[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 28 (Monday, July 14, 1997)]
[Pages 1025-1028]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Interview With David Gollust of the Voice of America

July 3, 1997

NATO Expansion

    Q. Mr. President, thanks for giving us your time today as you 
prepare for the Madrid Summit.
    The administration has made it clear that it's prepared to accept 
only Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in the first round of NATO 
expansion, but several of our allies, and maybe even a majority in NATO, 
have said that they would also like to see Romania and Slovenia in that 
initial round. Since NATO decisions are taken by consensus, we have an 
effective veto over a broader expansion, but there's been criticism in 
Europe that we're being a bit heavyhanded, maybe the bigfoot approach to 
handling NATO affairs. Do you accept that?
    The President. No. We consulted extensively with all of our allies. 
Secretary Albright went to Sintra in Portugal and said what our thoughts 
were and listened to their thoughts before we announced our position. I 
personally talked with President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl and Prime 
Minister Blair and others about this. We would like to see NATO continue 
to expand. We believe NATO would be well served by having more members 
on its southern flank. But we believe that these three countries are the 
only three that are clearly ready now, in terms of the stability of 
their democracy and their capacity to fulfill the military requirements 
of membership.
    Keep in mind, this is--NATO--there is a political component to this 
decision, and there should be, but NATO is also, first and foremost, a 
security alliance. And anybody who gets in as a full member must be able 
to meet the requirements of membership. Moreover, there are costs to be 
paid by the NATO members themselves that are significant to integrate 
new members because we have to operate in more countries. And for all 
these reasons, on the merits, the United States strongly believes that 
we should start with three.
    Now, let me also back up and just go through a little history here. 
In January of '94, when we recommended that NATO expand--and I did that 
in a speech in Belgium--there was some controversy about it among the 
Europeans. Not all the Europeans thought it was a good idea. But 
eventually they came around. Interestingly enough, the French were 
strongly in favor of expansion, and we have been together on that.
    Now, what I think is important to do is to see this as an ongoing 
process so that--let's just take Romania, for example, a very important 
country, the second largest country in Central and Eastern Europe. Would 
it be a good thing if Romania were in NATO? Of course, it would be. Is 
it a good thing that Romania has chosen democracy and has resolved its 
problems with Hungary and now has two Hungarians in the Romanian 
Cabinet? Yes, it is. This is a process that's been going on slightly 
less than a year.
    So I think to say--we love what the Romanians are doing; we applaud 
it. We want them to be a part of our shared future, and the door is 
still open to them in a very aggressive way. That's the message we want 
to get out there, it seems to me, and that we will continue to work with 
them to see whether they can sustain this for another couple of years.
    Q. Are you going to be able to offer Romania, Slovenia, some of the 
other countries that will not be allowed in on the first round anything 
more than consolation? I mean, will there be any kind of specific 
information given about a timetable or modalities?
    The President. Well, what I would hope is that all the allies would 
agree that we will take another look at this in 1999. As we complete the 
integration of the first members into NATO, we will take another look 
and see if we shouldn't take some more members

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in then. But in addition to that, let's not forget one thing: There is 
something that has already happened to increase their stability. The 
agreement with Russia increases their security and, even more important, 
their involvement in the Partnership For Peace, which is now going to be 
folded into this Euro-Atlantic alliance. That's a big deal for all these 
countries. That has been the great untold and underappreciated story of 
NATO, the fact that we put together this Partnership For Peace. There 
are two dozen countries in it. We do joint military exercises. They're 
involved with us in Bosnia. This is a huge deal.
    So these countries are going to continue to become more secure and 
more involved with NATO, no matter what happens, if they're getting a 
clear signal, too, that this is not the last decision on membership and 
that it is not the last decision for a long time, that within 2 years 
we're going to take another look at this.

Russia

    Q. You've said many times that NATO expansion is not a process 
that's directed against Russia. But a number of countries that were 
formerly part of the Soviet Union, for instance the Baltic States, are 
very concerned that at some point Russia might return to totalitarianism 
and empire building at some point. Are the concerns that they have, the 
Baltic States for instance, valid on this? And can you or will you do 
anything to put them at ease?
    The President. Well again, we have tried to put them at ease in two 
ways. One is with their involvement in the Partnership For Peace, and 
the second is with the clear understanding that the door to membership 
would remain open on a long-term basis. And let me make a third point. 
The third is, when we made the agreement with Russia--the partnership 
with Russia is a clear signal that at least as long as this government 
is there and that President is there, they are not going to define their 
greatness in terms of their territorial dominance. Keep in mind, it was 
President Yeltsin that worked with us to withdraw the troops from the 
Baltics. So they got their--the Russian troops have left the Baltics in 
the tenure of my service here.
    So I think time is on our side, that we can't resolve all issues 
today but we are moving in the right direction and we have to let a 
little time pass on some of these issues. And they'll settle down and 
resolve themselves, I think, in a positive way. Could something bad 
happen to change the direction? Of course, it could happen. Is it 
likely? I don't think so.

Senate Approval of NATO Expansion

    Q. After the Madrid Summit is over, of course, I think the focus 
will shift back here domestically to the Senate, which will have to 
approve the extension of U.S. defense commitments to new NATO countries. 
How difficult a process will this be? Are the American people prepared 
to accept U.S. commitments to defend Warsaw, for instance, as they have 
done to, say, Paris and London?
    The President. Well, I hope they will be. And I think we can prevail 
on that because it's not just Warsaw; keep in mind you have--I mean, not 
just Paris and London, we have other smaller countries in NATO right 
now. Iceland is a member of NATO.
    So I think when you point out that no NATO country has ever been 
attacked, it makes it clear that actually the expansion of NATO reduces 
the likelihood of Americans having to go to war. It reduces the 
likelihood of Americans having to fight and die and also broadens the 
burdens of those who will help us in places like Bosnia. So for all 
those reasons, I think that we can persuade the American people and the 
United States Senate to do this.
    I also think, frankly, as a practical matter, it will be a little 
easier to make the case for three rather than five. And if the three 
work well and the costs are as we expect them to be, modest and 
affordable, I think it will make it a lot easier to sell in a couple of 
years if we are in a position where we can come back and argue to expand 
some more.

Bosnia

    Q. Mr. President, on Bosnia--of course, this was an issue at Denver 
a couple of weeks ago; it's going to be on the agenda in Madrid--you 
have got a few days less than a year now to the planned withdrawal of 
the NATO-led peacekeepers, and there are re

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ports that within the administration there is disagreement about the 
ideal, of pulling out in the middle of next year. Is it worth keeping 
the withdrawal date if it means that Bosnia might lurch back to 
bloodshed?
    The President. I think it's important that we keep the date in mind 
at the end of this mission, because this mission, just like the one 
before it, can't go on forever. And I think--right now, I think it's 
better for us not to speculate about what happens after that. What I'm 
concerned about is that there is all this rather frenetic looking at 
what happens next June to the exclusion of looking at what happens today 
and tomorrow. That is, we wouldn't even have to worry about this if 
every day between now and next year everyone involved gave a 100 percent 
effort to implementing the Dayton peace accords, to doing the economic 
reconstruction, to setting up the common institutions, to resolving the 
police and the local election issues, to dealing with the war crimes 
issues.
    And what the United States has tried to do is to get our allies 
there to focus on implementing Dayton in an aggressive way. And one of 
the things that came out of the Summit of the Eight was that each of the 
countries expressed some interest in being given, in effect, almost 
primary responsibility for each separate element of the Dayton accords.
    Then, as we get along toward the end of year, we could take another 
look and see whether--what's the security situation going to be next 
June, and how can we best take care of it? But I don't think that this 
particular mission at this level should continue. We cannot occupy this 
country forever.
    Q. Could we conceivably leave with the very prominent war crimes 
suspects still at large?
    The President. Well, we had a good arrest last week. And I think 
that the problem, of course, with Dayton was--and this was an inevitable 
problem, but we were a part of it so we have to take responsibility--is 
that there was this agreement to set up a tribunal or to support the 
work of the tribunal with the explicit understanding that the work of 
then IFOR and its successor, SFOR, would not be used to go and do, in 
effect, police or military work to get these people, that they would 
only pick them up if they came in contact with them in the ordinary 
course of their business, which meant that Dayton left a gap. There was 
no, in effect, police group charged with the duty to go arrest the war 
criminals. And so we're trying to figure out how we can accelerate that 
process consistent with the other obligations the parties assumed at 
Dayton. That was a big hole in Dayton.
    But even with that, that's still not an excuse for why the 
development aid is taking so long to get out. You know, are we 
supporting the local elections in every way we can? Have we all done 
everything we can to set up local police units that can maintain 
security? Are we doing everything we can to press disarmament instead of 
having an arms race of equality, which is not in anyone's interest?
    We do have an agreement in the parties now to set up common 
institutions. Are they going to be set up quickly enough so that the 
benefits of them will be felt by the Serbs and the Croats and the 
Muslims in time to keep them moving together and going together? I mean, 
these people butchered each other for 4 years; you've got to work real 
hard to give them common interest to live together and work together.
    And there is a difference in not going back to war, which I don't 
think any of them really want to do, the ordinary people I mean, and 
having a vested interest in continuing to pursue the peace. We've done a 
good job, I think, of getting them to the point where they don't want to 
go back to the way it was. We have to do more to get them to try to 
build a better peace.
    Q. Thanks again for your time, Mr. President.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 12:23 p.m. in the Oval Office at the White 
House. In his remarks, the President referred to President Jacques 
Chirac of France; Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany; Prime Minister Tony 
Blair of the United Kingdom; and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia. This 
item was not received in time for publication in the appropriate issue.

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