The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release May 9, 1996
Remarks By President Clinton And
President Stephanopoulos Of Greece
In Press Conference
Room 450
The Old Executive Office Building
Washington, D.C.
12:50 P.M. Edt
President Clinton: Good afternoon. Let me say once
again what a pleasure it is to welcome to President Stephanopoulos to
the White House. The alliance and the friendship between our two
nations is anchored by our common commitment to freedom and
democracy. Much of our discussions today focused on the work we are
doing together to build a peaceful, democratic and undivided Europe.
I was glad to have a chance to thank President Stephanopoulos for the
leadership the Hellenic Republic has shown in resolving the problems
in the Balkans -- from Albania to the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia.
I also want to thank Greece, and especially its
soldiers, for helping to safeguard the peace in Bosnia. Our Armed
Forces are proud to stand with you, Mr. President, in this important
mission of peace. The progress we are making there reminds us all
that it is possible to choose the promise of the future over the
conflicts of the past. This can be the case in the Aegean, as well.
The United States will continue to help in any way we can to make the
region one of peace and opportunity for all its people.
As I emphasized to President Stephanopoulos, the United
States strongly supports the principle of respect for international
agreements and the territorial integrity of all nations in the Aegean
region.
We are deeply concerned about the continuing dispute
over the islet of Imia. I was personally involved in our efforts to
convince our two Nato allies to pull back from their confrontation.
And now we are trying to reduce tensions further and to settle the
ownership question through an international tribunal. I believe the
problems in the Aegean can and must be resolved through peaceful
means -- without force or the threat of force.
We also discussed the issue of Cyprus -- something that
has been of special interest to me since I became President. We hope
to be able to take an initiative on Cyprus this year. A breakthrough
in Cyprus could pave the way to further progress and be a model to
other nations that are seeking peace.
Finally, I underscored to the President our commitment
to fight terrorism. Greeks and Americans alike have been the victims
of terrorist brutality at home and abroad. We know the pain and
destruction it can bring, and we have a responsibility to do all we
can to defeat it. We look to Greece to be a strong partner in this
effort.
As an ally in Nato and a key player in the European
Union, Greece is helping to shape the future of Europe and the next
half century of our transatlantic partnership. The world's oldest
democracy is reaching out to Europe's newest democracies to build an
undivided, integrated continent at peace. The United States looks
forward to continuing our partnership and to benefitting the peoples
of both of our countries and the entire world.
Again, Mr. President, welcome to Washington. The
microphone is yours.
President Stephanopoulos: Thank you very much, Mr.
President.
I would like to thank once more in the warmest and most
sincere way President Clinton for his kind invitation, invitation
which I accepted with great pleasure.
We held interesting talks in which we established once
more the identical views on many important issues. The efforts of
the United States of America for stability and peace in the Balkans
find us in the same camp. Greece, as you know, contributes to the
extent they can do to achieve the same objectives.
We discussed what we can do in order to establish peace
for good in this turbulent area of the world, which was found in
bloodshed for years and years. It is high time that this region of
the world lives in peace and conciliation between its peoples. I
assured President Clinton that Greece, vis-a-vis these countries, but
also vis-a-vis Albania, for which there is common interests of the
two countries, is showing the same political willingness in order to
develop better political relations with one, of course, precondition,
which I will reiterate: The perfect respect of the rights of the
Greek minority and, more specifically, their right to practice their
religion and to be educated in their own language, the Greek
language, which they have spoken for centuries and centuries, as well
as all the other Greeks.
We discussed for long the crisis in the Aegean, and I
expressed once more the views of the Greek side in my own words, and
as I see it, of course. And I have been very satisfied hearing Mr.
Clinton reaffirming the principles of American policy, namely,
respect of international principles, international treaties,
territorial integrity of all states in the area. And I do believe
that these principles, common principles, will finally and ultimately
be implemented in the areas. So that this turbulent area of the
world will live in peace and cooperation. There are other joint
projects with the United States related to technology transfer,
common educational programs, assimilation of democratic institutions
in which Greece and the United States of America can play an
extremely important role.
Our wish is to be useful to the international community.
I believe that Greece, a member of the European Union, not only
serves this European ideal of peace and cooperation, but also we
continue to believe that the most important ally of Europe is, and
will continue to be, the United States of America. With the
cooperation between these two entities, the European Union and the
United States, many things can be achieved. Greece will be present
and participating in all these efforts.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Q Mr. President, on a domestic issue, yesterday you
said that the White House and the Congress were closer together on a
balanced budget plan than was ever reported in the
press. And then the Republicans produced a plan that cuts back on
their tax cuts and scales back on savings and domestic programs.
Does that sound like a formula that you could go along with?
President Clinton: Well, I'm encouraged that they
moved. I think that's encouraging. They abandoned the proposal to
abolish the Department of Education, for example. That's a good
thing, but I want to study the details of the program. But it
appears to me that we still have significant differences and that
they propose big cuts in education and in the environment, and to
abolish the guarantee of coverage under Medicaid for poor children
and the elderly in nursing homes and for families with family members
with disabilities. And I think the Medicare number appears to be
still too high. But I think it's a movement in the right direction.
There are other specific things that I have concerns
about. Again, they seek to abolish the Direct College Loan Program,
which has led to a lower costs, better terms, better repayments for
large numbers of college students. They seek to abolish the national
service program. There are a lot of things in there I don't agree
with, but it is a movement in the right direction. And this is the
point I am trying to make now, that what we ought to do is to resume
our negotiations and reach an agreement and do what we did on this
year's budget instead of having a replay of a unilateral
take-it-or-leave-it deal, which is what was done in 1995.
And so I hope that this is the beginning of a process
that will end in a negotiated seven-year balanced budget. We plainly
have the savings in common to achieve it. And we are having a better
year this year than we thought we were going to have on deficit
reduction. And so we can get this done if we all do it together.
Mr. President, do you want to call on a Greek
journalist?
President Stephanopoulos: Yes.
Q Mr. President, the average Greek is very concerned
about the fact that the U.S. is supporting Turkey as a regional
superpower -- arming Turkey and so on. You also talked about
Europe's position to the use of force in the Aegean. The average
Greek would like to know from you, sir, what will you do if Turkey is
again going to use force in the area? What is the U.S. going to do?
If I could just ask President Stephanopoulos, the senior
Stephanopoulos in the room -- (laughter) -- what exactly did you ask
the U.S. in terms of Greek-Turkish relations in this meeting?
President Clinton: First, let me say, I made my
position abundantly clear and very clear to the Turks, including to
President Demirel on his recent trip here. We do not favor -- we not
only don't favor the use of force in the region, we don't favor any
threats of the use of force. And we have two countries that are our
allies in Nato with which we have good relations. And we want to try
to facilitate a peaceful resolution of the disputes in the Aegean, of
the issue of Cyprus. If Turkey and Greece could resolve their
differences, the potential that they have of working together to
stabilize the situation in the Balkans, to promote a Europe at peace
and not torn asunder by ethnic and religious conflicts, to build a
better future for all of us, is staggering.
So I'm going to do everything I can to keep down not
only force, but the threat of force, so that we can have a peaceful
resolution of all these agreements -- respecting territorial
integrity, based on international agreements and without any force.
That is clear. And I think the -- I do not expect there to be a
situation in which force comes into play, because I think that the
wisdom will prevail over passion and we'll avoid that.
President Stephanopoulos: I didn't come to the United
States to ask for anything. That was not the purpose of my visit.
Greece does not feel the need to ask anyone anything beyond the mere
implementation of international treaties and rules of international
law. This is the only demand of Greece.
I hope that the region will prevail more reasonable,
more peaceful point of view. I think you do know, you and Mr.
Papoulias, that there are threats of war against Greece. I hope,
also, that these threats will be withdrawn sometime in the future.
But if they're not withdrawn, especially if these threats
materialize, Greece has the possibility to defend itself very, very
effectively. I do not wish to raise the tone of the discussion, but
I really do hope that we will not have this opportunity to defend
ourselves. I do hope that we will be able to apply international
law, and I also hope that our neighbor will realize the need that
these differences, some differences which have some legal foundation
-- and I mean, in this case, the Continental Shelf and Imia.
So I hope that Turkey realizes that the only solution is
the resort to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. And
in this instance, President Clinton's views and my views do coincide
perfectly.
Q Since you came into office, you have promoted the
Middle East peace process. But a Washington Post reporter writes
from Cairo that Arab leaders and man on the street believe that
because of your all-out support of Israel, including the attacks on
the U.N. refugee camp, leaving 50 people killed, that you have lost
your credentials as an even-handed, honest broker. What do you say
to that?
President Clinton: Well, first of all I'd say, if you
look at the fact that the United States has continued its aid to
Egypt; if you look at what we have done to try to help Jordan to
support its political, economic and military objectives as it has
made peace with Israel; if you look at the efforts that we have made
as a government, working with other governments and working with our
citizens to try to support Mr. Arafat and what he is doing and to try
to ensure that the Palestinian Authority will be successful; if you
look at the terms of the agreement that the Secretary of State
brokered to restore the cease-fire and to make it enforceable along
the border of Israel and Lebanon; if you look at all those things, it
seems to me that we have quite good credentials to be fair and
balanced and to pursue the interests of all the people in the region.
But I would like to remind -- it's easy for the people
in the region to forget because the shelling shocked everyone and the
fighting, and the Israelis made no secret of the fact that they were
dismayed by the deaths in the refugee center and that they did not
intend to do it. But I would remind you that --
Q -- think they didn't know where it was?
President Clinton: I would remind you -- people make
mistakes in war time. There are no such things as perfect weapons.
Just because we're living in a high-technology age, if you think we
can have sort of surgical battles in which there are never-ending
unintended consequences, that just doesn't happen. It just doesn't
happen.
But I would remind you that the Israelis were shelled.
And their citizens were subject to shelling on the day -- starting
the day I arrived in Israel after the Sharm el-Sheikh Conference, by
people who didn't like the fact that we got together at Sharm
el-Sheikh and who didn't want the peace to succeed. And so all --
you know, what we always said is that the Israelis had a right to
defend themselves. We also support the United Nations resolution.
We look forward to the day when Lebanon will be free of all foreign
soldiers, when its sovereignty will be in tact, and when its people
will live in peace.
I just talked yesterday to the Prime Minister of Lebanon
on the telephone assuring him that I would do what I could to support
the reconstruction of Lebanon, as well as the fair implementation of
this agreement.
So I think if you -- as we move away from the
understandable passions that were inflamed by the violence along the
border, is that as time passes and the agreement is implemented, the
people in the Arab world will look at what we have done with the
Palestinians, with the Jordanians, with the Egyptians, with the
brokering of this agreement and what its terms are. And I think they
will see that the United States has been fair and honest. We never
made any secret of the fact that we did not ever intend to support
anybody who wanted to attack and destroy Israel. We never have and
we never will.
Q Mr. President, as far as I know, your government
worked on some plans for economic development for security, stability
and peace in the Aegean Sea and Balkans. Would you like to say
anything about that?
President Clinton: Is that a question for --
Q A question to you.
President Clinton: To me? (Laughter.) I'm hard of
hearing, and unfortunately I was trying to put these on and I didn't
need them. So would you ask the question again?
Q Of course. As far as I know, your government works
on some plans for economic development for security, peace and
stability in the Aegean Sea and the Balkans. Would you like to
explain to us what exactly --
President Clinton: Well, right now, obviously, in the
Balkans our main focus is on trying to make sure that the Dayton
Agreement and the Paris Peace Agreement in Bosnia takes hold and
works. We have also -- and we are working very hard on that. We
have also had discussions with the President today about our hopes
for the further progress and a final resolution of the difficulties
between Greece and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I am
encouraged by what has been done. But I think that is a very
important part of stability and growth in the area.
And the President shared with me some of the things
which are now being done between Greece and Albania. And we
discussed, among other things, what could be done in terms of our
partnership in spreading technology in the region in ways that would
generate significant economic activity. So we discussed all these
things. But most of our immediate money, right now, is going in to
try to make sure that we succeed in Bosnia and then we want to build
out from there.
President Stephanopoulos: I would like to answer that.
Greece has many possibilities of its own to assist development and
cooperation in the Balkans. And this is what we have been doing for
a long time now. You very well know that Greek businessmen operate
very effectively in our neighboring countries and there are many
projects stemming from Northern Greece, from which we expect a lot of
results. I do also know that the American contribution will be very
important and very useful. There are many possibilities for U.S.
businessmen to cooperate with Greek businessmen. Greek businessmen
know better than anyone else the local conditions. So U.S. and Greek
businessmen should work together in order to enhance economic and
industrial cooperation in the area.
As far as the Aegean is concerned, local differences
should be resolved first before envisaging further cooperation,
without this meaning that we exclude cooperation at this point in
time. We have established all forms of cooperation with all
countries, and we aspire to this cooperation also with the Turkish
side. I hope that the time will come when this trade and economic
cooperation will be our sole concern.
Q The testimony that you gave a few weeks ago for the
McDougal-Tucker case is going on in Little Rock right now and is
expected to be played this afternoon. I wonder if you could tell us
what you want Americans to understand from what you said in your
testimony, what you want the jury to understand; and, also, if you
still object to the release of the videotape publicly?
President Clinton: Well, my testimony will speak for
itself. It will be fairly straightforward. All I want the American
people to understand is that I was asked to testify because they
thought I might have some evidence that was helpful and I was glad to
testify. And then what I said will be a matter of public record when
it's run. If it's run this afternoon, it will be.
I believe the press should have access to my testimony.
I just think that it ought to be treated like everybody else's
testimony in federal court, and it shouldn't be subject to abuse or
misconstruction. I think it's a very straightforward -- it was a
very straightforward set of questions, at least most of it, and I
gave him the best, direct, straightforward answers I could. I don't
think it's a very big deal, but I did my best to answer the questions
that were asked of me.
Thank you.
Q You were basically being asked to refute testimony
-- participate in a fraudulent deal --
President Clinton: I didn't say anything different in
the trial that I haven't said in public on that.
Q Mr. President, are you planning a Camp David summit
for Greece and Turkey over the Aegean issue?
President Clinton: I guess the short answer right now
is no, but what I am planning to do is to stay in close touch with
this issue. I am encouraged that the representatives of Greece and
Turkey have already met once and intend to meet again in Berlin in
the next few weeks, and seem to be moving toward a resolution along
the lines of the standards that the President and I have both
endorsed today -- along the lines of respect for international
agreements, respect for territorial integrity, no force, no threat of
force. We believe that is very important.
If it becomes obvious at some point in the future that
the United States could constructively play a larger role and that
both parties are willing to have that done; I wouldn't rule that out.
But I think the important thing is that the parties themselves have
to resolve this difference, and they have to agree about the way it's
going to be resolved. And I believe that the principles I just laid
out had to be embraced by both sides in order for any success to
occur.
But I will say again -- let me just say again -- I
believe if the differences in the Aegean and the differences over
Cyprus could be resolved so that Greece and Turkey, that are allies
in Nato, could become in a general sense better partners, the impact
on the whole future of Europe, the whole future of the linchpin area
of the Balkans, the connection of that area of Europe down to the
Middle East -- and therefore the impact on all of us -- the positive
impact would be breathtaking.
So the rest of the world has a lot riding on whether
Greeks and Turks can resolve their differences. So quite apart from
the enormous interest that we have in the United States because of
our large number of Greek-Americans, we know that the whole world has
a lot riding on this. And so if there is anything we can do, we'll
do it.
But right now, the parties are trying to work it out for
themselves, and I think they deserve a lot of support for that, and
encouragement.
Thank you.
Yes, please, Mr. President.
President Stephanopoulos: Allow me to add that you're
advancing things with your question. Greece has clarified what we
can accept in terms of dialogue with Turkey. We have clarified that
no dialogue is possible right now, because it is condemned to
failure. If Turkey doesn't accept to send the Imia question to the
International Court of Justice at the Hague, then the second
precondition is the resolution of the Continental Shelf question
through the same way.
So we do not deny dialogue. But we want dialogue,
provided dialogue is realistic and that it doesn't affect the
sovereign rights of Greece and that it will be carried out according
to international treaties and international law. So we should not
talk about something which need not be realized now.
President Clinton: Thank you all very much. See you
this evening.
End 1:15 P.M. Edt