Bill Clinton: “Good morning. As all of you know, this historic summit meeting of the North Atlantic Council was my first NATO meeting.…”

“Good morning. As all of you know, this historic summit meeting of the North Atlantic Council was my first NATO meeting. I'm glad we were able to accomplish as much as we did here. I'm convinced that history will record this meeting as a major step in building a new security for the transatlantic community. I'm very pleased that our NATO allies approved our proposal for the Partnership For Peace. I believe it will help our alliance to meet Europe's new challenges, and I'm pleased by the response the Partnership has already generated from nations who have contacted us and said they are interested in being a part of it. Ultimately, the Partnership will lead to the enlargement of NATO and help us to build a security based not on Europe's divisions but on the potential of its integration. I look forward to working with NATO leaders in the coming months to prepare for exercises with the states that join the Partnership and to work on the next steps towards NATO's enlargement. Today NATO also took dramatic steps to prepare for its new post- cold-war missions by calling for the creation of combined joint task forces. These task forces will make NATO's military structures more flexible and will prepare the alliance for nontraditional missions. They will also help us to put the Partnership For Peace into action by serving as the vehicle for Eastern militaries to operate with NATO forces, something that General Joulwan will begin to prepare for immediately. I'm pleased that during this summit NATO began to address the threat posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The agreement that the United States will sign with Ukraine and Russia this Friday will also make a major contribution to reducing that threat. With the end of the cold war, we no longer face the threat of confrontation between nuclear powers, but we do face continuing conflicts, including the reality of the murderous conflict in Bosnia. At this meeting we discussed candidly and at some length NATO's policy towards Bosnia. We reaffirmed our commitment to respond to the strangulation of Sarajevo and to help to implement an enforceable peace agreement if one is reached by all the parties. I want to discuss this with some precision, if I might. The United States last evening in our discussions took a very strong position that we ought to reaffirm our air warning, that is, the possibility of the use of air power to relieve the strangulation or in retaliation for the strangulation of Sarajevo, but that the language ought to be left in our policy if, and only if, we were prepared to follow through. And I made it clear that for our part, we were prepared to follow through, and therefore, we supported leaving the language in. But along with the Secretary General, I urged our allies not to leave it in unless we were prepared to follow through, on the theory that we should not say things that we do not intend to do. In addition to that, I supported the United Kingdom and France and their call for plans to ensure that we can complete the bloc rotation of troops to Srebrenica, so that that can take place, the exchange of the Canadians for the Dutch forces, and to explore how Tuzla airstrip might be opened. Now, either of these activities could require the use of NATO, including United States air power. We also have a continuing commitment to and the opportunity to use air power to protect the United Nations troops there if that is needed for close air support. Now, these are the actions which have been taken. In other words, we have reaffirmed our position of last August, which is an important thing to have done in light of the recent shelling of Sarajevo. We have instructed our military command to come up with plans to see what can be done to ensure the rotation of the troops in Srebrenica and the opening of the Tuzla airstrip. And those plans, as has been said by the Secretary General, can include the use of air power. Let me just mention one or two other things. While the WEU and other European international bodies would play an important role in meeting the security challenges in Europe in the coming years, I still believe that NATO remains the linchpin of our mutual security. And so, as we finish this summit, I want to say a special word of thanks to Secretary General Woerner for his remarkable leadership. I have had the opportunity now to meet and work with many leaders around the world. He is a genuine statesman. He understands what is at stake here. He has a vision of the future, and he leads this alliance with great vision and discipline. And I thank him for that. I also want to thank the other NATO leaders for their hospitality and especially the Prime Minister of Belgium and the people of Belgium and Brussels for their hospitality to us. I believe this was a very successful meeting. They had accomplished everything that I hoped, and I think as the years go by we will be glad that it occurred. Bosnia”