[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 29, Number 16 (Monday, April 26, 1993)]
[Pages 660-661]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Statement on Advancing U.S. Relations With Russia and the Other New 
Independent States

 April 23, 1993

    Since my summit in Vancouver with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, I 
have pursued a number of measures to implement our policy of economic 
and strategic partnership between our two countries. These reflect my 
conviction that the movement toward political and economic reform in 
Russia and the other new states of the former Soviet Union is the 
greatest security challenge of our day and can fuel our own future 
prosperity as well.
    It is time to put our relations with Russia and the other states on 
a new footing. As an important step in that process, we need to update 
the accumulated cold war vestiges that remain in U.S. laws and 
practices. Our statutes and regulations are filled with restrictions on 
a Communist Soviet Union, a nation that no longer exists. Many of those 
provisions needlessly impede our relations with the democratic states 
that replaced the Soviet Union.
    Many in Congress have already taken the lead on re-examining these 
provisions. Today, I have asked Ambassador-at-Large Strobe Talbott to 
coordinate our Executive review of these laws and statutes on an 
expedited basis, with the goal of revising or removing them where 
appropriate and consistent with our security and other national 
interests. Related to this process, our administration will also begin a 
thorough review, working with our allies, of how to reorient export 
controls on sensitive technology. I ask the bipartisan leaders in 
Congress to work with us to coordinate and expedite these reviews.
    Today I am also announcing steps to help build a new security 
partnership with Russia and the other states. We will accelerate the 
deactivation of nuclear weapons systems already scheduled for 
elimination under the START I Treaty, while working to accelerate 
dismantlement in Russia and the three other states with nuclear weapons 
on their territory. We are beginning a comprehensive review of measures 
that could enhance strategic stability, including the possibility of 
each

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side reprogramming its nuclear missiles so they are not routinely aimed 
at each other. And we will be starting a consultative process within the 
next 2 months with Russia, our allies, and other states, aimed at 
commencing negotiations toward a multilateral nuclear test ban.
    Finally, we are continuing our efforts to strike a partnership with 
political and economic reformers throughout Russia and the other states. 
We are continuing work with our G-7 partners to assemble the package of 
multilateral assistance that Secretaries Bentsen and Christopher 
recently negotiated in Tokyo. And I am continuing consultation with 
Congress over the further efforts our own Nation will take to assist 
Russia's reforms.
    The hardest work of reform must be done by the people of Russia and 
the other states themselves, and we applaud the courageous steps they 
have taken. Yet we dare not miss opportunities to do what we can to 
bolster their processes of democratization and economic liberalization. 
The steps I am announcing today will advance those objectives.