04 October 2001

Rice Sees New Impetus to U.S.-Russia Relations

Washington -- The United States and Russia may be well on their way to a relationship fundamentally different from that of even the last several years, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the annual meeting of the U.S.-Russia Business Council October 4 in Washington.

Referring to the relationship as "evolving," she said there is a chance "for a new strategic relationship with Russia, one that is more appropriate to our relationship with Russia than to our relationship with the Soviet Union, and we'll continue to work it."

The September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States have given the U.S.-Russia relationship "new impetus," Rice said, adding that the phone call Russian President Vladimir Putin made to President Bush in the aftermath of the attacks with its message of 'we understand, we're standing down, we want to help' was "really a kind of crystallizing moment for the end of the Cold War."

She said she expects new impetus will be given to the search for other areas of common security policy, including how to deal with the emerging threat of ballistic missile technology and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But "perhaps most importantly," she said, "we want to see this relationship broaden beyond the security and strategic relationship to one that looks at those things that we can do together to make better the lives of our people, to make us more prosperous, to open Russia to the world and the world to Russia in economic terms."

Rice said she believes Russia is serious about improving its investment climate, developing its people, and creating a free society, and she invited her audience to imagine a Russia fully integrated into Europe, an engine of economic growth for the world. "I think it is possible," she said.

The national security adviser also discussed the broad coalition now being built to combat global terrorism and the long campaign "that will be fought on many fronts" with countries bringing different contributions to the effort.

"While many will continue to focus on what can we do militarily," she said, "it may well be that some of the most important things that we will do is to share information, share intelligence, to cut off financial networks for terrorists, and these are things that we expect to cooperate on broadly with the Russians."

At the same time, there will be no attempt "soft-pedal difficult issues," Rice said.

"I can tell you that when President Putin and President Bush are in the same room, ... they go right at difficult issues, and they agree to disagree if necessary and to work on it in the future. And there are several. There is no doubt that we've been concerned about Russian proliferation in Iran, for instance. Now, it's our view that this is not good for Russia and not good for the United States and not good for the region. We expect to continue to push the issues having to do with proliferation."

Russia's policies in Chechnya have also been a matter of concern, although Rice cited Putin's recent remark that Chechnya has its own history as "very important."

The United States recognizes that international terrorism has to be rooted out wherever it is. "We cannot tolerate the al Qaeda in Chechnya but not tolerate it in Afghanistan," she said.

"But that does not mean that we have changed the view that there has to be a political solution to Chechnya and that human rights have to be observed in Chechnya and that minority rights have to be observed. So we will continue to talk about that."