THE WHITE HOUSE




                  Office of the Press Secretary

                         (Naples, Italy)

______________________________________________________________

For Immediate Release                           July 9, 1994     




	     

                PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE PRESIDENT

	     

	     

                          Palazzo Reale

                          Naples, Italy  






6:20 P.M. (L)

	     

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  First, I would 

like to thank Prime Minister Berlusconi for his able leadership 

of this meeting over the last day and an evening, and to say that 

Secretary Christopher and Secretary Bentsen will also be here to 

answer your questions in a few moments. 

	     

	     I'd like to read a brief statement, and then I'll 

take questions.

	     

	     This G-7 meeting opened in an atmosphere of much 

greater optimism than the meeting we held last year.  Last year 

the G-7 had a record of meeting but not accomplishing very much, 

and the meeting occurred against the background of a global 

economic slowdown -- recession in the United States, Europe and 

in Japan.

	     

	     We made a commitment last year to pursue a 

coordinated strategy of global growth, to try to get an agreement 

on the GATT, and to begin to help Russia in a constructive and 

cooperative way.  We have done all those things, and most 

importantly, our growth strategy has worked.  In the United 

States, the jobs are up, growth is up, Europe and Canada are 

beginning to recover, Japan has committed itself to policies that 

will enable it to contribute to the global economic recovery.  We 

have much to build on, and there was a real sense of confidence 

at this year's meetings.

	     

	     Before the summit began, I outlined four principal 

goals on which progress was made, in fact, at this meeting.  

First I said we would continue our focus on growth and to be more 

specific about what we would do in a cooperative way.  It is 

significant that the leading industrial nations gathered here 

today jointly pledged that we would actually ratify the GATT 

agreement this year, and that the new World Trade Organization 

would be up and running by January 1st.  

	     

	     Immediate enactment of the GATT agreement would be a 

vital shot in the arm for the world economy.  It means more 

trade, more jobs, higher incomes for all our countries.  Indeed, 

we have set aside any new trade efforts to focus on this 

paramount goal.  The Congress, I hope, will take note of the 

world community's unanimity on this issue, and will ratify the 

GATT in the United States this year.

	     

	     I am particularly pleased that for the first time 

the G-7 committed to work cooperatively on the issues of lifetime 

learning, job training and skills that are so central to what we 

are trying to accomplish in the United States.

	     

	     Before we held the Detroit Jobs Conference, a lot of 

our colleagues were actually reluctant to engage in the kind of 

conversation that dominated the dinner table last night, and to 

begin to work together on what we can do to prepare our people 

for the 21st century.  

	     

	     Second, we're taking steps to build a new 

infrastructure for the information economy.  The G-7 nations will 

convene a conference on telecommunications issues to lay plans 

for a global information superhighway.  I'll be asking Commerce 

Secretary Ron Brown to head our delegation.

	     

	     Third, we are deepening our commitment to the 

economies and transition from communism to free markets.  In 

particular, we agreed that the international community, led by 

the IMF and the World Bank, will provide more than $4 billion in 

financial assistance to Ukraine as that nation carries out a 

fundamental economic reform program.

	     

	     And we pledged a total of $300 million, actually a 

little more, to pay for the initial stages of shutting down and 

cleaning up the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, and to enhance 

reactor safety there.  If this plan is successful, that facility 

will be closed forever.  

	     

	     Fourth, we continued our commitment to the 

environment and to sustainable development.  This is an important 

issue not only in the developing world, but also among the G-7 

nations themselves -- important not only as an opportunity and an 

obligation to clean up the environment, but also as a source of 

new jobs for our people.  We're putting our words to the test by 

agreeing to report back next year on our respective successes in 

living up to the Clean Air agreements and the treaties we have 

signed.

	     

	     Last year in Tokyo, at the first G-7 summit I 

attended, I became convinced that these meetings would be more 

effective in the long-term if they were less formal and more open 

to genuine discussion.  To a greater degree than has been the 

case in the past, the leaders in Naples had the opportunity to 

take a long-term look at the issues we face together, to focus on 

tomorrow's opportunities as well as today's problems.

	     

	     Starting last night, we had an excellent discussion 

about this moment of historic, economic, political and social 

change.  As an old world gives way to the new, it is up to the 

leading economic powers to renew and to revitalize our common 

efforts and the institutions through which we make them, 

including the G-7, so that the world economy works for the people 

we represent.

	     

	     To that end, the communique commits us to focus on 

two questions in Halifax next year.  First, we will ask how we 

can assure that the global economy of the 21st century provides 

the jobs, the growth, and the expanded trade necessary for us to 

continue to provide a high quality of life for our people.

	     

	     Second, we will ask what framework of institutions 

will be required to meet these challenges, and how we can adapt 

existing institutions and build new ones to ensure the prosperity 

of our people.




	     Finally, just let me say, I was struck by the degree 

to which the vision and the goals of the United States are shared 

by our partners.  We all recognize that jobs and wages at home 

must be paramount; that we are tied to each other in fundamental 

ways in our ability to achieve our national goals; that our 

nations will only thrive if we have an environment of open and 

continually expanding trade; and that for advanced nations, 

especially, the skills, the education and the training of our 

workers is the key to our future prosperity.




	     Now, in addition to that, there was a new emphasis 

this year on the idea that long-term prosperity requires us to 

lead the world in developing a concept of sustainable 

development.  That will help not only the economies in transition 

from communism to free markets, but also the developing nations 

with their problems of population, environmental destruction, 

violence and other problems.




	     This kind of comprehensive approach and the extent 

to which we have agreed across our national lines, it seems to 

me, give us a real chance to keep going now after two summits in 

which there were specific forward-looking achievements into the 

future, to make sure that the G-7 is always a place where we're 

pushing forward, not just looking backward or talking about 

things that happened in a reactive way.  

	     

	     So we have some good aims for next year and beyond; 

we had a good summit this year.  And most importantly, the world 

is well underway to a significant economic recovery.  And I think 

we all understand that we have to continue to work together if 

we're going to keep that recovery going.




	     Q	  Mr. President, do you know anything about Kim 

Il Sung's son?  And do you think you can continue to do business 

with North Korea in view of the developments?  Have you learned 

anything today that might enhance your knowledge of this?




	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I can tell you what we've 

learned today.  We have learned today that, apparently, the North 

Koreans desire to continue on with the summit with South Korea; 

and that, while they did ask that we suspend our talks with them, 

they asked that our representatives stay in Geneva.  And we 

agreed to do that.  So we believe that they will stay with their 

policy and stay with their course; that this reflects the 

feelings of the leadership in North Korea, and not simply the 

feelings of Kim Il Sung.

	     

	     Now, I'm only telling you what I know today, and all 

I know today is that they said they wanted us to suspend the 

talks -- we understood that -- but they asked that we remain in 

Geneva.  And they communiqued to the South Koreans that they wish 

the summit to go forward.  So I think that is a piece of good 

news.  And that is the only news I have about it.

	     

	     Q	  And Kim Il Sung's son?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  I don't know how to answer that.  I 

know some things, obviously, about him.  But I haven't met him. 

And one of the things that we're trying to do in North Korea, 

that I've tried to do from the beginning is to open the prospect 

of a continuing and a personal dialogue.  I don't think we want 

to be isolated from each other.  And as I said, the preliminary 

indications in what must be a very difficult time for them and a 

sad time have been encouraging.

	     

	     Q	  You say the North Koreans have suggested 

they're ready to start this dialogue with the South Koreans and 

have this summit.  Does that mean North Korea would be 

represented at the summit by Kim Jung Il, the son, the heir    

apparent?  And following up on that, if you -- do you think it 

would be appropriate at this moment for you to reach out and to 

meet with Kim Jung Il and start some sort of new relationship 

between the United States and North Korea?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  First, let me reiterate:  I can only 

tell you what I know.  It is our understanding that the North 

Koreans have communicated their desire to continue with the 

summit, and they did ask our people to remain in Geneva.  I do 

not know anything else, and I do not think I can really say 

anything else today.  But I think you have to view those two 

signs as hopeful.

	     

	     The biggest problem we've had in the past, I think, 

is that the sense of isolation and misunderstanding which can 

develop.  So I am hoping that we'll be able to continue to talk, 

but I know only what I said.  I can't comment on anything else 

yet. 

	     

	     Q	  Mr. President, as a gesture of this new 

openness and willingness to work, are you going to offer to send 

an official U.S. delegation to the funeral, and have you got any 

idea of what that -- who would be in such a delegation?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  It is my understanding that they 

want to have a funeral that has no foreign visitors, and that is 

a personal thing for North Koreans only; that is our 

understanding.

	     

	     Q	  Would you send a delegation if one were 

welcome?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  If they were inviting foreign 

dignitaries to the funeral or receiving them I would certainly 

send someone there.

	     

	     Q	  Mr. President, the German official said that 

this was discussed by the leaders this morning.  Can you share 

with us what some of your colleagues at the G-7 felt about the 

nonproliferation issue and how this might affect it, and what 

steps U.S. summit leaders might be taking to make sure that you 

remain on track on nuclear nonproliferation?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  We didn't really discuss it in that 

level of detail.  What they wanted to know from me was what 

happens now.  So I can only tell them what I've already told you.  

And one or two said that what I have reported to you was 

consistent with what they understood to be the facts.  And that's 

about all we could say at this time.  We don't have any more 

information; when I have some more I'll be glad to give it to 

you.

	     

	     Q	  You made a decision already, sir, today -- your 

military made a decision, which we were told was approved by you, 

not to increase our state of alert.

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  We did do that; absolutely, we did.

	     

	     Q	  Can you tell us what our situation is in South 

Korea where we have 38,000 men?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  General Luck, General Shalikashvili 

and the Secretary of Defense all recommended, based on General 

Luck's personal on-site observations, that we continue as usual 

in Korea, and that there was no evident, alarming change in 

development, and that we should, therefore, proceed as we 

ordinarily would on any other day.  And that was a decision made 

that I approved, based on General Luck's recommendation and the 

strong recommendation of General Shalikashvili and the Secretary 

of Defense.

	     

	     Q	  Mr. President, last year you had what everybody 

seemed to think was a pretty successful summit in Japan.  This 

year, you've had to abandon your trade proposal, and your 

comments yesterday about the dollar caused great fluctuation or 

drop in the currency markets.  How do you judge this summit as 

compared to that summit in terms of your personal --

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  I feel good about it for two or 

three reasons that I might -- that are very important to me over 

the long run, especially.  One is the leading statement in this 

summit is a reaffirmation of what we did at the Detroit Jobs 

Conference, and a commitment that is without precedent among the 

industrial nations that we will work collaboratively on these 

people-oriented issues -- the investment in our work force.  

	     

	     We had an amazing conversation last night that I've 

never heard among world leaders before where the leaders of these 

various countries were trying to analyze whether there was a 

traceable relationship in their unemployment rate to their 

investment policies, and what the differences were.  This is 

unprecedented -- countries are not used to doing this.  

	     

	     Now, in the United States, American governors do 

this all the time; that's what they do when they meet.  But among 

the nations of the world, this sort of thing had never happened 

before.  And I wanted to make sure that we have good, strong 

language about that.  I felt good about it.




	     The second thing that I felt very strongly about was 

that we ought to be as forthcoming and explicit as possible in 

our discussion of Ukraine.  After what happened in Russia last 

year, I don't think there is any question that the strong, 

explicit and forthcoming statement by the G-7 leaders, and the 

subsequent endeavors to make those commitments real in Russia, 

helped to keep reform moving and made a contribution to what you 

see now in Russia, which is even though the economy is still 

troubled, you see inflation down, you see a deficit that is  

smaller as a percentage of their income than many European 

countries had, you see over half the people working in the 

private sector.  

	     

	     So I felt very good about that, because there were 

some here who thought we should not be so explicit about what we 

were going to do for fear that we might not be able to do it if a 

reform program did not take place.  Well, everybody understands 

that.  We can't just throw money at a problem, we have to have a 

reform program.




	     The third thing that happened here -- actually 

happened here -- but that I think is very important, and that is 

commitment to discuss in Halifax what we want the world to look 

like 20 years from now, and what kinds of institutional changes 

we're going to have to make to get it there.  And let me explain 

why this is important if I might, just very briefly, because I 

did not -- I came here with this in my mind, but I had no earthly 

idea that we could reach even a limited agreement among 

ourselves.  And it turned out all them were worried about it, 

too.  




	     But let me try to just quickly distill the 

significance of that.  That's the commitment to what we're going 

to discuss in Halifax about the institutions.  All of you from 

home at least have heard me say a dozen times that at the end of 

World War I, America made the wrong choice.  After the war, we 

became isolated, we withdrew; other countries withdrew; the 

Depression came, we wound up with World War II.  At the end of 

World War II, we made the right choice -- we got together, we 

created all these institutions.  At the end of the Cold War, 

everybody has made the right choice in general.  I mean, you can 

see that in what we've done with NAFTA, with China, with you name 

it, trying to reach out and work together .

	     

	     But there are a relatively small number of new 

institutions.  The European Union, basically it came into effect

finally in 1992; it's essentially a post-Cold War institution, 

and it's reaching out to the East.  The World Trade Organization 

is a new institution.  The Partnership for Peace is a new 

alliance tied to NATO.  Otherwise, we are still working with the 

institutions that we settled on at the end of World War II.  

	     

	     Are they adequate for the problems we face today and 

tomorrow?  And if not, how do we need to change them?  This is a 

very practical thing.  You see it here when we -- you see the 

first example of it here when tomorrow Russia comes here as our 

partner in a G-8 for political purposes.  But that's just one 

example of a whole slew of questions that have to be asked and 

answered if we're going to get from where we are to where we want 

to be 20 years from now.  So I would say all those things make a 

lot of sense to me. 

	     

	     In terms of the trade issue, every member of the G-7 

except one affirmatively said they agreed with my trade proposal.  

One country said that this could complicate -- if we raise 

another trade issue now, that approval of GATT in his country was 

not a foregone conclusion, and approval of GATT in one or two 

other European countries was not a foregone conclusion; and we 

shouldn't do anything that would impair the near certainty that 

we can drive through GATT approval in all the major countries 

this year.  I clearly agree with that.  That has got to be our 

number one goal.

	     

	     So I still felt very good about this G-7 summit.

	     

	     Q	  Mr. President, a year ago, we began the 

framework talks with Japan.  It's a year later, four Japanese 

governments later; nothing's happened on that track at all.  

	     

	     On another track, we've twice threatened trade 

sanctions, once on textiles with China -- we got immediate 

results -- once on cellular phone with Japan -- we got immediate 

results.  Is there a lesson there?  Is it time for us to start 

acting on our interests and not waiting for Japan to finally get 

a government that can deal with us in a serious way?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think the answer to your 

question is, yes, we should begin acting in our interest on 

specific issues, but we should also continue to pursue the 

framework talks, because they embrace large structural issues 

which will enable us to have a more normal trading relationship 

with Japan.  And I think, in fairness to our people and to 

theirs, it is difficult to face those very tough structural 

issues with the kind of political changes that have occurred 

there.

	     

	     If I might, though, we have had a lot of progress in 

Japan.  You mentioned the cellular phone issue.  We've also had a 

contracting issue, a public contracting issue.  We're also 

selling rice in Japan for the first time -- the people, the rice 

farmers in Northern California think that there's a new day in 

relationships with Japan.  

	     

	     So we're making some headway here, and I think now 

if what we heard from the new Japanese Prime Minister and his 

team was an indication that they're going to pursue an aggressive 

growth strategy, so they'll be able to buy more of their own 

products and other products, and they are determined to stay in 

this thing for the long run and they want to reengage, then I 

think we may be able to make some progress on the framework 

talks.  

	     

	     But I agree that we also have to pursue specific 

issues.

	     

	     MS. MYERS:  Last question.

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  I'll take two.  And I'll take one 

from you, but let him go first.

	     

	     Q	  We now have a country with a secession problem, 

a secession question and a military where we're not really sure 

who controls it, and maybe who controls nuclear weapons.  

Recently, your administration has made statements like it's more 

important that they not develop further nuclear weapons and maybe 

not as important that we deal with their current nuclear 

capability if they have one.

	     

	     You've said you're committed to a nuclear-free 

Peninsula, but can you tell the American people what your state 

of knowledge is about what nuclear weapons the North Koreans 

might have and how committed you are, what steps you will take, 

besides going to negotiations of trying to make certain that any 

nuclear weapons are eliminated?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think it only -- let me just 

go back to what I said -- I think it only stands to reason that 

we would all be more concerned about the prospect of any country 

producing large numbers of nuclear weapons in the future which 

might be transferred to other countries.  That's just a practical 

statement of fact.  

	     

	     However, North Korea is a member of the NPT, and has 

made commitments to a non-nuclear Peninsula, and because of its 

membership there and because of its commitments, we still care 

very much about what's happened since 1989.  And what we hoped to 

do is to resolve both these questions in these talks.  And we 

think we can safely proceed with these talks with absolutely no 

down side to our allies in South Korea, to our friends in Japan, 

to the Chinese, to the Russians, to any others in the 

neighborhood, and to ourselves, as long as North Korea maintains 

it commitment to freeze the important elements of its nuclear 

program -- the reprocessing and the refueling.

	     

	     And so we are proceeding ahead on both fronts, as I 

think it should.

	     

	     Q	     nuclear weapons -- 

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  We are engaging in the talks.  One 

of the issues in the talks is what's happened to the fuel since 

1989.  That's the subject of the talks, and part of the request 

for the inspections.  What has been reported in the press, 

varying opinions of intelligence agencies, represents their best 

judgment, their -- I don't want to use the word "guess," but 

there are differences of opinion based on best judgment.  No one 

knows that for sure.  That's what the talks are for, in part.

	     

	     Q	  Mr. President, could you explain to us your 

reluctance to clearly condemn Islamic terrorism in Algeria, and 

is it a part of the global strategy vis-a-vis the Arab world?

	     

	     THE PRESIDENT:  First of all, I don't think we've 

been reluctant at all to condemn Islamic terrorism in Algeria or 

anyplace else.  We deplore it and we condemn it.  

	     

	     What we have sought to do in Algeria is to support a 

process which would enable the government to successfully govern, 

and to limit terrorism while recognizing any other legitimate 

concerns of opposition in the country.  That is our position.  We 

do not condone terrorism, we condemn it, and we will continue to 

do so.  

	     

	     Thank you very much.




                               END6:50 P.M. (L)