[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 36 (Monday, September 7, 1998)]
[Pages 1693-1694]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Joint Statement on a Protocol to the Convention on the Prohibition of 
Biological Weapons

September 2, 1998

    The Presidents of the United States and the Russian Federation, 
recognizing the threat posed by biological weapons, express strong 
support for the aims and tasks of the Ad Hoc Group of States Parties to 
establish a regime to enhance the effective implementation of the 1972 
Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and 
Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on 
their Destruction. We urge the further intensification and successful 
conclusion of those negotiations to

[[Page 1694]]

strengthen the Convention by adoption of a legally binding Protocol at 
the earliest possible date.
    We have agreed to contribute to accomplishing these tasks. 
Consequently, the United States of America and the Russian Federation 
will make additional efforts in the Ad Hoc Group to promote decisive 
progress in negotiations on the Protocol to the Convention, to ensure 
its universality and enable the Group to fulfill its mandate.
    We agree that the Protocol to the Convention must be economical to 
implement, must adequately guarantee the protection of national security 
information, and must provide confidentiality for sensitive commercial 
information. We also consider it extremely important to create a 
mechanism for implementation that will be consistent with the scope of 
the measures provided for in the Protocol.
    We recognize the necessity for the Protocol to include those 
measures that would do the most to strengthen the Convention.
    We express our firm commitment to global prohibition of biological 
weapons and for full and effective compliance by all States Parties with 
the Convention prohibiting such weapons.
    We support the language in the Final Declaration of the Fourth 
Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention (1996) that 
the Convention forbids the use of bacteriological (biological) and toxin 
weapons under any circumstances.
Moscow
September 2, 1998

Note: An original was not available for verification of the content of 
this joint statement.