03 December 2001

Powell Says U.S. Will Not Violate ABM Treaty

U.S. missile defense tests "will ultimately go beyond the constraints" of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty," but the United States is "not going to violate" the Treaty, says Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The secretary was responding to reporters' questions en route to Bucharest December 3, where he was scheduled to speak at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Ministerial December 4.

In his upcoming meetings with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Powell said he expects to discuss strategic framework issues, including missile defense.

The United States is "very reluctant," he said, to get into "an arrangement" with Russia in which each missile defense test has to be discussed. "We know the tests will ultimately go beyond the constraints of the ABM Treaty," he said. However, "we're not going to violate the ABM Treaty. America does not violate its treaties," the secretary added.

Following is the excerpt from the briefing dealing with missile defense:

U.S. Department of State (Bucharest, Romania)
December 3, 2001

Secretary of State Colin Powell
Press Briefing on Board Plane En Route Bucharest

Question: Can you explain to us, since Crawford, it's been very difficult to understand how ABM is stuck?

Secretary: Who said it was stuck? Are you saying it's stuck?

Q: There's no agreement, so it must be stuck. No bulldozers going to Fairbanks, ABM tests are coming up.

Secretary: I'm sure I will have discussions with Foreign Minister Ivanov tomorrow, and again on Friday, and then again on Monday, with Foreign Minister Ivanov and President Putin, on all of the issues on our strategic framework agenda, strategic offensive weapons, how we (inaudible) not lose as we move forward the verification and transcurrency provisions of Start I and Start II, I'm sure we'll continue our discussions on missile defense. (inaudible) There is a clock ticking, as we've said all along, that in due course (inaudible) constraints of treaty, they know that, we know that, and we are in conversations with them.

Q: I just want to clarify, does President Putin want the U.S. to come on every testing regime we want to do on ABM and lay it out for them and lay out for them and then have a discussion? And, are we reacting to that as some kind of veto and are we looking at that as too much influence and something we don't want to get into. And is it their concern that we do it that way so that one of these test bans doesn't become a system as soon as the test is done?

Secretary: We are very reluctant to get into an arrangement where every time there is a test we have to have a discussion about the test. We know the tests will ultimately go beyond the constraints of the ABM Treaty..that's what testing is all about.. And if you are going to go forward and create a missile defense, that in and of itself is going to violate the ABM Treaty, the tests in due course will violate the ABM Treaty. It's a given. We're not going to violate the ABM Treaty. America does not violate its treaties. (inaudible)