Ïðåñêîíôåðåíöèè íà àìåðèêàíñêèÿ ñåêðåòàð íà îòáðàíàòà Êîåí â Ñîôèÿ (íà àíãëèéñêè)

Èíòåðåñíî å òîâà êàê Êîåí íå äàâà íèêàêúâ îòãîâîð íà äâà âúïðîñà: ïúðâî - êàê Áúëãàðèÿ ùå óñïåå äà âëåçå â ÍÀÒÎ áåç êîìïåíñèðàíå íà çàãóáèòå îò ìèëèàðäè äîëàðè, êîèòî ïðåòúðïÿ íåéíàòà èêîíîìèêà â ðåçóëòàò íà ðàçëè÷íèòå ñàíêöèè, íàëîæåíè îò Çàïàäà ñïðÿìî Þãîñëàâèÿ, Èðàê è Ëèáèÿ è, âòîðî - êàê ÍÀÒÎ ìîæå äà ãàðàíòèðà ñèãóðíîñòòà íà Áúëãàðèÿ, ñëåä êàòî íå óñïÿ äà ïðåäîòâðàòè ðàçäåëÿíåòî íà Êèïúð ìåæäó äâå îò íåéíèòå ÷ëåíêè.

[EXCERPTS] Remarks as Given and Questions Taken by
Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen to the
Atlantic Club, Sofia, Bulgaria July 13, 1997

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NATO and the United States are committed to walking side-by-side with Bulgaria down that path and providing all the help that we can. We appreciate the significance of Bulgaria's decision to seek NATO membership, and we consider Bulgaria to be a serious contender and candidate for future rounds. We are going to share ideas about how forces are organized within democracies, about the defense planning process, about budgets and transparency, and other types of ways in which we can share information with you and with other nations. We will offer advice on training issues and creating professional forces. And we will provide assistance in becoming interoperable with NATO in the areas of communications, command, control, intelligence, and logistics.

The best way through the door to NATO membership is still the Partnership for Peace. Three years ago NATO established the Partnership Program as a way for those who are seeking membership to demonstrate that they are ready to shoulder the responsibilities of membership, and to give those nations who are not aspiring to membership a chance to still interact with NATO. And since then there have been hundreds of exercises and activities, and the Partnership has succeeded beyond most of the expectations, the most optimistic expectations.

Bulgaria has been a strong supporter of PFP and has taken part in many exercises -- even hosting two of them. Peaceful Eagle in 1997 was a command post exercise and Bulgaria tested and trained commanders and headquarters to deal with a variety of peace enforcement scenarios. And then there was Cooperative Partner '97, where nine nations plied the waters and practiced peacekeeping skills on the Black Sea. And just two days ago, in Ukraine, I saw Bulgaria's forces join with forces from America and nine other NATO countries and Partner nations in an exercise called "Cooperative Neighbor."

By making the most of the Partnership Program, Bulgaria has not only helped itself, Bulgaria is helping all of Europe by helping to make the Partnership a vital and enduring element of the new European security architecture, which has NATO at its center.

Now it is critical that Bulgaria take advantage of Enhanced PFP Program and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, to become involved in the full range of NATO's new missions, to take part in more complex exercises and the exercise planning process, to become involved in the force planning and review process, and to identify additional qualified officers to take part in the liaison cell at the Partnership Coordination Center in Mons, to work directly with NATO on important security issues that affect all of Europe, and to continue down the path toward NATO membership in the future.

And a critical step in that path is ensuring public and parliamentary support for the reforms necessary to pursue NATO membership. In a democracy, no step is more critical, in a democracy nothing is more important. NATO enlargement must be more than the creation of national leaders. And you have extraordinary national leaders in Bulgaria. They are young and dynamic, charismatic. They are committed to a vision of the future that is unbounded. It's in fact the duty of these new leaders to engage the hearts and the minds of the people. As democracies, we have learned that public support for government actions, particularly actions involving national security, legitimizes those actions. And given the momentous implications of enlarging NATO, we must earn public support for it. And to earn public support for it, we need to have open, full, national discussions about the benefits and also the burdens.

The benefits are enormous. For new members, it means being part of the most successful peacetime military alliance in history, and building closer and stronger ties with the West. For NATO, it means a stronger Alliance by erasing the artificial line that divided Europe and extending a circle of security that can better protect the peace and prevent future war. For both NATO and new members, it provides a security for democracies to flourish, just as it did for Western European nations such as Germany, Italy, and Spain. It provides a realm of trust and cooperation in which members can resolve their differences through negotiation rather than confrontation. It embodies the wisdom that liberty enlarged is liberty ensured.

But, of course, along with these benefits come the responsibilities of enlargement. The responsibility of being a contributor -- not just a consumer -- of collective security. Bulgaria's military is respected at home and abroad, and it can ensure Bulgaria becomes a key contributor by continuing with military reforms, creating a strong body of skilled civilian defense leaders, and following through with commitments to streamline the forces and create a professional military.

It should also continue organizational reforms and equipment modernization to improve interoperability with NATO, establish a permanent representative at NATO headquarters to develop closer working relationships, and build new ties with neighbors by peacefully resolving old disputes.

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MR. GANTCHEV: Defense Secretary Cohen, welcome to Bulgaria. We are keen to be part of the world community. My friend Sol Polansky and I in 1989 were very keen to see a different Bulgaria. How without a mini-Marshall Plan, how without (a) compensation of twelve billion dollars of (the) three embargoes that Bulgaria suffered, how can we hope to enter NATO when for seven and a half years we have been destabilized from many, many directions? And I pray to God that you are going to see a feasible solution for us. I am anxiously waiting for your answer. Thank you.

SECRETARY COHEN: I met during the course of the day with your President, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, members of Parliament, the Chairman of your Foreign Relations Committee and National Security Committee. Throughout our discussions it is clear that Bulgaria is currently on the right path. You are currently pursuing a policy of certainly promoting democracy, of promoting market reforms, of having a market-driven economy, of respecting human rights, of having civilian control over the military, of making sure that you have good relationships with your neighbors, all of that is now contributing to respect for and confidence in the Bulgarian economy and its people. It is going to take time to reverse decades of mismanagement and oppression and pursuing an economic system which has been demonstrated over and over again to be failed and flawed. And so, with a few more years, with the strong leadership that you have today, if you continue to pursue these reforms you will find that the United States is going to be eager to help in ways, in any way in which we can. Some in the form of economic assistance, but also in the form of military assistance, from helping to reshape your military -- you are going through a downsizing of your military. It's important that that military be reshaped in a way that will raise the standards to levels that are consistent with those of other NATO countries so that you can prepare for eventual accession into NATO. I have said during the course of the day that the real issue is not how much money is spent on your military, which after all NATO is fundamentally a military alliance. The real issue is not how much is spent, but how it is spent. It must be spent wisely. It must be spent with great prudence. It must be spent with great direction. We hope in the coming months to provide that kind of cooperation. There will be a Defense Ministerial here in October. Your Defense Minister invited me to attend, and I indicated to him that I'll be coming back in October to participate in that Defense Ministerial. We have had the Under Secretary for Defense Mr. Walter Slocombe here in March to work with your military establishment to find ways in which we can be helpful. And I think that it is a pretty strong symbol and a message that we are committed to helping Bulgaria to pursue the path toward prosperity and stability and greater freedom and putting it in a very strong position for accession into NATO.

(Passi thanks and welcomes Mr. Slocombe.)

QUESTION FROM SAMUEL FRANCES, EFE AGENCY: Two questions, one of which is real short. You have indicated earlier that Bulgaria is a very serious contender for NATO membership. But does this mean Bulgaria is a 1999 candidate for NATO membership? And my second question, Bulgaria is searching to guarantee its security through NATO membership. In the case of Cyprus, however, the NATO membership failed to prevent the separation of the island and the decision currently being put forward to install a confederation there is more a way to legalize such partition. Why has NATO failed?

SECRETARY COHEN: I am not sure I fully appreciated the entire question. But let me try to respond about why NATO made the decision that it did. There was a virtual consensus from the beginning that three countries were qualified to begin negotiations for accessions into NATO. There was disagreement amongst all of the NATO members in terms of who else should come in, what other countries should qualify. NATO operates not by majority vote, but by consensus. Everyone finally agrees after the full debate and discussion takes place, they all nod their agreement, that this is the course they should pursue. President Clinton felt very strongly that we should proceed with prudence and with caution. As I mentioned, this is an important, momentous decision for other member-countries to seek to come into NATO itself. As a momentous decision, it entails great rewards, and it also entails great responsibilities and burdens. President Clinton felt strongly on two counts -- because this has been the most successful military alliance in the history, certainly of this century and perhaps that of the world, we should proceed with some caution as we seek to enlarge it. And that secondly, we wanted to make sure the door stayed completely open. That if, in fact, additional nations had been granted accession negotiations, to begin those negotiations, it would have sent precisely the opposite signal to Bulgaria, to the Baltics, to every other European nation who might seek membership in some future time. And so President Clinton, who by the way is very, very favorably disposed toward Bulgaria -- he has high hopes for Bulgaria, he wanted me to convey that to the Bulgarian people, and I did so to your President and your Foreign Minister and your Defense Minister, he has very high hopes that Bulgaria will in fact qualify in the very near future, if you continue on the path that you currently are pursuing. And so he wanted to send a signal by not enlarging it beyond three that the door is open, that we are hoping we can help those nations, including Bulgaria, who want to gain admission into NATO, to enjoy its benefits, that the people are prepared also to pay for the burdens. The burdens need not be that large. And I mentioned this earlier in my comments. Reform can take place on an economical basis. But you must understand that Bulgaria must be prepared to exercise the full responsibilities of NATO membership, and that includes all of the responsibilities, not only of having an adequate defense for itself, but being prepared to defend all of the other allied nations as such, members of that Alliance, and also being prepared to go outside the normal area of operation, as you have done by participating in the peace-keeping mission in Bosnia.

And so the President felt that Bulgaria and other nations needed more time. The answer was not "No," but "Just not yet," and we are very hopeful that we can help contribute to the acceleration of your admission into NATO.

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MR. DENCHEV: Mr. Secretary, would you elaborate a little bit more on the future relationships between NATO and Russia and specifically on whether there are any clauses in the agreement that NATO signed with Russia, that set up any borders of partition concerning the accession and non-accession of NATO aspiring countries? Thank you.

SECRETARY COHEN: The question is: Could I expand a bit upon the relationship that NATO now has with Russia and whether or not there is anything contained in that NATO-Russia Charter that would prohibit or prevent other European nations from joining NATO itself? The answer is that we wanted to make sure and make very clear to the Russian people that this new enlarged NATO presents no offensive threat to their country. That it is designed to stabilize all of Europe, to reduce ethnic tensions, to reduce and eliminate border disputes, to promote greater democracy, and prosperity, and stability. And that, ultimately, works to the advantage, to the benefit and to the security of the Russian people. We have taken some rather extraordinary steps in trying to persuade the Russian people of our good intentions. We have, for example, invited Mr. Primakov into the room where the Joint Chiefs of Staff of our military meet on a daily basis. That is unprecedented. We invited Mr. Primakov, and we gave him a long briefing where he was able to ask questions of all of our generals, and he seemed quite satisfied about what NATO enlargement really would mean to Russia. We also invited the now former head of their military, Mr. Rodionov, to have the same briefing and to satisfy him that this is really going to work to the benefit of Russia. In the Charter itself there is nothing that would allow Russia to impose impediments to other countries, European countries who are seeking admission. We have said we will give them a voice, we'll allow them to come and present their voice to NATO. But they are not allowed to have a vote. They are not allowed to interfere with the internal procedures and policies of NATO itself.

And so the answer is that the NATO-Russia Charter is really designed to ameliorate, to allay, to reduce their concerns about what NATO enlargement means as far as their security. And we think over the period of the next several years we will demonstrate that NATO enlargement will actually benefit the Russian people rather than posing any kind of a threat to them.

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MR. KAMENOV: Mr. Secretary, I am delighted by your speech. It's a common knowledge [that] prosperity and security go hand in hand. [A] high degree of security is [a] vital precondition for massive foreign investment. Massive foreign investment is vital for prosperity. Bearing in mind the leading role of the United States in NATO, wouldn't it be [a] wise idea to fix an early date, or a schedule of that, for Bulgarian membership [in] of NATO in order publicly to encourage foreign investment in this country and adopt a policy of high-ranking NATO officials for encouraging transnational businesses in view of forthcoming Bulgarian membership? Thank you.

SECRETARY COHEN: It was a very important question, and you are quite right; there is a direct connection between security and trade and international investment. And wouldn't it be a wise thing for the United States to set a specific date at which Bulgaria could be admitted into NATO? First, let me say with respect to setting specific dates, when you do that, you then set up, it seems to me, an unwise sort of rush to the gate to make sure that everyone who wants to get in can get in by a specific time-frame. We think it is much more prudent to indicate that there are going to be constant, or I should say, continuous reviews of the progress being made by those countries who have indicated they wish accession into NATO. And that in the communique itself it talked about reviewing the progress in the next meeting in 1999. That date being specified in the communique itself is not insignificant. Secondly, it is not insignificant that I am here immediately following the conference in Madrid. My purpose in coming is twofold. Number one, to reassure you that we are very supportive of Bulgaria. To reassure you that we are going to work very closely with you in the coming weeks and months to make sure that progress proceeds as it currently is on the path to greater expansion of what is taking place today. And to send a very strong signal to international investors that we consider Bulgaria to be one of those nations who'll be seeking and hopefully will be granted accession in the future.

By virtue of the fact that former Secretary of Defense Perry came in 1994, that Mr. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense Walter Slocombe came this March, and that I am here today, and I have publicly advised your press, your Ministers and your leaders that I'll be coming back again in October, that is a very strong message that all of you should take some comfort in, that we are serious about Bulgaria, we are going to work with you, we want the international community to recognize Bulgaria for the outstanding progress that was made and to do everything that we can to make sure that in the future, when we have accession negotiations, that you are among those that will be granted accession. (Applause.)

MR. PASSI: Thanks. I now hope that following this reply, Tikhomir's crystal dream of his childhood, that is, to supply his medicines to the Sixth American Fleet, will now come true.

The Mayor of the city of Varna, Mr. Khristo Kirtchev, an Atlantic Club member and a supporter of the Atlantic cause, official host of the manifold NATO warships visiting the port of Varna.

MAYOR KIRTCHEV: ... You have a lot of excessive equipment. It is a very painful question of our army to be upgraded, too. Is it possible our modest Navy to be supplied by the American (inaudible) Combatants, for example, or our Air Force. You give a lot of tanks and personnel carriers to our neighbors. Is it possible to give a hand to our army, too, because our soldiers, our officers, they are very eager to study American technology. Of course to join the NATO forces we have to practice with American and West European armament. It is quite a practical question because I know, I follow the news about your army very closely, I am a fan of your army. Madam Bohlen here, she knows about that, that's true, yeah? And I am in very good relations with your Joint Chiefs of Staff. So it is a quite practical question for us, because I know that just to jump into NATO now it is a daydream. But it is quite practical now you are shrinking your army in half, you know that, and a lot of equipment should go there and there. Is it possible to give us a hand? Thank you very much.

SECRETARY COHEN: I'll have to check with Under Secretary Slocombe to see what we have in our inventory, but let me say that we do have programs, of course. Our Foreign Military Financing Program is something that will be helpful to the Bulgarian military; we have what we call IMET Program -- International Military Education Training Program, and we have funding in our budget for that as well. And I will examine whether or not surplus or excess military equipment can be, in fact, directed to Bulgaria.

Obviously, we expect you to continue to participate in the PFP Programs; we expect that you will upgrade your equipment to make it interoperable with NATO's. So I will look to see what the policy is and what it can be, and what may be available that we find to be surplus or excess equipment.

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[EXCERPTS] Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen Media Availability Council of Ministers Sofia, Bulgaria July 13, 1997

Secretary Cohen: Well, let me take this occasion to say a few words about the meeting with the Prime Minister. It was a very productive meeting. The Prime Minister indicated that he was quite pleased with the decision in Madrid with the admission of three new countries qualifying at least for admission depending upon how the accession negotiations are completed; also indicating that he felt very positive about the fact that there was such a strong statement that the door was completely open, that those countries who did not gain accession this time will be fully able to compete for that opportunity in the future. The fact that Bulgaria was not mentioned does not at all mean that Bulgaria would not be in contention for accession into NATO.

They will not be in competition, I should add quickly, with any other country, but rather each country will be measured on its own merits as to whether or not it has devoted its political and social and military efforts in such a way as to qualify for NATO admission. We are very positively inclined toward Bulgaria. We see tremendous progress that's been made in a very short period of time, and if that progress continues we are very confident that Bulgaria will be in a very strong position to be considered for accession in the future.

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Q: Do you think there are real chances [for] Bulgaria to be accepted into NATO structures 'til the end of 1999?

SECRETARY COHEN:
It all depends upon what the Bulgarian people wish to do. As both the President and the Prime Minister have said, it is really in the hands of the Bulgarian people. If they continue to pursue the course that they are on, if there is a continuation of democratization, open markets, respect for human rights, respect for one's neighbors, a preference, obviously, that we must have civilian control over the military, and to modernize the military in such a way as to make it inter-operable with NATO countries; if the Bulgarian people support this in the future, then Bulgaria will be a very strong contender for admission in the future.

Q: Mr. Secretary, to what extent the modernizing of Bulgarian Army is a question of politics and to what extent it is a question of new markets for arms?

SECRETARY COHEN:
The question is to what extent is the modernizing of the military a political decision and to what extent is it a question of the U.S. or NATO countries selling arms?

Q: Basically to what extent is it a question of marketing arms?

SECRETARY COHEN:
Of marketing arms? Let me say that whether or not Bulgaria should choose to qualify for accession into NATO, it will have to reform its military. It's irrespective of the decision for NATO membership. The Bulgarian Defense Minister can comment on his own, but I feel confident that he would feel compelled to take measures to modernize the force. As I've said on many occasions in the past, alliances, in fact, save money, and that Bulgaria, like other countries who either are seeking accession or who have just completed, then (been) endorsed for accession to NATO, they would have to spend money independently. This would be a way to save money by directing its resources in a fashion that would be most cost-effective, to focus on those areas of greatest efficiency, and to have assessment teams come and try to make assessments of what would need to be done to upgrade that capability in order to qualify in the future. It really is an issue where this would save money rather than spend excessively.

As to whether or not there would be any market for arms, that would depend upon what changes need to be made. I have, in the past, focused upon the need for command, control, communications, and intelligence. Those types of activities and requirements will have to be measured up to. But the question of where a weaponry is required, or if it needs to be acquired, is something that is not dispositive. The real issue is modernizing the force for the security of Bulgaria and to what it can and will have to contribute to the security of NATO allies.

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Q: Mr. Secretary, what are the definite obstacles which can stop Bulgaria from qualifying for NATO membership?

SECRETARY COHEN:
The obstacles that can stop Bulgaria from qualifying would be to diverge off the path that it currently is on. If it should turn away from developing a free-market economy, if it should have less respect for human rights, if it should engage in quarrels with its neighbors in ways subject to producing conflict rather than cooperation, if it should in any way not allow civilian control over the military -- those would be certainly ways in which it could be taken off the path from potential NATO membership. The key, from a military point of view, and this is to be kept in mind that NATO is essentially a military alliance, is that there must be a reform of the military itself. The Bulgarian military is going to be reduced in size, it needs to be reformed to bring it up to standards that will be needed in the 21st century, so that it can operate in full accord and full capability with the other NATO members. As long as there is a strong commitment to the values of NATO -- the social, economic, political values, and military capability -- then Bulgaria will be a very strong contender for admission.

(End transcript)