Alexander Pikayev - Press Conference with Senior Officials of the PIR Center and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Russian-US New Strategic Framework in the Light of the Coming Summit

Press Development Institute, 11:35, April 16, 2002

Moderator: Good day, dear colleagues, I am glad to welcome you at the Press Development Institute. The topic of our press conference is "The Coming Summit and Formation of a New Framework of Strategic Relations Between Russia and the US." It gives me pleasure to introduce our guests: Yuri Yevgenyevich Fyodorov, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of PIR Center; Roland Mikhailovich Timerbayev, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary (retired) and Chairman of PIR Center Council; Rose Gottemoeller, Senior Associate with the Carnegie Endowment; Jon Wolfsthal of the Carnegie Endowment for international peace; Alexander Alexeyevich Pikayev, member of the Research Council of the Moscow Carnegie Center.

And I give the floor to Yuri Yevgenyevich Fyodorov.

Fyodorov: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have invited you not just to talk about the prospects of the future summit, but in connection with a more specific occasion. The PIR Center and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Washington) have prepared a document which we have entitled a memorandum and it sets forth our view on the future summit and contains some proposals regarding further development of Russian-American relations in the sphere of security. And today we are unveiling this document to the media.

But before we pass on to the document, I would like to share two pieces of news which are important for us. A book has been published written by PIR Center Director, Orlov, Ambassador Timerbayev and our associate, Khlopkov. It is called "Problems of Nuclear Non-Proliferation in Russian-American Relations." It is available in Russian and English. And besides, PIR Center has just issued a two-volume book which we call "Our Red Book" which is actually devoted to nuclear non-proliferation. It is a manual, but I think it is more like an encyclopedia of nuclear non-proliferation. The book has been published with the help of Netherlands Embassy. And we are grateful for the help in preparing this publication.

Moderator: And I give the floor to Roland Mikhailovich Timerbayev.

Timerbayev: Ladies and gentlemen, as you have been told, during the last two-two and a half months two non-governmental organizations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and PIR Center have worked on a joint project to prepare some general considerations regarding a new strategic framework between Russia and the US and the problems and prospects. You know that negotiations are underway between the governments of the United States and Russia on a new agreement on strategic arms reduction. And in just a month the agreement will most likely be signed here in Moscow.

In our work we have not tried to develop our own version of the agreement. We just set forth our fundamental approach to the building of a new strategic relationship between our two powers. Our main premise has been that although the relations between our countries are getting on an even keel, we still have huge quantities of nuclear weapons and their very existence cannot but burden our relations. So, both our organizations -- and this is a document of consensus -- believe that special attention should be paid to reducing the strategic nuclear arsenals of the two countries. The document that you have has been prepared by experts of the two organizations, but the responsibility for it rests solely with the four names that are on the document.

We have consulted with experts in Washington and in Moscow, both government and non-government, and on the basis of these discussions we have prepared this document. But only four of us bear responsibility for it. So, if you have any complaints, please bring them to us and not to other experts -- and there were several dozen of them -- who contributed to this work. I am not going to describe the document to you, it is available in both Russian and English, but we have tried not only to formulate the fundamental issues connected with the forthcoming agreement on a three-fold cut of strategic nuclear weapons, but we have tried to chart the ways that need to be covered if we are to see further reductions.

Our remarks are set forth under "bullets" on page three of the Russian text. I am going to read them out, but you see that it is a fairly extensive program, and a complicated program. Suffice it to say that the development of measures of transparency and nuclear weapons control is a topic that has not yet been tackled seriously in the US or in Russia. It is indeed a very complicated topic because real cuts of armaments are only possible if there is control, transparency and monitoring of the very process of destruction of nuclear warheads. This is an important task. We for our part, will deal with that task, but it is above all, the business of the government and the specialists who work on it.

The last point of our joint memorandum draws attention to the need not only for our two countries to make reductions, but also for other states. Non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, even though it is confined to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty concluded more than 30 years ago -- nevertheless proliferation is happening. Most importantly, there is a danger that some other countries which have not yet obtained this weapon may embark on this path. You know that India and Pakistan recently declared themselves to be nuclear powers. But other countries too may embark on this road. So, we believe it is important not only for us to make steps towards nuclear disarmament, but we should by our actions stimulate movement of other countries in this direction. So, we are concerned not only about our own security, I mean the security of the US and Russia, but we are thinking about the security of the whole world, and this requires other countries to take these steps.

This is the essence of our document. I hope you will read it attentively and find it quite interesting. I will stop my brief remarks here and give the floor to Rose Gottemoeller of Carnegie Endowment, Washington. She will make her comments.

Gottemoeller: Thank you very much and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this morning about this interesting joint project that the Carnegie Endowment and the PIR Center have had going on for the past several months.

I'd like to limit my remarks to two and then I will look forward to any questions and comments that you have. First of all, I very much welcome the advent of this new strategic arms reduction agreement after the long hiatus of the 1990s. It is especially good that in March when Foreign Minister Ivanov visited Washington, President Bush stated definitively that he is ready to sign an agreement that will outlast him and President Putin despite his preference expressed earlier for just a handshake.

Bush is clearly giving President Putin what Putin asked for at the Washington-Crawford summit -- a legally binding agreement. Now the focus on a legally binding agreement has also been reinforced by Senator Biden and Senator Helms, the Democratic chairman and senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They have signed a letter to President Bush, saying that they expect the agreement to be sent to the Senate for ratification.

Now, second point. While I give the Republican administration and President Putin credit for bringing this agreement to closure, once it is signed at the May summit, and I believe it will be signed, I would like to note that it has characteristics that were already determined by presidents Clinton and Yeltsin at the time of the Helsinki meeting in the spring of 1997.

First of all, the reductions in strategic offensive nuclear forces will be from the current level of about 6,000 deployed warheads to about 2,000 deployed warheads. We noted in the paper that there is a slight difference between what President Putin has proposed, that is, a level ranging from 1,500 to 2,200 warheads, and what President Bush has proposed -- a level of 1,700 to 2,200 warheads. But I believe this difference will be worked out.

The second important aspect of the agreement is that it will be linked to the already existing START-1 treaty which will provide structure and precedents for implementing these further reductions. For example, the inspection measures of the verification protocol of START-1 will be used to implement further eliminations of missiles, submarines and bombers.

Third point of the new agreement will be a new area -- the monitoring of warheads. Historically the strategic arms reduction agreements have not touched on warheads because they were considered to be too sensitive and difficult to monitor. But in this new agreement there will apparently be some measures to monitor warheads cooperatively. This is a very welcomed innovation in the strategic arms control process and the first in many years.

And as a final point, I'll just say that although I am fairly confident that Putin and Bush will sign this new agreement on May 23, negotiations are an uncertain process. So, I think we cannot say that it is finally finished at this point. Thank you.

Moderator: Let me introduce Alexander Alexeyevich Pikayev to you. He is a member of the Learned Council of the Moscow Carnegie Center.

Pikayev: I think I have nothing to say after Madam Gottemoeller, especially since we are discussing an agreement, or maybe a document, which has not been signed yet. And although I agree that it will most likely be signed on May 23, we must remember that negotiations at this point have arrived at a dead-end, and the most important question of the redeployment potential has not been solved.

There are disagreements over the redeployment potential. Russia objects to the method of reduction the United States would like to use, namely not to destroy the carriers they remove from combat duty, but put them into an operational reserve and return them quickly to the launching sites if need be.

True, Russia has made statements, saying that it understands the US reasons, but no breakthrough has so far been reached, and I think it will take a high-level decision to unblock the negotiating process. I believe such a decision will be adopted at the end of April or at the beginning of May before the summit.

So, it will most likely be a very short agreement which will not fully take Russian interests into account. That is absolutely obvious. Or there won't be any agreement at all. So, the choice is not very good: either no agreement or a bad agreement. I believe that a bad agreement is still better than no agreement. Bad peace is better than a good quarrel. If negotiations are upset and President Bush does not come here on a visit, the damage from this will be much greater than the problems to be created by the new document for the development of Russian forces.

And yet I believe Russia could sign this agreement, though not a very good one, on two conditions. First, the new document must be accompanied by measures that will lift restrictions on the development of Russia's strategic forces, just as the United States would like the same for itself. There are some provisions in the START-1 treaty that seriously slash the program of modernization of Russian forces, the cheapest ways of creating a reserve potential to serve as a parity to the US redeployment potential. These limitations must, of course, be removed as also the limitations imposed by the START-1 Treaty for the American forces because those accounting-for-rules that figure in the START-1 Treaty do not permit the Americans to reach the levels as announced by President Bush. Say, according to the rules of START-1, if you remove the MX peacekeeper missiles from combat duty, you do not destroy them in accordance with certain procedures, then under the START-1 they are still counted as being on combat duty.

At the present time the Americans have 50 such rockets and 500 such warheads on them and if they are not destroyed in the process of reductions as required under START-1, most likely they will not be destroyed and under this treaty they will be considered as still being in the silos. These are the accounting-for rules. The rules are, of course, quite absurd because now, after the end of the Cold War, these absurd rules of accounting-for might well be given up.

The second point which I think is even more important is what will happen after the summit meeting. The document which is proposed to be signed on May 23 -- will it be the last document that will put a period in the Russian-US process of the limitations and reductions of nuclear arms which incidentally is not ruled out because both sides are increasingly relying on bilateral approaches in cutting their nuclear arsenals. And subsequently the dialogue will boil down only to problems of observing the START-1 Treaty which remains in force till the year 2009. And most likely in the process of these consultations, instead of drafting some new framework for strategic relations, Russia and the US will strive to review some of the provisions of the Treaty and instead of the new framework we will get a creeping erosion of the START-1 Treaty which -- with a high degree of likelihood -- will not in its present form exist beyond the year 2009.

And the second important area, it seems to me, is as follows: the problem would be resolved to a large extent if following the signing of the May document, the sides would concentrate not only on the problems of the observance of START-2, I beg your pardon, START-1 and review a number of its provisions, but also continue the dialogue on the new areas of such cuts -- these include, above all, the transparency of nuclear warheads, Rose spoke about it. This is a very important new area of arms control and by discussing this problem one could hope to some extent remove the acuity of the redeployment potential problems and in addition, this dialogue could eventually help to build a bridge to the problems of control over the toxic nuclear weapons. These are a whole class of nuclear weapons in itself and up till now it has not been limited in any formal way or by international legal instruments.

It is an area in which Russia still probably has a big edge over the West and so, the drawing of this potential into the political "turnover" and turning it into a resource for the Russian diplomacy would I think help to largely strengthen the Russian negotiating positions which at the present time, as we can see by the talks and by the new document, are quite quite weak. Thank you.

Moderator: I give the floor to Jon Wolfsthal, who works for the Carnegie Foundation.

Wolfsthal: Thank you very much for coming this afternoon and I would also like to express our thanks both to our hosts and to the PIR Center with whom we have had such a useful cooperation and with whom you look forward to a much deeper and broader cooperation in the future.

We have heard some extensive comments regarding potential agreement between Russia and the United States. My remarks will be somewhat more general but will focus on the summit and the consequences of the agreement and other issues. My first comment is one that is heard before every summit and it must be repeated here as well, which is that the summit comes at a unique moment in US-Russian history, reinforcing the notion that every moment is unique.

The moment is unique because the United States and Russia are still neither full partners or allies nor are they enemies and the choice is either moving ahead toward a fuller partnership or of slipping back into the pattern of the 1990s including warming and cooling of relations and we must move one way or the other but the option of standing still is not an option.

We have now seen three American and two Russian presidents declare the Cold War dead and gone. And we have an expression in the United States which is that it is time to stop beating a dead horse. We must define what the relationship between our countries is going to be and stop defining it on the basis of what our relationship is not.

The presidents have put forward the concepts of new strategic relationship to help define a new bilateral relationship. And I have referred to this relationship as a dance. Unfortunately, we are still waiting to see what the music is going to be and a dance without music is not a very pleasant thing to watch.

The good news is that there is plenty of ripe fruit. There are several useful opportunities that are present in our relationship and the question is whether the two will pick that fruit and include it in the summit in the years that follow.

And we have agreed that in our consensus paper and I agree with Rose that the arms control agreement is likely to be signed in May. It is a piece of ripe fruit but it is going to be very unsatisfying. People will be left hungry. And just to reinforce the point, the agreement that is likely to be signed will be shorter than the consensus paper presented here today.

The brevity, the shortness of the paper raises a number of concerns in the security community and a broader community interested in US-Russian relations. Key among these in my view is how the Russian Federation will respond in its nuclear arsenal and in its nuclear complex to the flexibility and the ability that the US will retain to increase its nuclear forces. And my colleague Alexander Pikayev has mentioned some of these concerns. So, what are these pieces of ripe fruit I have mentioned? I have mentioned some of the opportunities that present themselves. I would just list a couple quickly and if there are questions, we can get into them afterwards.

Clearly, the issue of warheads, their destruction and their ultimate elimination is something that the presidents should task their governments with discussing. A great deal of experimental work has been done over the past several years but it is unclear whether this will be included or picked up in the agreement on the statement of principles for the summit.

There are also a whole host of issues related to counter-terrorism which include further improvement of nuclear security, of nuclear materials security, disposal of nuclear materials, the sharing of intelligence, work on export control and border security and also the development of proliferation useful technology, detection equipment and so forth.

But to finish I would say that overall I am somewhat less optimistic than some of my colleagues that our two presidents will be able to pick this fruit and serve it as a feast for our respective countries, but I do hope that they begin to more closely examine the opportunities that are present and pursue them with more aggressiveness.

Moderator: And now I give the floor to Yuri Yevgenyevich Fyodorov, deputy director of PIR Center.

Fyodorov: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, let me first of all say that PIR Center sets great store by its cooperation with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace based in Washington and with its Moscow branch which is called the Carnegie Center. And we hope that this document -- the result of our joint project and our joint efforts -- will not be the last, but rather the first in a series of joint activities.

Having said that I would like pass on to the document that you have all received. And I think I should say that its development and its content, as we have repeated several times, are linked with another unique moment in the development of Russian-American relations. The history of these relations seems to consist almost entirely of such unique moments which is their distinguishing feature. It is both a plus and a minus. One would like the unique moments to be of a positive rather than negative nature. As it is we have had a lot of both.

But let me start by saying that today, ten months after the summit in Ljubljana held in the summer of last year, Russian-American relations have been transformed. While a year ago we expected, unfortunately with some good reason, a new crisis or a kind of creeping deterioration of relations, today we are wondering how to improve them. And to go back to the unique moments or the fruit referred to by Jon Wolfsthal, I would specifically refer to several fruits of the support of President Putin and Russia as a whole for the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan and the calm reaction of Moscow to Washington's withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. And I should also mention the consent of President George Bush to concluding a legally binding document pertaining to strategic offensive weapons and their further reduction.

I could go on listing the events that happened in the last ten months, but I won't do it for lack of time.

I would like to make two observations. First of all, the emergence of the new Russian-American relationship is not smooth sailing. For now, we are trying to eliminate some sharp elements of these relations and not the causes that engendered them. And the second circumstance that gives rise to some concern is that so far we do not have a clear understanding -- and I mean not only us but everyone -- of what exactly the new framework of the strategic relations between Russia and the United States should be, even though it is much talked and written about.

In this connection I would like to dwell on two things in the document that has been presented to you today. First of all, one could imagine that the agenda of the future summit in Moscow and Petersburg, the Russian-American summit, will be fairly broad. Much broader than just offensive strategic weapons. Most probably they will discuss the Middle East and everything that is taking place there in various contests. Questions may be discussed connected with the developments in the oil market and with further cooperation in the fight against international terrorism.

Yet, in spite of such a broad agenda at which we can only guess, the problems of strategic offensive weapons cuts and the conclusion of a corresponding legally binding documents are of fundamental importance and mind you I am setting forth only my own point of view, it is not necessarily shared by all the authors of the document. But if such an agreement is not concluded and if quarrels continue about how many warheads should be counted on this and that missile and how it should be done, a missile which I am sure will not be fired on Russia or the United States, then the negative impulse, the negative consequences for Russian-American relations will be obvious. They will be frozen and perhaps even thrown back.

I could imagine that the discussion regarding foreign policy strategy as a whole and the development of Russian-American relations will be resumed with new force in Russia, and probably in the United States.

In this context it is not by chance that the document draws attention to the fate of the nuclear warheads that will be removed from strategic carriers. It has already been said that the United States wants to preserve some of these warheads as a strategic reserve and Russia would like to see them all destroyed. It is indeed a very complicated and intricate issue because Russia has its own arguments in favor of such an approach, but several things have to be borne in mind. First, the warheads should be destroyed under international, at least under bilateral control. And accordingly, he teams of inspectors should be given access to the locations, to the enterprises and workshops where these warheads are being destroyed. Otherwise, there can be no confidence that they have indeed been destroyed.

Furthermore, one should be confident that new warheads will not be built instead of the ones destroyed. So, it is necessary to control the process of the production of nuclear warheads. And finally, one has to be sure that there are no spare warheads in the warehouses where these warheads are stored. To put it crudely, it is necessary to establish international control over the whole life cycle of the nuclear warhead, from production to destruction.

Although there are signs of progress in the discussion of these problems judging from what has been said here, I still think, that neither Russia nor the United States are ready to surrender to inspection the holy of holies of the nuclear weapons cycle.

And this is what is said in the document prepared by the Carnegie Endowment and the PIR Center: Russia and the United States, we believe, are not ready to embark on this colossal task. At the same time we are convinced that it is necessary to vigorously explore ways of achieving this important goal. This is indeed so, and I think that Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the PIR Center will work toward this goal.

Since our time is running out, at least the time of my speech, I would like to note one other thing. The document prepared by Carnegie Endowment and the PIR Center states some sort of philosophy, or maybe it would be more correct to call it modestly concept, of solving such complex military-technical problems as the destruction of warheads.

Apparently the logic in this document boils down to the following: we should not try to solve all problems at once. Instead we must take one step at a time, formalizing at each given moment, I am sorry for using this word again, unique moment in the development of Russian-US relations the area and the level of agreement that has been reached. Because if we set ourselves maximum tasks, I mean not we, of course, but the leaders of our countries, and seek to try to solve all problems at once, we will not solve any of them. I would like to stop here.

Moderator: Thank you. Let's move on to questions now.

Q: I was trying to get an answer to the question why we are going to sign this imperfect document from deputy chief of the General Staff Baluyevsky. He said that being an officer he had to sign it because he had received an order from the President. I want you, as people who are not connected with the military, to explain to us why we need this document. Won't it be better to wait, prepare the necessary legal basis, try to convince the American side and work out proper regulations, instead of going in for this profanation?

Fyodorov: To whom do you address your question?

Q: I do not know who will take it on.

Moderator: Whoever wants to take it. Maybe both sides, Russian and American.

Voice: There is only one side.

Moderator: I see, one side. Rose?

Gottemoeller: I'll start. In my view it's high time that we moved forward with a negotiated strategic arms treaty. During the entire decade of the 1990s, we had plans to conclude an agreement but we never brought an agreement to closure. For a number of reasons, including legal reasons on the US side, the strategic forces of our two countries have been essentially frozen at START-1 levels -- 6,000 operational warheads on each side, which is the level that is called for in the START-1 treaty.

Both countries have long declared their intention to reduce below those levels. And in fact, President Bush is only too willing to proceed unilaterally without any legal process with the Russian Federation. I think it is much better for the predictability of our nuclear relationship if we proceed together under a legally binding agreement.

But the basic answer to your question is that it's high time we reduced our forces further below 6,000 warheads on each side. And if I may just mention, there are several recorders that are clicked off.

Moderator: Roland Mikhailovich Timerbayev also wants to answer this question.

Timerbayev: I just want to add that I fully agree with what Rose has said, but I want to repeat the thought I mentioned briefly in my opening remarks. I fear the development of events in Asia, in South Asia, Northeast Asia. If we do not reach even such a short agreement, which may be even shorter than our memorandum, this will send a signal to Asian countries -- I do not want to name them, but you all know what they are -- to increase and modernize their weapons, and some of them whose constitution bars them from having nuclear weapons may decide to embark on the path of nuclear armament.

Fyodorov: This is a very important question, and as I understand there is very serious underlying message in it. Without repeating what has already been said, I want to note two things. First, if a legally binding document is not signed, this will mean that there is a rather serious set of hard-to-solve problems in Russian-US relations, and this will throw in doubt the possibility of further development or the creation of what we call a new framework of strategic relations.

It's some sort of a litmus test that will show whether Russia and the US have enough political will, whether their leaders have enough political will to overcome certain technical difficulties connected with the set of problems we are discussing.

And the second thing, which I believe is equally important, is that if no such agreement is signed, this will encourage doubts and suspicions on both sides about the future development of the military or rather nuclear potential both in Russia and the US, which will not facilitate a harmonious, I would say, development of Russian-American relations in the future.

Q: (speaking English) A question to Rose Gottemoeller. On the third measures you mentioned the cooperation and joint development of anti-ballistic missile defense. Right now the United States are leaving a joint relationship -- the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty from 1972, which was very important for the Russian side. How can I understand this kind of cooperation? What will it be? Will America take Russia under new shields that they are building themselves?

Gottemoeller: It's a very good question and I will, in fact, answer it by referring to the remarks of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld when he was here in Moscow last August. The Bush administration has been trying to be convincing that the missile defense program is not a threat to the Russian Federation, that it does not threaten the strategic offensive capabilities of the Russian Federation.

And so Secretary Rumsfeld made a comment that was very typical of how the Bush administration has been portraying cooperation on missile defense technology. He said that we need to have joint projects, joint efforts in order to convince Russia that there is no threat here, to build Russian confidence that there is no threat from our new missile defense system. Whatever it takes, said Secretary Rumsfeld, to build Russian confidence.

And so I believe that probably from the US perspective, the first reason for engaging in this cooperation is to build Russian confidence about the limited nature of the missile defense system that the Bush administration is planning to build. But it's a good question whether such an effort will be convincing because as far as I know the Bush administration is not yet sure which technology they will be deploying. So, they can try to be transparent, but there still be uncertainties.

Q: In your opinion, you are not a representative of the administration, what specific projects can be put into the framework in order to convince Russia that apart from the symbolic thing of signing the treaty, I mean something of substance which can be put in the frame of SDI?

Gottemoeller: First of all I want to stress that this is not the old Strategic Defense Initiative of the Reagan years. It's not SDI of the Reagan years. And as far as what the Bush administration is proposing to the Russian side, this is still being discussed privately between the governments. But I know one characteristic of the cooperation and that is to try to engage Russian technology in the cooperation. Particularly, there has been discussion of the so-called S-300 missile defense technologies.

And I'd like to invite my colleague Jon Wolfsthal if he has any additional comments.

Wolfsthal: I would just add that it's an extremely difficult challenge. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty provided confidence that the strategic forces of both countries would be secure by limiting the size of defenses. In the middle of June when the treaty ceases to exist, we will enter a situation where there are no constraints except for those that are imposed by technology and by the cost of the systems.

Fortunately, for people interested in stability these systems are still very expensive and are totally unproven and so there is some existing transparency and confidence that the Russian Federation can take by observing what in my opinion will be a series of expensive failures of US missile defense technology.

And beyond that there are the types of measures, either purchases of Russian technology and what I expect will be a series of extensive and seemingly endless briefings by the administration.

Moderator: Yuri Yevgenyevich Fyodorov would like to add something.

Fyodorov: I would like to say a couple of words. First, it is not by chance that the document prepared by the Carnegie Endowment and PIR Center, the section called Follow Up Steps mentions cooperation, obviously cooperation between Russia and the United States in jointly developing defense or defense measures against ballistic missiles. And this is not by chance because only joint work on such systems, however complicated and costly they may be can persuade Russia and the United States that such anti-missile systems are not aimed against each other.

And secondly, it hasn't been mentioned, but I consider it to be important, it is further cooperation between Russia and the United States under agreements or rather understandings on exchange of information on ballistic missile launches. Including exchange of information obtained by national early-warning systems. This is something that is not mentioned often, but it is making some headway and it can be a promising area of cooperation in terms of missile and missile technology proliferation.

Moderator: Thank you. Alexander Alexeyevich Pikayev.

Pikayev: I just wanted to say that in general cooperation between Russia and the United States in creating anti-missile defense is of critical importance. I'll explain why. If we are enemies, if we still stick in our relations to the concept of nuclear deterrence, then we should not help the United States to develop its NMD system which at some future date may undermine strategic offensive potential. How can we help our strategic enemy with our own hands to undermine our nuclear forces? If we are still enemies we should not do that.

But we are not enemies, if we sincerely seek to go beyond the relations of nuclear deterrence military-technical cooperation, including in the field of developing NMD is a key way of passing on from relations of strategic deterrence to relations of firm partnership and perhaps even quasi allied relations and even allied relations. Because if Russia sells its advanced NMD technologies to the United States, it would mean that the Russian defense industry would depend on the American market and consequently the Russian defense policy will have to be adjusted to make sure that the United State is no longer an enemy. The transition from arms control, from all this moth-eaten garbage, as Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev said 15 years ago -- ABM treaties, START-1 treaty and a new document -- I doubt that it is a major step forward compared with the old documents.

So, if we cast aside arms control, if we depart from arms control and arrive at cooperation in the field of weapons development, we will thereby make a gigantic leap towards building a true alliance between our countries.

The best guarantee against the break out of a war between the two countries is the production of one and the same weapons system. if the two countries built a tank, a joint tank, it is obvious that they are simply incapable of fighting each other because you cannot divide the tank into two. And it seems to me that this lends particular importance to cooperation in the field of anti-missile defense especially now that the two countries are withdrawing from the ABM Treaty. Perhaps it is more important than the character of the admittedly far from perfect document that we will have to sign on May 23.

The Republican administration has talked a lot about cooperating on NMD, but after the December statement (December 13) on the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, all this talk has disappeared, at least from the public sphere. And we don't know what the Bush administration thinks about it. It's good that Rose appears to have better information, but it is a pity that all this talk has been suspended, temporarily, I hope. And the end of this talk creates the impression that the administration was trying simply to buy Russia's consent to its withdrawal from ABM Treaty with promises of military-technical cooperation. But when the question of the Treaty was removed, the issues of military-technical cooperation were also removed, accordingly. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you. Interfax, please.

Q: How do you assess the likelihood of this document influencing the final variant to be signed by the presidents? And what is the mechanism for this document, through who will it come -- will it come to both addresses or only to one?

Fyodorov: I will simply begin. First and foremost, it will come with your assistance -- that of the qualified public opinion, I hope. Firstly, the document will be published in Russia in the journal of the PIR Center and on our site.

Timerbayev: It will appear on the site already today.

Fyodorov: Yes, today. And we will try to send it not only to mass media but to the Russian organizations and agencies involved in drafting the Russian position on strategic arms and so on. As to its likely impact -- we shall live and see.

Gottemoeller: We will also be distributing this document in Washington. It will be appearing on the Carnegie web site as well in English. Then we expect that it will be read by those in the government, in the US government who are working to improve the relationship and to conclude these negotiations but like Doctor Fyodorov I cannot guarantee to you that it will actually be influential in the process. I hope it will be.

Q: (in back translation) My question is to Mr. Jon Wolfsthal. You like metaphors and comparisons, so I would like also to cite a metaphor concerning the human genom. You say that the ABM systems are very expensive, technologies are not used, so we can stay calm. Same with genom. They tell us that they will not invent people, don't worry, everything is under control.

In this connection, I would like to ask to what extent is the US administration ready to cooperate with Russia on arms control? How far are they prepared to go? Or, should Russia be put in a "subjected" position compared to America and simply agree to its conditions?

Wolfsthal: I will begin with the same comment that Rose made which is that I don't represent the US administration and there are many times when I don't understand the administration. I do understand the passion with which the Bush administration is pursuing missile defense technology. Just as I understand the continued Russian concern that you expressed. The possible leaps of technology that can undermine this relationship of the partners. And because there will no longer be the numerical controls, the two countries must find some other mechanisms for reassuring each other that these technologies will not undermine the deterrent relationship as long as it exists.

But I think technology sharing can be part of that process. But for the near future, several years, the best mechanism will be the transparency of the American budgetary and political process. You and I can understand the technologies being pursued because we can look at every dollar and how it is spent. At least today we can. This may change in the future and while recognizing that this may not be fully satisfying for either side, unfortunately for the near term I think that is what (inaudible)...

Q: Reference was made to the Russian-American cooperation in the production of nuclear weapons, including even a single system of arms... The question is: Will it not send a signal to the well-known, so to say, Eastern countries to intensify the production of nuclear arms and will this not start a new spiral in the arms race?

Fyodorov: Firstly, as far as I understand it, we are not talking about a joint production with the US, of nuclear weapons. There was no such thing. And I don't think it will come into anyone's head. And this is impossible in practical terms because nobody will let anyone into his laboratory in the foreseeable future. We spoke of cooperation, of developing joint ABM systems. This is somewhat different.

Regardless of this, however, the question is good. I believe that, on the contrary, it will be a signal to regimes wishing to acquire a missile and nuclear potential, a signal to them not to do this. Their efforts will be precisely neutralized.

Pikayev: At the present time the Russian defense industry and certain Russian military factories are working on Chinese orders. And for some reason nobody is concerned that China, armed with Russian weapons can eventually pose a threat to Russia itself. And nobody is concerned with how this may be responded by the United States which is quite concerned over Russia supplying China with the most advanced naval arms systems which to some extent are upsetting the balance of forces around Taiwan. It is a serious question for the US-Chinese relations.

But when we speak about the military-technical cooperation, I think that a joint development of nuclear weapons is something I regard as impossible. To my mind, there is no precedent in the joint development of nuclear arms even between the United States and Britain, who are the closest allies. It seems to me that Russia must think about itself more, it must become aware of the fact that it will not become a pole in the multipolar world. Regrettably, Russia's GDP is less than the US military budget. So, Russia is probably faced with the choice: to be with the United States, with the West, or be together with China. Probably because of some grounds of civilization, culture and history, Russia is closer to the West. After the EU enlargement, Europe will be within 5-6 hours distance from Moscow to the border with Latvia.

That is why it is necessary to think of such cooperation as capable of creating certain problems in relations with third countries. This is indeed so and measures must be taken to somehow allay the concerns of third countries. But if indeed cooperation in the development of ABM defense opens prospects for a large-scale political rapprochement with the United States, the benefits of it appear to me to be obvious. If Russia together with the West becomes a part of the new future ABM system, I think this is probably more important for Russia than joining NATO. This will play a role in asserting Russia's place as a part of the developed Western world.

Q: I am glad that the term sounded clearly: the joint Russian-US ABM system. The question is how the two sides participating in this press conference can predict whether or not the Bush and the Putin administrations will agree to starting the development of a joint Russian-American ABM system? Yuri Yevgenyevich spoke about the arch-complexity of controlling the disposal of warheads. I have difficulty understanding it. Indeed, there is rich experience of mutual control at the preceding stages of disarmament technologies. I even spoke to an American specialist who participated in verifications in Russia. Why is this arch difficult, I don't understand.

Fyodorov: At least the last question was for me. What can I say? First of all, the previous experience of control over the destruction of strategic weapons, if I am not mistaken, and if I am, let specialists correct me, concerned the destruction of carriers, that is, ballistic missiles, heavy bombers, cruise missiles, launching sites, and submarines with ballistic missiles. But when a missile is scrapped, we can imagine, at least theoretically, I don't know how it really gets down in practice, that fuel is drained out of it, the missile is crushed or cut into pieces. The same happens to strategic bombers that are subject to destruction. Launching sites may be theoretically filled with concrete, and that will be the end of it.

As for nuclear warheads, the situation is much more complex. You cannot put a nuclear warhead under press because everybody around will suffer. Therefore it must be dismantled, which in itself is not easy. So when it is dismantled, it is disassembled into parts, and if foreign military specialists are present when this is done, at least I think so, they may get a lot of useful information about the design of this warhead and therefore about its capabilities in various areas.

As far as I understand, neither Russia nor the US is ready to show to each other the design of their nuclear warheads, for this is one of the most secret things.

Second, I have already said, and I would not like to repeat this again, that it is necessary not only to show how a warhead is destroyed, but also to prove that new warheads are not manufactured at the same time. And this means that an inspector should be allowed to enter the plant where they are made, which, I understand, is also impossible now.

Timerbayev: I will add just one word. As far as I know, there is only one precedent. You said this had been done before. Nothing like this has been done before, and Yuri Yevgenyevich has already explained this. That there was only one precedent when nuclear weapons were taken out of Ukraine in the beginning of the 1990s and when Ukraine insisted that its representatives should make sure that these nuclear weapons were indeed dismantled and destroyed.

Indeed, there was an agreement between Russia and the new Ukraine that their representatives would take part in this, and they did, because those were basically the same Soviet officers who had had access to these warheads before. This is the extent to which they were present during the dismantlement of the warheads. However, I don't know whether they indeed were present there or it was all on paper. But such an agreement did take place. And this is the only such precedent.

Russia and the US have never had an agreement on control over the destruction of warheads, because it's absolutely obvious, and this was shown today, that this will affect the entire cycle from manufacture to storage. This is an extremely important problem and it has been under discussion for more than 50 years, since the 1940s when the UN discussed the Baruch Plan. This discussion has been underway ever since.

We hope that our joint efforts with the Carnegie Center will promote this discussion and finally lead to some real solution.

Moderator: Rose, do you want to say something?

Gottemoeller: I think the questioner is correct and also my colleagues are correct on the point regarding warhead monitoring. There has been quite a bit of joint work that has gone on between the Russian Federation and the United States to develop procedures and technology that could be used for monitoring warhead elimination.

But this work up to this point has been experimental in nature and it has never been applied in an actual implementation of a treaty. So, although there has been progress, there is quite a bit more work to be done until, I think, we have arrived at the point that Yuri Fyodorov mentioned where we are able to follow the entire life cycle of a warhead and jointly cooperate in eliminating it.

And I want to say one word about your question regarding missile defenses. We have not mentioned this morning the cooperative work that is going on within NATO, between NATO and the Russian Federation on matter of missile defense technology as well. And so when we think in the future about what kind of joint system might be developed that would involve the participation of the Russian Federation, I think it most likely to be a theater missile defense system rather than a national missile defense system.

And in fact we have heard, at least I have heard some press comments from Russian leaders saying that Russia does not really think it wants to spend the money now to build its own national missile defense system, so this is a matter where the United States would be building a national missile defense system, but Russia would be, perhaps, contributing some technologies to that, but not building its own national missile defense system. Thank you.

Fyodorov: Let's see first what will come out of this in the US and then make up our mind.

Moderator: Thank you all, I thank our guests for a very good discussion.