Bill Clinton: “Mr. Chernomyrdin said that President Yeltsin was in good health, but that he had a sore throat--something I can identify…”

“Mr. Chernomyrdin said that President Yeltsin was in good health, but that he had a sore throat--something I can identify with right before an election--and that he had determined that he ought to take the day off from any kind of public speaking or public appearances. But he said he'd talked to him yesterday and he was doing fine. I'm not sure that this communique would have had more in it about Russia even if President Yeltsin had been here, because we basically talked about the subjects of the meeting here, and we tried to have a more limited communique that didn't just go all over every issue. I want to emphasize that in these G-8 political meetings we consider Russia to be an integral partner here in all our deliberations. The Russians are cosponsors with the United States in the Middle East peace process. The Russians are our partners in IFOR. So we value Russian participation for issues that have nothing to do with Russia. Yes? Bosnia”