MEETING IN MOSCOW : Voices

Excerpts from the Clinton-Yeltsin press conference after their meeting:

On NATO

Clinton: While there was not an agreement between us on the details and the question of the expansion of NATO, Russia did agree to enter into the Partnership for Peace. . . . There must be a special relationship between NATO and Russia.

Yeltsin: Today we better understand the interests and concerns of each other, and yet, we still don’t have answers to a number of questions. Our positions even remain unchanged. . . . We . . . were not able to dot the i’s and cross all the t’s.

On Russia’s plans to sell Iran nuclear technology

Clinton: I want to say that I was deeply impressed that President Yeltsin told me that he had decided in the interest of non-proliferation not to provide the centrifuge and related equipment to Iran. . . . We actually got more done today than I thought we would do.

Yeltsin: The contract does contain components of peaceful and military nuclear energy. Now we have agreed to separate those two. In as much as they relate to the military component and the potential for creating weapons grade fuel . . . we have decided to exclude those aspects from the contract. So, the military component falls away and what remains is just a peaceful nuclear power station.

On Chechnya crisis:

Yeltsin: The armed forces are not involved there. Today the ministry of the interior simply seizes the weapons which are still in possession of some small, armed criminal gangs. . . . I believe that soon we will have a normal situation there, a situation of a democratic republic with all the ensuing rights for the citizens living in Chechnya.

Clinton: I expressed again the strong concern of the United States that the violence in Chechnya should be brought to an end. I urged a permanent extension of the cease-fire. . . . The civilian casualties and prolongation of the fighting have troubled the rest of the world greatly.

On anti-terrorism efforts

Yeltsin: Terrorism knows no borders. Unfortunately U.S. citizens recently were confronted with that barbarous phenomenon. I believe that everybody would agree that we should fight this evil jointly and we have agreed upon that.

Clinton: We agreed that we should step up our efforts in combatting terrorism and organized crime, a problem that affects not only our two nations but many others in the world, as we have sadly seen. . . . The Federal Bureau of Investigation is opening an office here in Moscow, and we have been working with Russia for some time now. . . . All advanced countries should be very, very concerned about the prospect of the merger of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction.

Source: Times wire reports