    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [May 14, 1997]
    [Pages 598-600]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks on the NATO-Russia Founding Act and an Exchange With Reporters
    May 14, 1997

        The President. Good afternoon. Today in Moscow, we have taken an
    historic step closer to a peaceful, undivided, democratic Europe for the
    first time in history. The agreement that NATO Secretary General Solana
    and Russian Foreign Minister Primakov have reached and which we expect
    to be approved by NATO's governing council this week, forms a practical
    partnership between NATO and Russia that will make America, Europe, and
    Russia stronger and more secure. The agreement builds on the
    understandings that I reached with President Yeltsin in Helsinki. It
    helps to pave the way for NATO, as it enlarges to take in new members,
    to build a new relationship with Russia that benefits all of us.
        In this century, Europe has suffered through two cold wars--through
    two World Wars and a cold war. And America has also paid a heavy price.
    Three years ago at the NATO summit in Brussels, I laid out a vision for
    a new, different Europe in the 21st century, an undivided Continent
    where our values of democracy and human rights, free markets and peace
    know no boundaries; where nations know that their borders are secure and
    their independence respected; where nations define their greatness by
    the promise of their people, not their power to dominate or destabilize.
        For 50 years, NATO has been at the core of Europe and America's
    security. From the start of my first administration, the United States
    has worked to adapt NATO to new missions in a new century, to open its
    doors to Europe's new democracies, to strengthen its ties to nonmembers
    through the Partnership For Peace, and to forge a strong, productive
    relationship between NATO and a free, democratic Russia. These are goals
    Republicans and Democrats alike share, building on the legacy of
    bipartisan leadership in Europe, begun after the war between President
    Truman, Secretary of State Marshall, and Senator Arthur Vandenberg.
        Today's agreement sets out a sustained cooperative relationship
    between NATO and Russia. NATO and Russia will consult and coordinate
    regularly. Where they all agree, they will act jointly as they are doing
    today in Bosnia. Russia will work closely with NATO but not within NATO,
    giving Russia a voice in but not a veto over NATO's business.
        I congratulate NATO Secretary General Solana and Russian Foreign
    Minister Primakov. I look forward to personally thanking Secretary
    General Solana for his remarkable work when he visits here next week.
        This agreement opens a way for a truly historic signing in Paris
    next month--or excuse me, it will be later this month now. Let me say
    that NATO's relationship with Russia is a part

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    of a larger process to adapt NATO to new circumstances and new
    challenges in the 21st century. Just 8 weeks from now in Madrid, NATO
    will invite the first new members to join our alliance. Its doors will
    remain open to all those ready to shoulder the burdens of membership.
    The first new members will not be the last.
        NATO, working with Russia and other friends of freedom, will see
    that we work to prevent a return to national rivalries, to defeat new
    threats to peace and freedom and prosperity, like the ethnic rivalries
    that have torn Bosnia asunder, terrorism, and weapons proliferation.
        This March in Helsinki, President Yeltsin and I agreed that despite
    our differences over NATO enlargement, the relationship between the
    United States and Russia and the benefits to all of cooperation between
    NATO and Russia were too important to be jeopardized. And we set out the
    principles for how NATO and Russia could cooperate. Those form the basis
    for today's agreement, an agreement that proves that the relationship
    between NATO and Russia is not a zero-sum game and that the 21st century
    does not have to be trapped in the same assessments of advantage and
    loss that brought death and destruction and heartbreak to so many for so
    long in the 20th century.
        It is possible to enlarge NATO, to maintain its effectiveness as the
    most successful defense alliance in history, to strengthen our
    partnership with Russia, and to do all this in a way that advances our
    common objectives of freedom and human rights and peace and prosperity.
    We can build a better Europe without lines or gray zones but with real
    security, real peace, and real hope for all its citizens. A more secure,
    peaceful, and hopeful Europe clearly means a better world for Americans
    in the 21st century.
        Thank you.

    Russian Cooperation and NATO Expansion

        Q. Mr. President, what do you think finally brought the Russians
    around, if there was one deciding factor? And how much of a problem is
    it going to be, now that you've got the Russians sort of on board, to
    convince Congress that NATO should, in fact, be expanded?
        The President. Well, let me answer the first question. I think what
    brought the Russians to this agreement was a sustained effort at dialog
    between Russia and NATO and between Russia and the United States and
    other friends of democratic Russia, making it clear that NATO has a new
    mission, that there was no attempt to be more threatening to Russia but
    instead to build a common partnership for democratic values and
    democratic interests.
        Yesterday President Havel of the Czech Republic had a very
    compelling article in one of our major newspapers, laying out that case.
    We are not going to define NATO in the 21st century in the same way we
    did in the 20th century. And we are trying to change the realities that
    caused so much grief in the last century. I think he understood that, in
    other words, that a democratic, free, nonaggressive--that is, in a
    destructive sense--nonaggressive Russia is not threatened by an expanded
    NATO, particularly now that there's going to be a partnership to work in
    areas which are in our common interests to work. So that's the first
    thing.
        The second thing I would say is, in terms of the Congress, now that
    the partnership has been solidified between NATO and Russia, which I
    think is an important thing on its own merits, it would seem to me to be
    a great mistake to deny countries that are clearly able and willing and
    anxious to take on the responsibilities of NATO membership the
    opportunity to do that. The understandings that we have reached among
    ourselves about the process of expansion mean that the members
    themselves are ready to expand. And I believe that in the end Congress
    will support that, particularly since all of our NATO allies will be
    voting on to whom new membership will be offered.

    Russian Domestic Acceptance

        Q. How tough a sell does President Yeltsin have at home with this?
        The President. Well, I would hope that the clarifications that were
    hammered out, first at Helsinki but then the excellent work that
    Secretary General Solana did, will help President Yeltsin to demonstrate
    that he has secured an agreement which shows that, while they don't have
    a veto over NATO actions, that NATO has no plans, no intentions, and has
    made clear that its mission is not to threaten, confine, or in any way
    undermine Russia; that we're looking for a partnership here between a
    democratic Russia and the democracies that are in NATO; and that this,
    in fact, will strengthen Russia's security and reduce the sense of
    anxiety that it might have otherwise felt, I believe. And I believe
    he'll be in a position to argue that to the Russian people now in a
    forceful way.

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        But keep in mind, all of us are trying to change the--not only the
    facts on the ground, if you will, but the whole pattern of thought which
    has dominated the international politics of Europe for 50 years. And
    even though the cold war is over, a lot of people want to go back to the
    kind of--kind of an analysis that was more typical even before World War
    II, in the late 19th and early 20th century.
        And we're trying to change all that. We're trying to prove that
    democracies can reach across territorial lines to form partnerships that
    commit themselves not only to preserve freedom within each other's
    borders and the integrity of those borders but to face these new
    transnational threats like terrorism, ethnic convulsions, and weapons
    proliferation.

    Military Installations in New Member States

        Q. Mr. President, President Yeltsin said that you have made a
    precise commitment in this document to guarantee that there will be no
    military installations in the new member states. Have you given those
    guarantees?
        The President. I would urge you, first of all, to look at the
    language that Secretary General Solana has agreed to and that our
    representatives have provisionally agreed to just in the last couple of
    hours. What the language does is to make it clear that there are no
    plans and there are no reasons to, in effect, activate old Warsaw Pact
    military installations for what you might call traditional NATO
    aggressive forward-posturing but that we will have to use--there is an
    explicit understanding in the agreement that we will have to use some
    infrastructure for the agreed-upon operations that are an integral part
    of being a NATO member.
        So all we're doing in the understanding is to recognize, yes, there
    will be some use of military infrastructure so that the requirements of
    membership can be met by any new members, but, no, we are not moving the
    dividing line of Europe from its old dividing line between NATO and the
    Warsaw Pact further east. So I think we got just exactly the right kind
    of understanding. And again, I think Secretary General Solana did it
    right.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:29 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to NATO Secretary General Javier
    Solana; Foreign Minister Yevgeniy Primakov and President Boris Yeltsin
    of Russia; and President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic. The
    agreement was formally entitled ``Founding Act on Mutual Relations,
    Cooperation and Security Between NATO and the Russian Federation.''