f1S13 •COUFIDENTIA G THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON SUBJECT Expanded Session on Security Issues with President Yeltsin of the Russian Federation PARTICIPANTS The President The Vice President Warren Christopher The Secretary of State William Perry The Secretary of Defense Anthony Lake Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs Leon Fuerth Assistant to the Vice Presid nt for National Security Affairs Lynn Davis Undersecretary for International Security Affairs Thomas Pickering U S Ambassador to the Russian Federation Nicholas Burns Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs NSC Rose Gottemoeller Director for Russian Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs NSC Notetaker Peter Afanasenko Interpreter From the Nunn-Lugar collection of the National Security Archive MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION Boris Yeltsin President of the Russian Federation Oleg Soskovets Deputy Prime Minister Andrey Kozyrev Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavel Grachev Minister of Defense Oleg Davydov Minister of Foreign Economics Trade Georgiy Mamedov Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Viktor Illyushin First Assistaut to the President Yuliy Vorontsov Russian Ambassador to the U S Interpretet DATE TIME AND PLACE September 27 1994 4 35-5 35pm Cabinet Room DECLASSIFIED PER E O 13526 Q0tiPIBS ITll h- Declassify on 0 5 073 J - M- OADR 3 '3 'J o 8 KS - 1 13 6 Minister Grachev The cardinal issue is the new U S strategy which I talked about with Secretary Perry yesterday Nuclear security must be considered at the level of the Energy Department and MinAtom too So before Vice President Gore's visit in December we will work out an exchange on nuclear security by then The second issue is nuclear security provided in terms of the START I and II Treaties I informed Secretary Perry of all the issues o f nuclear safety and security that were being implemented Missiles are coming out of Kazakhstan and Belarus warheads are being removed from Ukraine all according to schedule We are destroying strategic nuclear arms strictly according to schedule There was a misunderstanding before this visit that we were stopping or slowing down No We showed Secretary Perry that we are on schedule We have cut back 374 ICBMs you saw 13 For submarines we have cut back 184 compared to the 52 you counted As far as tactical nuclear delivery vehicles on heavy bombers--both you and we have taken them all off I'd like to propose that Perry come to one of our tactical nuclear handling sites when he visits in December to see that safety is provided for But we cannot destroy all the tactical nuclear weapons at once--unlike the United States which is geographically in a more favorable position You do not need them But for us within reasonable bounds we need some There could be problems with some of the states to the south They are contained now but as a restraint to aggression some tactical nuclear weapons are needed it' President Yeltsin To be objective and fair Pavel Sergeyevich I cannot agree I said this to him let's just add them up You say you want to keep tactical nuclear weapons more than strategic OK get rid of that many more strategic Either we knock out all tactical nuclear weapons or sum them up cp Minister Grachev We're asking that at the level of experts that we look at this question one more time Here is another difficulty We are cutting back strategic nuclear weapons in accordance with START I but the Treaty is not ratified Now START II is pressing us with a date of 2003 to complete reductions If you do not press Ukraine then we will not be able to proceed with START II 21 President Yeltsin What concerns Ukraine is START I not II START II is a matter between us So we have to press Ukraine with all our might 91 The Presid nt President Kuchma is coming here You said that he is OK So we need to press them to accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty by the time of the CSCE Summit in Budapest and we have to ensure they get some credit P'f CGUFIDBN'fIPth From the Nunn-Lugar collection of the National Security Archive CONEIDE TIAL cmlFIDS ITIAL 7 The Vice President We should urge President Kuchma together to satisfy this requirement by the time of the CSCE Summit ' President Yeltsin Yes and Ukraine in general We should bring all the pressure we have to bear We signed the Trilateral accord we three so then what I've got to visit Ukraine in November I'm going to press Kuchma to the wall NPT or they get no gas or oil e' The Vice President Don't be too hard on him U The President I will tell him that we need to get NPT out of the way to bring START I into force and to ratify START II Then we can begin to explore START III ideas '21 President Yeltsin No Kuchma is fine I think it is very realistic to expect to be able to finish NPT by the end of the year As Grachev here will tell you we have got to get START II going V2' Minister Grachev We are already beginning to think about it The difficulty has been in getting all of the warheads out of those three countries President Yeltsin I propose so that we do not have any surprise misunderstandings that every three months we exchange information on how much has been destroyed 21 The President Yes U President Yeltsin Then our Ministers of Defense should sign on the bottom line who has destroyed what and where Secretary Perry To summarize what we and Minister Grachev have agreed First we will cooperate in ratifying START I and II and bringing them into force second once that is achieved we will accelerate the pace of reductions to go even faster by informal agreement using Nunn-Lugar funds to do so Third we will start discussing what reductions will be possible under START III And fourth while we are discussing START III each side will take unilateral reductions beyond START II Each side will be taking unilateral steps toward START III µ21 The President Secretary Perry We have been doing some of that already Ye U U President Yeltsin On the ratification of START I that is fine we are destroying all of those anyway On the other points let's do it this way when START II enters into force let us From the Nunn-Lugar collection of the National Security Archive