[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 38, Number 47 (Monday, November 25, 2002)]
[Pages 2073-2075]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 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

[[Page 2074]]

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 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

[[Page 2075]]

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.