[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2002, Book II)]
[November 22, 2002]
[Pages 2110-2112]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks Following Discussions With President Vladimir Putin of Russia and an Exchange With Reporters in St.
Petersburg, Russia
November 22, 2002
President Putin. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. In your
presence may I once again cordially welcome the President of the United
States and his team to Russia.
We are very pleased that Mr. President accepted our invitation. And
let me say that our conversations--and this is exactly the way I'd like
to quote this meeting--our conversation on the whole range of our
bilateral issues and our cooperation in the international arena have
been very productive and very, very frank.
And we discussed practically everything between the sky and the
Earth. We discussed our cooperation in the energy sector, our energy
dialog. We discussed our cooperation in the high technology sector. We
also--[inaudible]--the problem of NATO expansion and the development of
relations between Russia and NATO. And of course, we also addressed the
problem of terrorism. And of course, we also discussed the prospects for
our cooperation on the matters of strategic stability.
I think that Mr. President will agree with me--and he'll have an
opportunity to say what he thinks on this--but I think he'll agree with
me that our meeting, in this point a very frank meeting, without
prepared statements, has been very productive and has been very
fruitful.
President Bush. Yes, it has. I consider Vladimir Putin one of my
good friends.
Are you going to translate?
Like other good friends I've had throughout my life, we don't agree
100 percent of the time. But we always agree to discuss things in a
frank and--in a frank way.
Every time I come to St. Petersburg, he keeps showing me more and
more beautiful rooms. So I'm coming back next May. I always enjoy our
conversations.
I have just come from NATO. My visit with Vladimir was my first stop
after Prague. The mood of the NATO countries is this: Russia is our
friend; we've got a
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lot of interests together; we must continue our cooperation in the war
on terror; and the expansion of NATO should be welcomed by the Russian
people. After all, there are new nations on our border that are members
of--nations that are new members of NATO but nations pledged to peace
and pledged to freedom.
But the President was right, we had a--we discussed a lot of issues.
And I would define our bilateral relations as very good.
We might answer a couple of questions.
Q. This is a question to both Presidents.
President Bush. Okay, fine. Fire away.
Russia-U.S. Relations/NATO
[At this point, a question was asked in Russian, and no translation was
provided.]
President Putin. As regards partnership, it is on a very high level.
And it is very pleasant for me to note that we not only have lost
nothing of what has been generated, has been produced by the previous
generations of politicians, but we keep going on further. We keep
achieving new results, and we are moving ahead very expeditiously and
very productively.
And I'd like to stress--and this is a very important point--that the
interests of Russia and the United States coincide not only in many
economic fields but they are also identical in many strategic areas.
As regards our relations with NATO, let me say the following: As
regards the expansion, you know our position well. We do not believe
that this has been necessitated by the existing pact, but we take note
of the position taken by the President of the United States, and we hope
to have positive development of our relations with all NATO countries.
As regards our relationship with the Alliance as a whole, as the
Alliance keeps transforming--and this is something that Mr. President
talked about recently--we do not rule out the possibility of deepening
our relations with the Alliance. Of course, in the case if the
activities of the Alliance are in accord with Russia's national security
interests. At least within the Group of 20, we are interacting, are
cooperating in a very well way, in a very good way.
President Bush. Yes, the Russian-NATO Council is very important. But
the strategy of NATO is going to be based upon the fact that the cold
war is over; Russia is a friend; Russia is not an enemy. And I told the
President, as I was leaving the NATO summit, a lot of leaders came up
and asked me to send their personal regards to him.
And in terms of our bilateral relations, we'll continue to work to
make them as strong as they can possibly be, and there's a lot of
areas--in trade, in commerce, in energy--that we're working together to
make progress.
I think it's only fair we ask one American. Jim [Jim Angle, FOX
News]. Jim's his name.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri/Iraq
Q. Thank you, Mr. President. The public now knows that the U.S. has
in its custody a terrorist who has the blood of many Americans on his
hands, Mr. al-Nashiri. How significant is his arrest?
And since we see President Putin so rarely, Mr. President, I hope
you won't object if I ask President Putin a question as well. And that
is, sir, has the U.S. asked you to participate or contribute to any
military action in Iraq if it becomes necessary, and what is your view
on that?
President Bush. A couple of points. First, I want to thank Vladimir
and his foreign policy team for working together to pass a strong
resolution out of the United Nations on Iraq.
Secondly, we did bring to justice a killer. And the message is,
we're making war on the--we're making progress on the war against
terrorists, that we're going to hunt them down one at a time, that it
doesn't matter where they hide. As we work with our friends, we will
find them and bring them to justice. And America and Russia
[[Page 2112]]
and people who love freedom are one person safer as a result of us
finding this guy.
President Putin. I'm very pleased to see the mood the President of
the United States is in. It is what we needed. Let me assure you that we
will work together, and our work will be effective.
Now there is something I would like to draw your attention to. And
we ultimately discussed this matter with our U.S. colleagues. We should
not give a chance to anyone who is either engaged in terror or is
supporting terror.
As I understood the second part of your question, concern was--has
to do with Iraq. We should not forget about those who finance terrorism.
Of the 19 terrorists who committed the main attacks on September 11th
against the United States, 16 are citizens of Saudi Arabia, and we
should not forget about that.
Now, where has Usama bin Laden taken refuge? They say that somewhere
between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We know what Mr. Musharraf is doing to
achieve stability in his country, and we are supporting him. But what
can happen with armies armed with weapons that exist in Pakistan,
including weapons of mass destruction--we are not sure on that aspect,
and we should not forget about that. And we agree with the President of
the United States and his colleagues who say that we have to make sure
that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction in its possession.
Diplomats have carried out a very difficult, a very complex work.
And we do believe that we have to stay within the framework of the work
being carried out by the Security Council of the United Nations. And we
do believe that, together with the United States, we can achieve a
positive result. As you know, our recent past gives us--we have a
example of that kind, and the level achieved in our bilateral relations
between Russia and the United States gives us hope that we can achieve
such results.
President Bush. Thank you all. We've got a plane to catch. Don't
keep us waiting. Thank you all. Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 5:55 p.m. at Catherine's Palace. In his
remarks, President Putin referred to Usama bin Laden, leader of the Al
Qaida terrorist organization, and President Pervez Musharraf of
Pakistan. A reporter referred to Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Al Qaida's
chief of operations for the Persian Gulf. President Putin spoke in
Russian, and his remarks were translated by an interpreter.