[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 6 (Monday, February 10, 1997)]
[Pages 157-159]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks Prior to Discussions With Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin of 
Russia and an Exchange With Reporters

February 7, 1997

    The President. I want to welcome Prime Minister Chernomyrdin to the 
White House and thank him for the work that he and the Vice President 
have done over the last couple of days dealing with the issues involving 
the relationships of Russia and the United States and NATO and Russia 
and a number of other issues. And I want to thank them for the work 
they've done to prepare the way for my meeting with President Yeltsin in 
Helsinki on March 20th and 21st.
    And I also want to thank President Ahtisaari of Finland for hosting 
us at that meeting. I'm looking forward to it. It will be very 
important, and I feel quite optimistic about it because of the good 
relationships I've always had with President Yeltsin and because of the 
work that the Prime Minister and the Vice President have done.

Helsinki Summit and NATO Expansion

    Q. Two questions, Mr. President. Number one, was Helsinki chosen to 
accommodate the health of President Yeltsin? And two, how do you 
convince the President and Mr. Chernomyrdin that NATO expansion is not 
the threat that they seem to think it is?
    The President. Well, first of all, Helsinki was decided upon for a 
number of reasons, but it worked well for both of us, and I feel good 
about it. I'm looking forward to going back there.
    Q. Was health one of the reasons?
    The President. Secondly, we just have started our meeting here, but 
I think you have to see this issue in the context of our--all American-
Russian relations and the fact that Russia has emerged as a great 
democratic nation with such strong sense of partnership with the 
European countries. The best evidence of that is what we're all doing 
together in Bosnia today--for our partnership there.

Juvenile Crime

    Q. Mr. President, one of the global issues on the forefront today is 
also the CDC report on suicide and homicide among juveniles. How do you 
react to the fact that the United States is leading the richest nations 
among homicides and suicides among 15-year-olds and under?
    The President. I'm very concerned about it, and we're working on it. 
That's one of the reasons that I made such a big issue of juvenile crime 
and violence in the State of the Union. There is some indication that it 
is going down now, after years and years and years of exploding. The 
last figures we have for 1995 were somewhat encouraging.
    But it is--it's an unacceptable condition. And we have too many 
children out there raising themselves on our streets,

too many children who have not been embraced by their communities, who 
can't get what they need in their own families. And we have to--the rest of 
us have to do better. And a big part of what I hope we can work together on 
with the Congress is the whole juvenile justice package, which I think will 
be passed

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and then fully implemented, along with the community efforts that are going 
on in places like Boston, which is a good model, where there hasn't been a 
single juvenile homicide in 18 months, I think, in a long time.

    If we can learn from what's working out there, we can turn this 
around. But we ought to be sensitive about it, not only because we don't 
rank well compared to all of the nations but because it means we're 
losing too many of our children.
    Q. Were you shocked by it?
    The President. No. I'm shocked by--I was shocked, but not surprised, 
because I knew that we would have the worst record on this.

1998 Budget

    Q. Senator Lott says he is greatly depressed by your budget 
proposal. What did you think about that?
    The President. Well, I had a good visit with him today; I'm trying 
to put him in a better frame of mind about it. We know that from the 
last 2 years that they have different priorities than I do in balancing 
the budget. But the American people should remember this administration 
has a record now; we've cut the deficit by 63 percent. We're serious 
about balancing the budget, but we think we have to do it in a way that 
protects our values and invests in our future.
    If the charge is that I have invested more in education and in the 
health and welfare of poor children in this country, then that's a 
charge I'm guilty of. I did--I presented a budget that invested a lot 
more in education and in the health and welfare of poor children, and 
I'm guilty of that. But I think that's good for America, to make it 
stronger, and we'll still balance the budget.
    Q. Did you talk to Senator Lott----
    The President. Let me just make one more comment on that. We are 
just beginning this process, and I took no offense about what he said 
today. I'm very encouraged by the remarks that have been made by the 
House leaders and the Senate leaders in the budget process. I think he 
thinks that maybe there's a bigger difference between us, and we'll have 
to work harder, but we always knew we were going to have to work hard to 
reconcile the differences between us. We can do this.
    But if you look at the differences between us and you look at how 
close we are to a balanced budget, we can do it, and I'm convinced we 
will do it. And I think what I want to do is make sure we do it in a way 
that's best for the American people and deals with this enormous problem 
we have, especially of our young people--giving them the right kind of 
education, keeping them out of trouble, giving them decent health care 
and--because I don't want to have to keep reading years from now the 
kind of rankings that were just quoted to me from the CDC.

[At this point, one group of reporters left the room, and another group 
entered.]

Prime Minister Chernomyrdin's Visit

    The President. First, let me say that we are honored to welcome 
Prime Minister Chernomyrdin back to Washington. And I very much 
appreciate the work that he and the Vice President have done and will do 
after this meeting on issues between our two countries. And

I'm especially grateful that they worked out a time for President Yeltsin 
and me to meet in Helsinki on March 20th and 21st. I thank President 
Ahtisaari for agreeing to host us, and I'm delighted to be going back to 
Helsinki and very, very anxious to have my meeting with President Yeltsin.

Russia and NATO

    Q. Mr. President, would you agree to sign a legal binding agreement 
with Russia on European security guarantees?
    The President. Well, I believe that we ought to work out an 
agreement between NATO and Russia--the United States, which ensures that 
Russia will have a leading role in European security affairs. There are 
all kinds of--the question you asked me and the way you ask it leaves a 
lot of landmines open there. I believe that we can work out an agreement 
that will be sufficiently satisfactory to both parties, that we can get 
that.
    But I don't want to say yes to the question you ask because that 
would imply things which might make any agreement we could reach 
meaningless. We want a meaningful agreement that is signed and public 
and that

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the parties feel bound to but that actually means something.

Five Nation Summit

    Q. Mr. President, would you like to go to Paris to that summit of 
five nations? Looks like Russia supports that, the French, the Germans.
    The President. First of all, I want to have my meeting with 
President Yeltsin. I think that's the most important thing. We have to 
meet first. Chancellor Kohl has been to see President Yeltsin. President 
Chirac's seen him. And I haven't seen him in several months, and I'm 
anxious to see him. We've talked on the phone, but I want to have a 
meeting first. And before we all get together we need to be very clear 
on what it is we'll be discussing and what we expect the results to be. 
So I want to defer a decision on that until I have a chance to have my 
visit with President Yeltsin.

Helsinki Summit and NATO Expansion

    Q. Mr. President, can the summit in Helsinki influence in any way 
the timetable of the NATO expansion?
    The President. Well, we intend to have our meeting in the summertime 
and make the decisions that we have agreed already to make on that. 
That's a decision that's already been made by NATO. But what I think 
that the summit in Helsinki can do is to make it clear that no one has 
any intention of providing any increased threat to the security of 
Russia.
    I have worked very hard for 4 years to elevate the role of Russia in 
the international forums, in the economic forums like the G-7, in 
security partnerships like the remarkable partnership we have in Bosnia. 
I'm convinced that the operation in Bosnia would not have the 
credibility it does today if you didn't have Russia and the United 
States and the European parties in there.
    My whole vision of the future is a partnership of all of Europe's 
democracies, obviously including Russia, as I said in my State of the 
Union Address. So I think we'll be able to talk about that and make some 
real progress.
    The Vice President. And we're going to have a discussion in here in 
just a minute, so you need to give them a chance. [Laughter]. They're 
going to do a press conference----

[At this point, a question was asked in Russian, and a translation was 
not provided.]

    Prime Minister Chernomyrdin. It's a step forward--[inaudible]--
express the importance for the meeting with the President and the 
President of Russia. It will be one of the critical stages in terms of--
[inaudible]--in Europe. The upcoming summit, and the questions 
[inaudible]--a wide range, and the decisions will be extremely important 
for the relationship between our two countries and for European security 
as well, as well as for the arms control, for economic questions.

Note: The President spoke at 1:40 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to President Boris Yeltsin of Russia. 
A tape was not available for verification of the content of these 
remarks.