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1998-02-10 Joint Statement on US Bulgarian Partnership For Immediate Release
February 10, 1998

Author: Press Secretary
Email: Publications-Admin@WhiteHouse.Gov
Date: 1998/02/11
Forums: gov.us.fed.eop.white-house.announce

President Clinton and President Petar Stoyanov met at the White House today to discuss the strengthening of U.S.-Bulgarian relations as well as mutual efforts to enhance cooperation in Southeast Europe and advance Bulgaria's integration into the European and transatlantic communities, including NATO.

President Clinton noted the historic changes that have taken place in Bulgaria over the last year and the key role played by President Stoyanov. During his tenure, Stoyanov's Bulgaria has aligned itself firmly with the family of democratic nations, moved forward with difficult economic reforms, strengthened its civic institutions, stepped up its fight against organized crime and enhanced cooperation with its neighbors. The two presidents committed themselves to building a partnership that reflects a new era in Bulgarian-American relations.

President Clinton reaffirmed America's commitment to NATO's "Open Door" policy and welcomed Bulgaria's aspiration to NATO membership. The two Presidents agreed that Bulgaria's engagement in the Partnership for Peace, enhanced dialogue with NATO and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council were key tools to making Bulgaria the strongest possible candidate for NATO membership.

The United States will continue to support Bulgaria's efforts to consolidate its democratic and free market reforms, including Bulgaria's engagement with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The United States and Bulgaria are committed to reinforcing implementation of the Dayton Accords. They also have a common interest in expanding mutual trade and investment and encouraging the development of multiple routes for energy from the Caspian Basin.

The centerpiece of the visit was the announcement of a new U.S. Action Plan for Southeast Europe. The Action Plan will give further dynamism to U.S. cooperation with countries in the region in such areas as promoting peaceful resolution of disputes, combating organized crime and consolidating democratic and economic reforms. President Stoyanov expressed full support for the Action Plan and committed Bulgaria to doing its part.

The two presidents noted with approval the detailed U.S.-Bulgaria work program that will translate the Southeast Europe Action Plan into concrete projects in the areas of economic and commercial concerns, political-military affairs and law enforcement cooperation.

President Stoyanov welcomed continuing U.S. assistance which plays a key role in facilitating Bulgaria's transition to democratic and free market structures. President Clinton applauded Bulgaria's commitment to accelerating privatization and affirmed continued U.S. support through various bilateral assistance programs. Over the past seven years, the United States has provided Bulgaria with over $235 million in assistance under the Support for East European Democracy Program (SEED) to advance fundamental economic and political reforms.

The program for this year, budgeted at $31 million, will focus on ensuring the development of a free-market economy and strengthening democratic institutions.

In view of the improved reform environment in Bulgaria, the United States and Bulgaria have identified several new priority areas for cooperation: reinforcing the rule of law, strengthening financial markets and encouraging the development of civil society. In this regard, the two Presidents agreed to:

Deepen cooperation between their countries' respective law enforcement agencies in the struggle against terrorism, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and illicit arms transfers. The United States announced an increase in funds dedicated to providing criminal law enforcement training.

Protect intellectual property rights, including a commitment by President Stoyanov to seek strict enforcement of Bulgarian legislation and strengthen cooperation among relevant Bulgarian institutions in the fight against intellectual property piracy.

Develop a new education curriculum in Bulgaria to promote democratic values with a grant of $250,000 from the United States Information Agency.

On the military front, the Department of Defense has developed a number of programs to support the reform of the Bulgarian military along Western lines, including for this year:

A $900,000 International Military Education and Training program that has eleven Bulgarian cadets studying at U.S. military academies;

A $3.2 million dollar Foreign Military Financing program; and,

A military liaison team resident in the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense to organize staff and information exchanges.

In an effort to breakdown barriers and encourage regional cooperation, the United States and Bulgaria, together with several other stable democracies, are engaged in a number of cooperative efforts such as the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative, the South Balkan Development Initiative and the annual Southeastern European Defense Ministerial.

The Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) aims to enhance regional cooperation, commerce and development. It is pursuing plans for improvement of operations at border crossings, models to finance energy efficiency projects, and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprise development. The $30 million South Balkan Development Initiative (SBDI) seeks to energize the efforts of Albania, Bulgaria and the FYR Macedonia to upgrade their transportation systems and develop a regional approach to transport planning.

The Southeastern European Defense Ministerial brings the Defense Ministers of the region together with other interested countries to discuss issues of common concern and develop projects for the year aimed at promoting regional cooperation and confidence building. Bulgaria hosted the last Ministerial in October 1997, which resulted in 27 follow-on activities.

These bilateral and multilateral initiatives will advance our shared goal of a Europe whole, free and at peace. They will also promote the integration of Bulgaria and the other stable democracies of Southeastern Europe into the European and transatlantic mainstream.

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1998-02-10 Fact Sheet on Southeast Europe Action Plan

For Immediate Release
February 10, 1998

Author: Press Secretary
Email: Publications-Admin@WhiteHouse.Gov
Date: 1998/02/12
Forums: gov.us.fed.eop.white-house.announce

President Clinton, in a meeting with President Petar Stoyanov of Bulgaria today, announced a new Action Plan for Southeast Europe. The Action Plan will give further dynamism to U.S. cooperation with the stable democracies of Southeast Europe. It will help states in the region consolidate reforms, develop regional cooperation, and advance their integration into the European and transatlantic communities. It will also reinforce Balkan peace by promoting stability around Dayton Accord countries.

The U.S. Action Plan for Southeast Europe will be implemented along three tracks:

First, the United States will expand bilateral political, economic, military and civil cooperation with the states of Southeastern Europe.

Second, the United States will work to promote greater regional cooperation.

Third, the United States will work bilaterally and multilaterally, particularly through closer cooperation with members of the European Union, to embed the countries of the region into the evolving architecture of European and transatlantic institutions.

The Action Plan is an evolving framework for the achievement of U.S. goals in the region. Intergovernmental Working Groups in several Southeast European capitals (presently Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia, Romania, and Slovenia) are developing country-specific work programs. These work programs will be supported by Washington agencies. Additionally, we will intensify our dialogue with Allies and partners about this region and look for areas for enhanced cooperation.

Using the format followed by the U.S. Department of Defense in the conduct of the existing Bilateral Working Groups on Defense Matters, the U.S. will establish Bilateral Working Groups on Economic Matters. These Economic Groups will be headed on the U.S. side by a senior State Department official, and include officials from the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other agencies. Like their defense counterparts, the economic working groups will meet once a year to conduct assessments of progress towards agreed goals in the areas of economic development, trade, investment and related fields, and explore opportunities for further cooperation.

# # #

INST TERRORISM FOCUS OF CLINTON SPEECH TO UNGA

Author: USIA Email:
Date: 1998/09/20
Forums: newsguy.world.asia.gov, newsguy.pub.world.asia.gov more headers

USIS Washington File 18 September 1998

Washington -- President Clinton will discuss terrorism and the obligation of the international community to fight it in his September 21 speech before the United Nations General Assembly.

He will "speak to the international community about why the fight against terrorism has become one that has to be at or near the top of our world agenda," National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger said in a September 18 White House briefing on the President's appearance at the opening of the 53rd annual UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

Clinton "will point out that with the spread of information technology and the potential spread of weapons of mass destruction, the technology of terror has become more lethal and more available, and therefore there is a greater degree of common responsibility to deal with this issue together," Berger said.

"He wants to make it clear to the international community that the fight against terrorism is not a clash of civilizations or cultures. The dividing line is between those who practice, support, and tolerate terror, and those who understand that terrorism is plain and simple murder. And he wants to press his case that the only way to succeed in the combat against terrorism is working together and understanding our common obligations to deal with this increasingly serious problem," Berger said.

While in New York, the President will hold three bilateral meetings.

The first will be September 20 with Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi, and will "focus especially on the problems in Kosovo and in Albania, where the Italians obviously are critical partners to us in seeking to restore some peace and stability," Berger said. Prodi and Clinton also are expected to discuss the world economic situation and the situation in Russia.

On September 21, following his speech to the UN General Assembly, Clinton will meet with Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Those discussions will focus on ways to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. "As you know," Berger said, "we've had a close relationship with Pakistan for many years and we hope to work with Pakistan in the years to come. However, Berger pointed out, that relationship, and US relations with India, has been complicated the nuclear tests the two countries conducted in May.

He said the administration has not yet decided on whether Clinton will visit India and Pakistan, as planned, later this year.

"We have discussed with the Indians, and with the Pakistanis, the steps that we think need to be taken to put them back on track, as I say, more firmly back on track in the nonproliferation regime. I think there has been some movement, but I think so far it's been insufficient," Berger said.

Clinton's third bilateral meeting will be with Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi September 22 at the Rockefeller estate at Tarrytown, outside New York City.

"This will be the first meeting between the new Prime Minister of Japan and the President," Berger said.

He said Clinton will stress the importance to the world of economic reform in Japan "and our sense of urgency that it is important that Japan move forward to stimulate its economy through fiscal policies, that it deal with its banking crisis ... and that it continue to deal with deregulation and market access."

He added that the two leaders will discuss a number of other issues, particularly North Korea, whose "launch of the Taepo Dong missile over Japan on August 31 obviously has been troubling both to us and to the Japanese."

President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will also participate September 21 in a conference sponsored by New York University (NYU) on strengthening democracy in the global economy. The President will engage in a roundtable discussion with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, Prime Minister Prodi, President Petar Stoyanov of Bulgaria, and Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden.

That discussion "should be a fairly free-flowing conversation among the leaders about their practical experience in devising new methods of governance to deal with promoting democracy, civil society, in the global economy," Berger said.

In answer to a reporter's question, Berger said the US strike August 20 on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was justified because the United States had "a high level of confidence" that that plant was also making a chemical called EMPTA, which is essentially the penultimate precursor to VX gas.

"There are very few steps, maybe even only one step, between EMPTA and VX nerve gas," he said. The plant "is part of a Military Industrial Corporation of which Usama Bin Ladin is associated. He seeks chemical weapons for the purpose of using them for terrorist action. I think the case is very strong."

It "would have been irresponsible" not to strike that plant, Berger said.

"This plant was, in my judgment, a legitimate target, and had we not struck it I don't know how we could have faced the American people and said we had every reason to believe that there was a chemical weapons-related facility here, associated with Usama Bin Ladin, who has said he wants to kill Americans, but we decided not to attack it."

http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl2.html

Author: Toni Howard
Email: Toni@Imagemuse.com
Date: 1998/09/21
Forums: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, alt.journalism, alt.news-media, alt.politics.media, alt.politics.economics, alt.politics.usa.congress more headers

By Nicholas Kralev FUTURES WORLD NEWS

NEW YORK President Clinton together with other world leaders will seek to find new approaches to such traditional values as democracy and market economy at a conference today focusing on an ideology that some call the "Third Way."

It will mark the first time that this ideology is put into an international context.

Mr. Clinton's scheduled 90-minute discussion with the prime ministers of Britain, Italy and Sweden -- Tony Blair, Romano Prodi and Goran Persson -- and Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov is the first forum bringing together leaders embodying the Third Way in their own countries.

The panel with the heads of state will conduct the conference at New York University. It is titled "Strengthening Democracy in the Global Economy." Two other sessions will focus on civil society issues and the future of opportunity.

Some of the speakers include Hillary Rodham Clinton and Anthony Giddens, director of the London School of Economics. Vice President Gore is expected to speak at the luncheon.

The forum coincides with the opening of the new session of the U.N. General Assembly. The conference is expected to shed light on the political and economic values that unite Mr. Blair's "New Labor" and Mr. Clinton s "New Democrats" -- the key terms of their election campaigns.

The contentious Third Way ideology has brought controversy to today's forum well in advance of its start.

Although they regard the market-friendly social democracies they are trying to build as a new way to respond to the challenges of the global economy, none of the conference participants thinks the Third Way properly and fully defines their policies.

Indeed, the organizers of the event deliberately try to avoid using the term "Third Way."

"We are not interested in being part of a political movement. We are just responding to the need for new solutions to the phenomena of spreading democracy and globalization," said Dr. John Sexton, dean of the New York University School of Law. He will moderate today's panel.

Although the term Third Way has been used by Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair, political and economic analysts think it hasn't yet been clearly defined.

"In general, the Third Way must encompass a new vision of the economy appropriate for the next 25 years, for which the concept of social capital provides the basis," said Simon Szreter, a Cambridge University history professor.

"Social capital is the essential ingredient that promotes confidence and good will -- those two most ancient economic precepts which traders have valued above all else since time immemorial," he said.

But some say the Third Way is an invention without profound meaning.

"The Third Way is a journalistic shorthand to describe the commonality between Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair and their outlook on how governments should behave in the global economy," said Stephen Schlesinger, director of the World Policy Institute.

Perhaps the conference will be a way to better articulate the vision of the ideology, he said.

Regarded as left-of-center politicians who are trying to combine old-time liberalism with modern market-economy values, Mr. Clinton and Mr. Blair won office by scrapping traditional big spending, big government ideologies in favor of free-market solutions.

In a speech here a year ago, Mr. Blair defined the Third Way as an approach that relates to the function of government with respect to how to make people employable in a quite different market.

As in his election campaign in early 1997, he emphasized education, welfare reform and technology as the most significant features of the market:

"These are the areas where we believe the government can make a difference. But it is a third way, if you like, between old-style state intervention and simply saying it is up to the people to do what they can, and the marketplace takes care of them."

Opponents of the Third Way are skeptical about the ideology and think that it's simply the arithmetic means between right and left, Mr. Szreter said.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in June, argued that free-enterprise capitalism works best to foster innovation and create jobs. She quoted former Czech Prime Minister Vaclav Klaus, who had once said that the Third Way leads only to the Third World.

Friday, September 25, 1998; Page A25

NEW YORK—It was an off-Broadway revival of the smash hit "The 1992 New Hampshire Primary." The slightly weathered star of the original knew that this time around, it would be a harder act.

Bill Clinton could still pick the words to match the mood he needed to convey. Ad-libbing remains his specialty. He moved easily from colloquial banter to academic seriousness, from a partisanship couched in humor to calls for national and global unity couched in high-mindedness.

In political sickness or in health, it was the same old Bill Clinton. And the crowd at New York University, like the crowds in New Hampshire, stood up and cheered when it was over -- though, it must be said, he was performing before the intellectual wing of his political base.

The setting on Monday was a conference on "Strengthening Democracy in the Global Economy" at New York University Law School. The supporting cast -- the word "supporting" is appropriate -- included Clinton's friends and political comrades, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

Also along to offer an eloquent reminder that things are much worse in other countries was Bulgaria's reformist leader, Petar Stoyanov. But he insisted his country would overcome its past. Stoyanov could not stop thinking about tomorrow.

For weeks, policy types had dubbed the gathering "The Third Way Meeting." Its purpose was to advance an approach to politics that Clinton and Blair have championed, an effort to thread the needle between Reaganism and Thatcherism on the one side and welfare state socialism on the other.

Blair, who has leaned even more heavily on Third Way rhetoric than Clinton, had the definitions down: It represents "the alliance between progress and justice," an effort to "take the basic value structure" of old progressive faith "minus the dogma."

The Third Way doesn't want "big government" or "tax and spend," but neither does it want "laissez faire." Government, Blair said in an interesting choice of words, should be an "enabler" to help people do what they want through better education and training. It shouldn't try to run people's lives. It offers "a different contract of citizenship" involving both "rights and duties."

The happy conclusion from Blair: "We are witnessing, effectively, the rebirth of progressive politics."

Clinton led off and moderated the meeting with the breezy informality he used during living room get-togethers in Epping, Keene, Concord and countless other New Hampshire towns. Third Wayers wanted to be "modern and progressive," to avoid "false choice designed to divide people to win elections," to have an America that would stand up for "collective responsibilities beyond our borders" and to "moderate boom-bust cycles."

"I'm grateful," Clinton said, "that the Third Way seems to be taking hold."

Now understand that all this was happening on the day that Clinton's grand jury testimony was filling the airwaves. As the hugely advanced information systems that Third Wayers love were feeding the president's words, Hillary Rodham Clinton was bravely doing her part, presiding over a morning discussion among the Third Way's intellectuals. She offered practical stoicism: "We have to take the world as we find it and do what we can to improve upon it."

You could argue that the meeting was a lost opportunity for Clinton. He didn't use it to offer a ringing affirmation of the purposes of his presidency that might have nudged its way onto the evening news.

And the conference underscored that Third Way-ism is a plausible concept still in search of a program. It has the potential for sparking the progressive era Blair predicted by arguing for a new balance between government and the market, between a competitive society and social justice. But it has not yet provided a clear path to reforming domestic social insurance programs (including, as Clinton pointed out, Social Security and Medicare in the United States), or to building new institutions to govern a troubled international economy. Prodi warned of the dangers of "walking in the clouds" and the need to acknowledge that the Third Way promises an approach "not yet defined."

Clinton's two-hour policy respite may prove to be no more than that -- a footnote to a day that will be remembered only for the release of his grand jury testimony in the Monica Lewinsky case and the barest pause in the juggernaut to an impeachment inquiry.

But the main player in that old New Hampshire drama was struggling to give his well-practiced performance one more try. As the scandals rained down on him in 1992, Clinton told voters over and over: "This election is not about me, it's about you." He convinced enough of them six years ago. Now he's playing to a much bigger audience, under more excruciating circumstances. He's looking for a third way out.

© Copyright 1998
The Washington Post Company

Monday was supposed to be the day that destroyed Bill Clinton, stripping away his credibility in a shower of words, exposing his self-indulgence and equivocation.

It was. But the image of Clinton the philanderer, playing for four hours on the world's television screens, will not damn him in the history books. The more repellent performance was that of Clinton the would-be statesman, taking refuge from the capital's turmoil in New York, lecturing the United Nations and later holding forth at a cosy seminar with Tony Blair on the politics of the "Third Way".

Mr Clinton's defenders try hard to distinguish the two roles. It's a shame about the junk food and the women, they say, but he is the brightest President in years, applying a first- class mind to the problems of our age.

Yes, he is clever. But as Monday showed, it takes increasing generosity to say that he applies that faculty for the good of the country. Six years into his presidency, his political thinking is larded with the self-indulgence he brought to his affair with 22-year-old Monica Lewinsky. The shame is that a man so personally reckless is so intellectually timid.

For all the Republican hype that we would be shown "the dark side of Bill Clinton", the House Judiciary Committee's release of the videotapes was something of an own goal. Contrary to advance "leaks", they did not show him swearing or losing his temper. He responded with patience, care and concentration to his unseen, flat-voiced inquisitors.

We had been told his legal quibbling would prove truly offensive to the heartland. He did, indeed, persist in arguing that oral sex was not sex. In real life, this is risible, but in the legal snare in which he finds himself, it is his only option. In practice, the hair-splitting did not sound so bad.

The 3,183 pages of raw testimony released were potentially more damaging, in that they paint the most pitiful picture of Monica: swallowing anti-depressants, redrafting love notes in the hope that she would stumble on a sophistication that might hold his attention, spending twice as much on his now- famous tie as on her now-notorious dress.

But while the text confirms Mr Clinton's exploitation, it damages Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor, too. With its chaotic organisation, repetitive themes, and 50-odd characters, it resembles the appendices to Lord of the Rings: obsessive, unshaped, fodder for the tribe left unsatisfied by an already claustrophobic work.

In sum: nothing like as bad as the White House feared. When Mr Clinton arrived in New York, he hoped to resume the role of statesman. Yet the increasing hollowness of his prescriptions threatens even that legacy.

Take his speech at the opening of the UN General Assembly. Despite his standing ovation, the assembly is poised to strip America of its vote because it has failed to pay its dues. The post of US Ambassador to the UN also lies vacant. Those are problems of Congress's making, not Mr Clinton's, you might say. But in the circumstances his theme - a call to fight terrorism - was ill-judged. He was pleading for help against a threat which particularly plagues America, from a body which the United States will not support. It did not sit easily with his rhetoric of matching "rights" with "responsibilities"'.

Nor did his answers that afternoon, at a curious, long- planned seminar at New York University on centre-left ideology. Seated at a mahogany table, with Mr Blair, Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister, and Peter Stoyanov, the Bulgarian President, Mr Clinton felt at home.

Speaking without notes, he settled happily into the role of policy wonk. He observed scrupulous seminar etiquette, smiling and nodding at Mr Stoyanov during the unintelligible translation. With confident over-familiarity, as his counterpart told of the latest Bulgarian crisis, President Clinton declared "You're doing a good job, guys", and directed the audience to "give him another hand (of applause )".

It is too easy to make a target of the vocabulary of the Third Way, with its antithetical definitions, "not this, but not that either". But coming from Mr Clinton, knowing what we do about his private life, and seeing the record of the past six years, the sloppiness and evasions are peculiarly unattractive.

Even more than his legal wordplay in front of Mr Starr's prosecutors, his phrases are an offence against literacy and numeracy, the skills he says he values so highly. On his favourite subject of schooling, we are told "more doesn't make better and better doesn't make more". The man who seduced a star-struck young volunteer tells the world how to pursue women's empowerment: "You start putting money into these villages and into microenterprise loans ... then you find women start to be treated equally". The man who cannot keep his private life separate from his public role calls for the private sector to compensate for government shortcomings.

Above all, he wanted the audience to know, "there are hard choices to be made in life and in politics". But the extraordinary feature of the Clinton years is that there have not really been such choices. The booming economy has made even his harsh welfare reforms appear benign, and so far, persuaded Americans to overlook his adultery.

To an astonishing degree, Mr Clinton has been able to have it all, in life and in politics. It is his successor, saddled with a slowing economy, who will face the harder choices.