that the United States regards North 
Korea's commitment to resume dialog with the South as an integral 
component of the framework. President Kim expressed to me his 
determination to enter into meaningful dialog with the North, and the 
United States stands ready to support his efforts.

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As North Korea fulfills its nuclear commitments and addresses other 
concerns, it can look forward to better relations with the community of 
nations.
    I emphasized to President Kim, however, that until South and North 
Korea negotiate a peace agreement, the armistice regime will remain in 
place.
    President Kim and I also touched on a number of regional and global 
security issues: efforts to ensure stability in Northeast Asia, Korea's 
commitment to peacekeeping, and our commitment to work together on 
issues facing the United Nations Security Council.
    Finally, we reviewed a wide range of economic issues, including 
APEC, and we talked about efforts to expand our bilateral trade. Korea 
is already our country's sixth largest export market.
    One hour from now, the President and I will look to the past as we 
dedicate the new Korean War Veterans Memorial on The Mall. This monument 
is a long overdue reminder of what Americans, fighting alongside the 
people of South Korea, sacrificed in the defense of freedom. Today's 
meetings remind us that the people of South Korea have built a nation 
truly worthy of that sacrifice, the eleventh largest economy in the 
world and a thriving, vital, vibrant democracy. It is a country America 
is proud to claim as an equal partner and ally, a reminder that the 
strength of democracy and the power of a free people to pursue their own 
dreams are the strongest forces on Earth.
    Let me now invite President Kim to make opening remarks.
    President Kim. Today President Clinton and I exchanged wide-ranging 
views and opinions on the situation on the Korean Peninsula and in 
Northeast Asia and agreed to further strengthen cooperation between our 
two countries to preserve the peace and stability of the region.
    President Clinton reaffirmed the United States firm commitment to 
the security of the Republic of Korea, and I supported the U.S. policy 
of foreign deployment, of U.S. troops to maintain peace in East Asia. 
President Clinton and I reconfirmed that maintaining and strengthening a 
firm, joint Korean-U.S. defense posture is essential to safeguarding the 
peace and stability not only of the Korean Peninsula but also of the 
Northeast Asian region.
    We share the view that improvement of relations between the United 
States and North Korea should proceed in harmony and parallel with the 
improvement of relations between the Republic of Korea and North Korea. 
We also agreed that our two countries will cooperate closely with each 
other in encouraging North Korea to open its doors in order to ease 
tensions on the Korean Peninsula and promote peace in Northeast Asia.
    With regard to this issue, I noted that the issue of establishing a 
permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula should be pursued through 
dialog between South and North Korea, under the principle that the 
issues should be resolved between the parties directly concerned. 
President Clinton expressed the U.S. total support and resolve to 
cooperate with the Republic of Korea regarding this issue.
    Korean Government supports the results of the Geneva agreement and 
Kuala Lumpur agreement. And President Clinton and I affirmed that the 
Governments of our two countries, while maintaining close coordination 
with regard to the implementation of the U.S.-North Korean agreement, 
will continue to provide the support needed by the Korean Peninsula 
Energy Development Organization.
    President Clinton and I express satisfaction over the fact that the 
economic and trade relations between our two countries have entered a 
mature phase in terms of the size of our bilateral trade, the trade 
balance, and bilateral investments and should continue to develop 
further on a well-balanced basis. At the same time, we reaffirmed that 
our two nations will further expand mutually beneficial bilateral 
cooperation under the new international economic conditions being 
created by the inauguration of the World Trade Organization. We also 
agreed that any bilateral trade issues arising out of increasing volumes 
of trade between two countries will be resolved smoothly through 
working-level consultations.
    President Clinton and I concurred that our two countries need to 
further improve bilateral relations, both in terms of quality and 
quantity, so that in the forthcoming Asia-Pacific era of the 21st 
century, our two nations can assume leading roles in enhancing 
cooperation and the development of the Asia-Pacific region.
    In this context, President Clinton and I agreed to coordinate 
closely with each other to ensure that the upcoming APEC summit con-


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ference in November of this year in Osaka will be a success. 
Furthermore, we agreed that our two countries will bolster multipronged 
collaboration in the United Nations and other international 
organizations.
    We are fully satisfied with the results of our talk, which we 
believe will provide added momentum to the efforts to develop the five-
decade-old Korean-U.S. relations forged in blood further into a future-
oriented partnership between allies for the next half a century.
    I would like to express my appreciation once again to President 
Clinton and the U.S. Government for their warm hospitality and kindness 
extended to me and my delegation.
    Thank you.
    President Clinton. Thank you.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, your administration said that if the Congress 
voted to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia that that would almost 
guarantee that U.S. ground troops would have to be sent in. The Senate 
voted that way yesterday by a margin that suggests you couldn't sustain 
a veto. The House looks like it's going down the same road. How close 
are we now to having to send U.S. ground troops in? And do you feel this 
is a vote of no confidence in your foreign policy?
    President Clinton. I think it's a vote of no confidence in the fact 
that the United Nations did not move to do anything when Srebrenica fell 
after Srebrenica had been declared a safe area and the fact that the war 
seems to be dragging on without resolution. But I also wouldn't be so 
sure we couldn't sustain a veto. I think that depends entirely on the 
vigor and the strength of the response of the U.N. forces in Bosnia and 
their NATO allies.
    And we are working hard in that regard. I have been very encouraged 
by what Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali said yesterday, and I have been 
very impressed by the determination of President Chirac and Prime 
Minister Major to set up this rapid reaction force and to fight back if 
attacked, not simply to be taken hostage.
    So we're going to see what will happen in the days ahead. But I 
wouldn't be so presumptive about what would happen in the Congress. I 
noted that the French Prime Minister, Mr. Juppe, said not very long ago 
that if--just a few hours ago--that if, in fact, the Congress took this 
action and it became U.S. policy, that they would withdraw from Bosnia 
and that would require us to send our troops in to help them get out, 
which is exactly what I said. And if we do it alone, if we unilaterally 
lift the arms embargo, that means that the rest of the world will 
consider that we are responsible for what happens from then on, solely. 
And I think that we need to consider that.
    Mr. President.

North Korea

    Q. Looking back to the attitude of North Korea in the past, despite 
the fact that the Kuala Lumpur agreement is there for us, still we can 
expect more difficulties coming from the North Korean behavior in the 
future. Have the two Presidents, through the meeting this time in 
Washington, had a chance to discuss how to secure Korea's central role 
in the process of dealing with North Korea?
    President Kim. Yes. In fact, we had a chance to mention this issue 
in my statement of the press conference today, and also yesterday in my 
congressional speech, I mentioned this issue as well. We entirely 
support the result of the Kuala Lumpur agreement. Concerning the 
question, our position is that between the United States and Republic of 
Korea, we have had very full and complete agreement on our joint 
position towards North Korea, and we are in full and thorough accordance 
with each other and how to deal with North Korea.
    I think that if we do our best in trying to persuade North Korea 
that it is in their interest to faithfully implement the contents of the 
agreement, I think that, in fact, we can see a good result. And I firmly 
believe that we can achieve that goal.
    Together with that agreement, I think the fact that the KEDO had its 
executive meeting, which has confirmed Korea's central role in the 
nuclear light-water project, in addition to President Clinton's letter 
given to me, which was a letter of assurance that Korea's central role 
will be guaranteed, I think, enough for us to believe that we would not 
be faced with major problems in the future negotiations. So in our 
position, there is no change at all.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, there is a perception that U.S. leadership, 
prestige, has really suffered under this devastating debacle of Bosnia. 
You wanted to bomb--more than 2\1/2\ years ago--

[[Page 1158]]

heavy bombing to stop--that peacekeeping per se, despite the 
humanitarian side, is a misnomer. What do you think are the lessons of 
Bosnia? And do you think that the U.S. leadership has gone down the 
drain?
    President Clinton. No. Keep in mind, when I became President, a 
decision had been made--a decision, by the way, that I couldn't 
criticize--that in the aftermath of the cold war, the Europeans should 
take the lead in dealing with the first major security crisis on the 
European Continent at the end of the cold war and that they would do 
that under the umbrella of the United Nations, that our role would be to 
support that with airlifts of humanitarian goods and then later with 
enforcing a no-fly zone and then later with enforcing the peace 
agreements that the United Nations had made through the use of air 
power. That happened when I was President.
    And we also would support this effort to some extent from the sea as 
well and through enforcing the embargo and through putting our troops in 
the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. That was the agreement.
    And I still believe that, on balance, it was working better than the 
other alternatives, considering there was no peace to keep a lot. The 
death rate went down breathtakingly from 1992 to 1994, and there was a 
long period of time there where we had a chance to make a peace.
    Then what happened--and as you know, I believe that a multilateral 
lift of the arms embargo early on would have helped us to make a quicker 
peace. I still believe that that would have happened. What happened was, 
along toward the end of last year--well, there was an agreement for a 
cease-fire. Then it expired. Since it expired, the Bosnian Serbs 
concluded that the United Nations would not keep its commitments to the 
safe areas if it took peacekeepers as hostages and that under the rules 
of engagement in which the peacekeepers were there, and given their 
fairly lightly armed nature, they could be easily taken as hostages. 
Now, that happened.
    That, I think, when that happened and the threat of hostage-taking 
and the effect of hostage-taking caused Srebrenica to fall without a 
terrific response in terms of air punishment, that collapsed the support 
for the United Nations. And all of us, including the United States and 
NATO, who had supported it suffered in prestige, if you will, not 
because we didn't win but because the U.N. didn't do what it said it was 
going to do. You can't go about the world saying you're going to do 
something and then not do it.
    So I--that's why I spent all that time, leading up to the London 
conference and, since then, working with NATO to say, look, we have to 
reestablish the fact that we will have a strong--not just close air 
support but a strong air response to raise the price of Serbian 
aggression. Secondly, I strongly support the decision of the French and 
the British to establish this Rapid Reaction Force so that they just 
can't be taking hostages at will.
    But I would remind you that this was--the question of whether a lot 
of people still say, ``Well, America ought to fix it.'' But we don't 
have troops on the ground now. And this distribution of responsibility 
all grew out of a decision made prior to my Presidency--which I am not 
criticizing, I say again--to try to say that, okay, here's a problem in 
Europe, the Europeans ought to take the lead, they would put people on 
the ground. We have had troops since I have been President, I would 
remind you, in Somalia, in Rwanda, in Haiti. We have not been loath to 
do our job. But we have tried to support the base commitment of the 
Europeans there. And it has not worked. No one can say it has worked.
    So I decided we're either going to do what we said we were going to 
do with the U.N. or we'll have to do something else. This is the last 
chance for UNPROFOR to survive. But I do believe if it can be made to 
work, it has a greater chance of securing a peace and minimizing death 
of the Bosnians. That's what I believe. And I also believe it would be a 
very great thing for Europe if the Europeans can take the lead in 
resolving the first post-cold-war security crisis on the European 
Continent.

Inter-Korean Summit

    Q. When does the Korean President expect to hold inter-Korean summit 
meeting? And to Mr. Clinton, what is your--[inaudible]--plan to hold the 
South and North Korean summit?
    President Kim. Actually, this is not an appropriate stage to discuss 
this issue because in North Korea there isn't still an official 
leadership of succession. Of course, we know that there isn't any other 
alternative to the leadership than Kim Jong Il. However, we don't know 
when this inter-Korean summit meeting can take

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place, and I think it is not desirable for use to discuss this issue 
now. I really didn't have the opportunity to discuss this one in depth 
with President Clinton specifically on the possibility of an inter-
Korean summit meeting.
    President Clinton. But, sir, I think the important point for me to 
make, on behalf of the United States, to the people of Korea is that it 
is still our position that the armistice will remain in effect until the 
Korean people themselves reach an agreement for a permanent peace. And 
in that, our position is 100 percent behind the position taken by the 
President and the Government of South Korea.
    Yes. Go ahead, Brit [Brit Hume, ABC News].

United Nations Peacekeeping

    Q. Mr. President, has this difficult experience that the United 
States has had in getting the U.N. to do, as you put it, what it has 
said it would do, shaken your confidence in the U.N. as an institution 
through which the United States and with which the United States can 
work toward its various foreign policy aims?
    President Clinton. No. But I think what it has done--let me--I would 
say there should be two lessons that we draw out of this as Americans. 
Number one, the United Nations cannot go to a place with a limited 
peacekeeping mission if there is no peace to keep, without considering 
what it's going to do if it can't fulfill its original mission. That's 
really been the fundamental problem here. The rules of engagement for 
the forces there have made them very vulnerable to be taken hostages 
and, therefore, to become the instrument in the last few months of 
Serbian aggression, Bosnian-Serbian aggression.
    The second lesson I would ask the American people, all of us, to 
think about is, that if we determine that in various parts of the world 
at the end of the cold war it is appropriate for other countries to take 
the lead, and they have troops on the ground and people at immediate 
risk and we don't, then we have to be willing to accept the fact that we 
may not be able to dictate the ultimate outcome of the situation.
    The difficulty for the United States is this: We are still the 
world's only superpower; people want us to fix things or at least say 
we're absolutely not involved in them. And here's a case where we 
decided to let someone else take the lead in a, to be fair to them, very 
difficult problem, but to be involved in a supporting role. And that, to 
some extent, has put our own prestige, the prestige of NATO, and the 
prestige of the United Nations all at risk. And because we don't have 
the large segment of troops on the ground, our ability to dictate the 
course of events has been more limited.
    Now, having said all that, keep in mind, we are trying to work our 
way through, in this post-cold-war era, sort of an uncharted field in 
which the United States can lead the world, can be, in effect, the 
repository of last resort, of responsible power, but still give others 
the chance and responsibility to take the lead where they can.
    So I think we have learned the hazards of that policy. And I think 
that the kinds of problems we have had here have led us to learn things 
that we won't repeat. But I would caution the American people that that 
does not mean they should give up on the U.N. The U.N. is doing dozens 
of things today that you will not be able to show on the news tonight, 
Brit, for the precise reason that they are working and they won't rise 
on the radar screen.
    So it's important that we not throw out the baby with the bathwater 
here. We need to learn what went wrong in Bosnia, why it didn't work, 
what the limits of our partnership are. But we shouldn't give up on the 
United Nations, because it still has great capacity to do important 
things.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President's 100th news conference began at 1:12 p.m. in Room 
450 of the Old Executive Office Building. President Kim spoke in Korean, 
and his remarks were translated by an interpreter.