From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:jcma@REAGAN.AI.MIT.EDU Fri Apr 23 18:47:33 1993
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 15:03-0400
From: The White House <75300.3115@compuserve.com>
Subject: On Advancing U.S. Relations with Russia  4.23.93
To: Clinton-News-Distribution@campaign92.org,

         E X E C U T I V E   O F F I C E   O F   T H E   P R E S I D E N T

                              23-Apr-1993 02:32pm 

         TO:       (See Below)

         FROM:     David Leavy
                   Office of Communications

 
         SUBJECT:  Russian Assistance Statement             

                         The White House

                  Office of the Press Secretary

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For Immediate Release                             April 23, 1993

                    Statement by the President    
                   On Advancing U.S. Relations 
         with Russia and the other New Independent States
                                 
Since my summit in Vancouver with Russian President Boris 
Yeltsin, I have pursued a number of measures to implement our 
policy of economic and strategic partnership between our two 
countries.  These reflect my conviction that the movement toward 
political and economic reform in Russia and the other new states 
of the former Soviet Union is the greatest security challenge of 
our day, and can fuel our own future prosperity as well.  

It is time to put our relations with Russia and the other states 
on a new footing.  As an important step in that process, we need 
to update the accumulated Cold War vestiges that remain in U.S. 
laws and practices.  Our statutes and regulations are filled with 
restrictions on a communist Soviet Union, a nation that no longer 
exists.  Many of those provisions needlessly impede our relations 
with the democratic states that replaced the Soviet Union.

Many in Congress have already taken the lead on re-examining 
these provisions.  Today, I have asked Ambassador-at-large Strobe 
Talbott to coordinate our Executive review of these laws and 
statutes on an expedited basis, with the goal of revising or 
removing them where appropriate and consistent with our security 
and other national interests.  Related to this process, our 
Administration will also begin a thorough review, working with 
our allies, of how to re-orient export controls on sensitive 
technology.  I ask the bi-partisan leaders in Congress to work 
with us to coordinate and expedite these reviews.

Today I am also announcing steps to help build a new security 
partnership with Russia and the other states.  We will accelerate 
the deactivation of nuclear weapons systems already scheduled for 
elimination under the START I Treaty, while working to accelerate 
dismantlement in Russia and the three other states with nuclear 
weapons on their territory.  We are beginning a comprehensive 
review of measures that could enhance strategic stability, 
including the possibility of each side reprogramming its nuclear 
missiles so they are not routinely aimed at each other.  And we 
will be starting a consultative process within the next two 
months with Russia, our allies, and other states, aimed at 
commencing negotiations toward a multilateral nuclear test ban.  

Finally, we are continuing our efforts to strike a partnership 
with political and economic reformers throughout Russia and the 
other states.  We are continuing work with our G-7 partners to 
assemble the package of multilateral assistance that Secretaries 
Bentsen and Christopher recently negotiated in Tokyo.  And I am 
continuing consultation with Congress over the further efforts 
our own nation will take to assist Russia's reforms.

The hardest work of reform must be done by the people of Russia 
and the other states themselves, and we applaud the courageous 
steps they have taken.  Yet we dare not miss opportunities to do 
what we can to bolster their processes of democratization and 
economic liberalization.  The steps I am announcing today will 
advance those objectives.

                              -30-