23 July 2001

U.S. Is Exploring Ways to Strengthen Biological Weapons Convention

The United States fully supports the Biological Weapons Convention and "we will continue to discuss ... how it can be strengthened to effectively respond to the biological weapons threat," says State Department Deputy Spokesman Phil Reeker.

He said there is "broad agreement" among different U.S. government agencies that have been meeting on the issue of the Biological Weapons Protocol "that more work needs to be done to examine measures to strengthen" the convention.

Following is an excerpt from the July 23 State Department briefing that deals with the issue of the Biological Weapons Convention:

(begin excerpt)

Q: New topic. What is the U.S. view on the work of the ad hoc group in Geneva on the Biological Weapons Convention?

Mr. Reeker: Biological Weapons Convention. I think, as we have mentioned to some of you in the last few days, different agencies in the U.S. Government have been meeting on the issue of the Biological Weapons Convention protocol and there is broad agreement that more work needs to be done to examine measures to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention in a way that effectively responds to the biological weapons threat. We have said this publicly, we have said this privately to our allies.

I do think it is worth noting that the United States has an unparalleled record for supporting multilateral nonproliferation objectives and efforts, and we fully support the Biological Weapons Convention, which has banned all biological weapons since it was created in 1972. We are a party to that convention, fully support it. We also support, of course, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention. At this point, I just don't have anything to add. I know that the next scheduled round of negotiations on the protocol are scheduled to begin I believe today in Geneva. I just don't have any details to go beyond that at this point. But we will keep looking at that during the week.

Q: So what is your comment on reports that Ambassador Mahley was dispatched to Geneva to inform the allies that the U.S. was in fact -- found the draft protocol unacceptable and was going to reject it?

Mr. Reeker: We have read those comments. We have read those reports. And at this point, I don't have anything to add, beyond what I said, that we have made clear quite publicly, as well as privately, that more work needs to be done to look at measures to strengthen the Bio-Weapons Convention, and we support the convention. We are a party to it and support it strongly, and we need to continue working on ways to effectively respond to the Bio-Weapons threat.

So at this point I just don't have anything to add to that.

Q: What do you say to those who say that this is another example of increasingly frequent incidences of the U.S. walking away from multilateral efforts to strengthen in this case the Biological Weapons Convention, and in other cases, other international --

Mr. Reeker: I would say we haven't walked away from anything. We continue to be seriously engaged in a variety of multinational fora. When we have disagreements, when we don't feel that processes are meeting the goals they have set out to, we are quite clear in voicing our concerns and discussing what is important to the United States and what we feel is important in meeting the goals of these discussions.

And so we will continue to have these discussions. We will continue to discuss, obviously, the Bio-Weapons Convention and how it can be strengthened to effectively respond to the biological weapons threat that is out there. As I said, and I will say it once again, we are a party to the Biological Weapons Convention from 1972. We think it is very important. We strongly support that convention.

But as we have said for some time now, more work needs to be done on steps taken to strengthen that, to respond to the threats that are out there. And right now, at an interagency level in the U.S. Government, we are continuing to look at that through a variety of meetings. And I just don't have any particular results or steps to announce today.

(end excerpt)