TALBOTT SPEECH IN HELSINKI JANUARY 21 ON THE NEW EUROPE

[USIA]

USIS Washington File

21 January 1998

TEXT: TALBOTT SPEECH IN HELSINKI JANUARY 21 ON THE NEW EUROPE

(Speech to the Paasikivi Society) (5180)

Helsinki -- "The premise of U.S. policy could not be simpler. It is
this: the safety and well-being of the American people depend in no
small measure on the peace and prosperity of Europe," Deputy Secretary
of State Strobe Talbott told the Paasikivi Society January 21.

President Clinton, Talbott said, "sees it as not just an opportunity
but as an obligation to make sure that the United States does
everything in its power to help build a Europe that is whole and free
and at peace for the first time in its history."

Talbott was in Helsinki for a brief visit, and met with Finnish
leaders, including President Martti Ahtisaari, Prime Minister Paavo
Lipponen, and Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen. He was introduced by the
chairman of the Paasikivi Society, Harri Holkeri, former Prime
Minister, and a member of the Mitchell Commission on Northern Ireland.

Citing peacekeeping efforts in Bosnia and Macedonia, Talbott noted
that "The success erstwhile enemies have had working together in the
Balkans illustrates a fundamental principle that must continue to
guide the construction of a new Europe; only through ongoing,
day-to-day, practical cooperation can we establish the reservoir of
trust necessary to dissolve the antagonisms and suspicions of the
past."

The end of the Cold War, he said, "gives us an opportunity to heal old
divisions; we must be sure not to create new ones." He stressed the
importance of an open door to key institutions such as the European
Union and NATO. "Hence the U.S.'s strong belief in the broadening as
well as the deepening of the EU. And hence, more specifically, our
advocacy of Turkey's desire for eventual membership in the EU."

The United States, he said, "will continue to urge that Europe define
itself as inclusively, as expansively, as comprehensively as
possible."

Talbott praised the work of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council -- which
just met in Lulea, Sweden -- but added that sub-regional initiatives
"do not, in our view, constitute an alternative to pan-European, or
trans-Atlantic organizations." America supports sub-regional
integration "within the context of our support for overarching
regional, trans-regional, and global integration."

He described the United States' Northeast Europe Initiative, which
encourages integration among Nordic and Baltic nations, but does so
"in a way that strengthens the region's ties with the European Union,
with key nearby countries like Germany and Poland, and with North
America as well."

The Initiative aims to reinforce U.S. ties with the region, help new
democracies become ready for membership in European institutions, and
increase "cooperation with, and the integration of, Russia," Talbott
said.

If Russia does not "build strong ties based on mutual respect and
mutual benefit with this region," he said, "it will be much harder for
Russia to find its place within the new Europe. Moreover, it will be
much harder for Europe as a whole to realize the potential that has
come with the end of the Cold War."

The United States and Europe should involve Russia "to the greatest
extent possible in the commercial, political, environmental, and other
forms of collaboration we are developing among the states along the
littoral of the Baltic Sea," Talbott said.

Today Europeans and Americans have for the first time "the incentive,
the political will, and the practical means to bring about, around the
core of Europe, a community of nations -- and, more to the point, a
community of civic and political values -- that extends west beyond
the Atlantic, east beyond the Urals, southeast beyond the Bosporus,
and northeast beyond the North Cape," he said.

Talbott made similar comments in a speech at the Nobel Institute in
Oslo January 19.

Following is the text of his Helsinki speech:

(Note: In the following text, "trillion" equals 1,000,000 million.)

(Begin text)

OPENING DOORS AND BUILDING BRIDGES IN THE NEW EUROPE

An Address by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott
The Paasikivi Society

Helsinki, Finland
January 21, 1998

As delivered

Thank you, Mr. Holkeri, for that kind introduction. Thank you also for
the energy and dedication you have brought to the search for peace in
Northern Ireland. You were good enough a few minutes ago to convey
greetings from Senator George Mitchell, and I know that he feels very
fortunate to have a colleague and partner like yourself in leading
that very important international effort.

I also want to thank you for your leadership of the Paasikivi Society
here in Helsinki. I'm moved to recall that the last time I encountered
this remarkable organization up close, I was on the other side of the
podium -- as a reporter covering President Ronald Reagan when he
addressed the Society in the spring of 1988 (my work, by the way, was
easier then than today). I'm also moved to recall that my good friend,
Ambassador Iloniemi, was also on the opposite side of the podium from
where he sits today, that is, he was on the dais. It's good to see you
again, Jaakko, thanks very much for being with us.

In that decade since I was last at a Paasikivi Society event, I've had
several opportunities to return to Helsinki, and I'm delighted to be
back. I think of this city not just as the capital of Finland but also
as a capital of international diplomacy. Helsinki, of course, was the
first home of the Strategic Arms Limitation talks in 1959; it was the
venue, and the namesake, of the CSCE Final Act in 1975; and, just last
year, it was the site of a crucial meeting between Presidents Clinton
and Yeltsin.

The success of that Summit was in no small measure a credit to its
host, Martti Ahtisaari, whom we in the U.S. admire not just for his
leadership of this country, but also for his service to humanity as a
whole. American foreign policy is the better for President Ahtisaari's
steadfast partnership with the United States, his wise counsel, and
the high standard of statesmanship he has set in his remarkable
career.

If I could add a very personal note: My brother-in-law Derek Shearer
and his wife Ruth, along with their children, will always be grateful
for the way this country opened its heart to them during the three
years that they represented the U.S. here. I talked to Derek
half-an-hour ago by cell phone -- I don't need to tell you the brand
-- and he asked me to convey his best regards from Santa Monica,
California (where the temperature today, by the way, is twenty-seven
degrees Celsius.) It says something about the hold that Helsinki has
on the Shearer family that my nephew Anthony and my niece Julie still
live and work here. The ties that bind our family to Finland will soon
be even tighter, since Julie just got engaged this month to a Finn,
Peter Hellama. (Peter: see me afterward for advice on how to be a
Shearer in-law).

A number of you have told me that Derek did an outstanding job here.
I'm not surprised -- first because I know Derek, and second because he
was following in the footsteps of Jim Goodby and Roz Ridgway, keeping
alive a tradition of fine American ambassadors to this country. I'm
confident that tradition will continue.

Finland has reciprocated by sending first-rate ambassadors to
Washington: Jaakko Iloniemi being one, and Jaakko Laajava being
another. Your current Ambassador to the United States and his wife,
Riita, live just around the corner from my family in Washington, and
they have been kind enough to make their sauna and their supply of
Finlandia available to their neighbors.

There's somebody else that I'm going to take particular pleasure in
embarrassing this evening. I'd like to single out my friend and
colleague, Jukka Valtasaari. He and Etel and their daughter Natalia
helped Derek and Ruth take care of my family when we visited Finland
for a wonderful week in August of 1995.

In fact, it's actually relevant to my topic this afternoon for me to
recount how I first met Jaakko. It was in 1989. I was then making my
living writing a foreign-affairs column for TIME magazine. One week,
in a rumination on European security during the Cold War, I was
foolish enough to use in print -- in a family magazine, no less -- the
F-word. I am referring, of course, to the invidious term
"Finlandization."

As soon as the column appeared, I got a phone call from the Finnish
ambassador inviting me out to lunch. Over an excellent meal at a
French restaurant near the White House, he took me to task, ever so
politely and ever so persuasively. He gave me a short course in modern
Finnish history. Jukka's point was that even as Finland understandably
and wisely sought to preserve peaceful relations with the Soviet Union
throughout the Cold War, Finland also managed to maintain its freedom
and independence as well as a vibrant parliamentary democracy and a
healthy market economy, and it continued to foster Nordic -- and
European -- integration.

As a result of that first encounter with Jukka, I cleaned up my
language -- and my thinking. I also made a new friend; I learned a
lesson in the skills of diplomacy that has come in handy since, and I
received a bracing dose of what President Ahtisaari, in his eloquent
New Year's message to the Finnish people, called your country's
"healthy national self-esteem." That self-esteem, which you come by
honestly, is, of course, rooted not just in your history but also in
your distinctive perspective on, and your distinctive role in, the
European security order.

I would like to speak to you this afternoon about my own country's
perspective and role. First I will address U.S. strategy toward Europe
as a whole, then our strategy toward the Nordic and Baltic region.

The premise of U.S. policy could not be simpler. It is this: the
safety and well-being of the American people depend in no small
measure on the peace and prosperity of Europe. We have learned that
basic truth the hard way. Twice in the lifetime of our more senior
citizens, Europe exploded into world wars that cost the lives of over
half a million Americans. The Cold War also began on this continent,
and it cost the United States the equivalent of over 13 trillion
dollars. Moreover, in the crises over Berlin and Cuba, it brought us
all near the brink of nuclear holocaust.

Bill Clinton came into office acutely aware that he was the first
American President to be elected after the end of the Cold War. Hence,
he sees it as not just an opportunity but as an obligation to make
sure that the United States does everything in its power to help build
a Europe that is whole and free and at peace for the first time in its
history.

That is the goal. The means, as we see it, are largely institutional
-- or, as is often said, architectural. We are building a structure in
which we, and our children, and our grandchildren will make our homes.
The foundation of that structure is a shared commitment to democratic
governance, to civil society, to sustainable development through the
dynamism of the free market, to the rule of law and human rights, to
the principles of mutual respect, and to the peaceful settlement of
disputes.

The task of constructing a new Europe requires us to adapt existing
structures where possible, and build new ones where necessary. They
include mature institutions, now entering dignified middle age, such
as the Council of Europe and the OECD, which have been around for
decades. Others, like the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, were born
only last year.

The United States belongs to some of these organizations; it is an
observer in others. With respect to others still, the United States is
an interested well-wisher. The size, the scope, the job descriptions,
and the membership lists of these institutions are different, but
their missions and their compositions are often overlapping. In some
key respects, they are mutually reinforcing. Together, they make up
the superstructure of the new Europe.

Let me zero in on a key component of European architecture -- the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which, in a very
real sense, came of age here in Helsinki twenty-three years ago.

The OSCE is not only the most inclusive of our Euro-Atlantic
institutions -- it is also the premier mechanism for the prevention of
conflicts before they occur, for the management and amelioration of
conflicts when they occur, and for reconciliation after they occur.

The OSCE has been deeply involved in Bosnia and elsewhere in the
former Yugoslavia, where Finnish and American forces are serving
alongside soldiers from thirty-seven other nations. Finland has also
provided a major portion of the Nordic Battalion that is helping to
ensure that the conflict does not reignite in Macedonia.

The success erstwhile enemies have had working together in the Balkans
illustrates a fundamental principle that must continue to guide the
construction of a new Europe; only through ongoing, day-to-day,
practical cooperation can we establish the reservoir of trust
necessary to dissolve the antagonisms and suspicions of the past.

It follows that we must, in our approach to virtually all the
structures of the new Europe, put a premium on inclusiveness. Or, to
restate the same principle in the negative, we must take care not,
inadvertently or otherwise, to practice exclusion or discrimination.
The end of the Cold War gives us an opportunity to heal old divisions;
we must be sure not to create new ones.

Let me amplify this point with regard to two key institutions -- the
European Union and NATO.

First, on the EU...

Finland's entry into the Union three years ago was not just an
historic step for you -- it was an important, path-breaking step for
the EU itself because it encouraged all the nations of this region to
believe that there is a place for them in the major pan-European
institutions.

But the point I want to stress here is that it was Finland's own
decision to join the EU, and the door of the Union was open to your
citizens when they chose to walk through. That open door is perhaps
the single most important feature of European -- and trans-Atlantic --
architecture.

Hence the U.S.'s strong belief in the broadening as well as the
deepening of the EU. And hence, more specifically, our advocacy of
Turkey's desire for eventual membership in the EU. I realize how
controversial this issue is, particularly among some of your
neighbors. That makes it all the more important that all our European
partners understand the American view.

Over the centuries, Europe at its best -- and its most peaceful and
most prosperous -- has defined itself in terms of universal values,
not in terms of artificial barriers: a river here, a mountain range
there, a concrete-and-barbed-wire wall somewhere else.

Turkey has been a part of the European system for over 400 years.
True, most of Turkey is separated from the rest of Europe by a bit of
water. But then so is all of the United Kingdom.

The current debate over the nature -- and limits -- of Turkey's
"European vocation" resonates with references to "culture" and
"civilization." These words are often euphemisms for religion. There
is a theory currently in vogue that the Cold War rivalry between
communism and capitalism has given way to a global "clash of
civilizations," including one between the Judeo-Christian world and
the Islamic one.

That idea gives short shrift both to the great diversity inside these
supposedly separate civilizations and also to what they have in common
between them. It underestimates the ethnic and religious diversity of
the United States, Canada and, increasingly, of Europe as well.

As we've been reminded just in the past week, Turkey is still
struggling to define its identity, its orientation, and its democratic
institutions. It is still trying to strike a balance between the
secularism of the state and the predominant faith of its citizenry --
between the values of tolerance and order.

Quite simply, Turkey is more likely to make the right choices about
its own future if we make clear that we believe its future lies with
us.

For us to do otherwise would be a great mistake. If we thwart the
aspirations of any European nation that is willing to accept the
standards and responsibilities of our democratic community, or if we
define the "European-ness" of a village on the basis of whether its
landmarks are church spires or minarets, we will create for ourselves
dangers in the 21st century that will be all too reminiscent of the
follies and tragedies we experienced in the 20th.

That is why the United States will continue to urge that Europe define
itself as inclusively, as expansively, as comprehensively as possible.

NATO, we believe, can be an engine that helps drive Europe in that
direction. It is against that backdrop that NATO has opened its own
doors. We make no bones about our hope that NATO enlargement will help
induce EU enlargement.

NATO has been and will remain, at its core, a military Alliance and a
collective defense pact. But it is also a political organization, with
a useful -- and I'd even say unique -- role to play in fostering
inclusiveness and integration within the larger community whose peace
and security NATO undergirds.

In pursuit of their goal to join NATO, a number of Central European
states have already accelerated their internal reforms and improved
relations with each other. NATO enlargement will continue to have this
positive effect as the process moves forward in a way that is
open-ended and non-discriminatory.

At the Madrid Summit in July, NATO's leaders made clear that the first
three nations invited to join will not be the last. Specifically, the
Alliance agreed to review the process of enlargement again at the next
summit in 1999, and it noted the progress that Romania, Slovenia, and
the Baltic states have made toward meeting the criteria for admission.
Thus, NATO committed itself to look both South and North for qualified
members in the years to come.

Among the applicants for future rounds of enlargement will undoubtedly
be those states that applied but were not selected for inclusion in
the first tranche. In addition, future rounds may also include a
number of countries that have thus far not expressed an interest in
membership.

In this context, let me say a word about Finland and Sweden, a country
where I have spent the past two days. These are two European states
that have long traditions of maintaining independent, nonaligned
defense postures. The United States respects the course you and your
Swedish neighbors have chosen, and we will continue to do so. We are
not going to pressure any country to alter its status or posture.

At the same time, we will defend every sovereign state's right to
decide for itself how it wishes to ensure its own security. That
principle is well established, going back to the Helsinki Final Act,
and the member states of the OSCE have reiterated it on numerous
occasions since, most recently at the ministerial in Copenhagen last
month.

Sweden and Finland remain not just non-members of the Alliance but
non-applicants. They are, however, to their credit and to everyone's
benefit, actively involved in what might be called the NATO family of
institutions and enterprises. I am referring to the Euro-Atlantic
Partnership Council, the Stabilization Force in the former Yugoslavia,
and the Partnership for Peace. We particularly appreciate how Finland
has worked assiduously within the Partnership for Peace to narrow the
difference between Partners and Allies, and to develop
interoperability among all of the Partners' military establishments.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, NATO and the other institutions I have
mentioned so far in these remarks are regional in scope. Let me turn
at this point to sub-regional organizations. They, too, are crucial to
the stability of European architecture.

Yesterday, I had a chance to appreciate one of those organizations in
action. Along with your foreign minister, my friend Tarja Halonen, I
attended the Barents Euro-Arctic Council in Lulea, Sweden. That's a
place I had never been before, and a place that makes me think
Helsinki in January is positively balmy -- even Santa Monica-like. I
am still recovering, if I can be so honest, from the exhilarating
experience I had twenty-four hours ago, when my hosts in Lulea
arranged for me to travel from the conference center to the airport by
dog sled. I very much hope that the evening here in Helsinki will
include both a sauna and some Finlandia, if only to help me recover
from that experience.

But the Barents Council is a serious organization doing extremely
impressive, practical work. It is making its own contribution to
bridging the divides of the Cold War by combating tuberculosis and
other epidemic diseases, lowering and where possible removing trade
barriers, encouraging the development of small business, fighting
organized crime, and cleaning up nuclear waste.

The United States is all for innovations like the Barents Council.
That's why Secretary Albright sent me to Lulea in the dead of winter.
But that said, let me attach a caveat to our support for the Council
and other sub-regional initiatives: for all the benefits they
generate, they do not, in our view, constitute an alternative to
pan-European, or trans-Atlantic organizations. We believe we must be
vigilant against any development, deliberate or otherwise, that would
have the effect of lumping neighboring states together in a way that
consigns them to some sort of backwater of the mainstream; that
excludes them from eligibility for membership in larger bodies; or
that implies that they're on their own and must look out for each
other without our help.

That is why America's support for sub-regional integration here and
elsewhere around the world is always within the context of our support
for overarching regional, trans-regional, and global integration. As
far as we're concerned, that's a cardinal principle of structurally
sound architecture.

And it's with that principle very much in mind that the United States
has launched what we call our Northeast Europe Initiative. The goal of
the Initiative is to work through existing institutions and structures
to encourage integration among the nations of the Nordic and Baltic
region but to do so in a way that strengthens the region's ties with
the European Union, with key nearby countries like Germany and Poland,
and with North America as well.

The Initiative has three purposes: first, reinforcing the U.S.'s own
ties with the countries of this region; second, helping the new
democracies become stronger candidates for membership in European
institutions; and third, increasing cooperation with, and the
integration of, Russia.

The Baltic states are obviously key to this effort. Last week in
Washington, President Clinton and the Presidents of Estonia, Latvia,
and Lithuania signed a Charter of Partnership. It represents an
important part of the blueprint toward a new, undivided Europe. As
President Clinton told the Baltic Presidents last Friday, the Charter
formalizes America's commitment to help create the conditions that
will one day allow their countries to walk through the open doors of
Europe's expanding institutions.

In this regard, my government applauds the way Finland has played
mentor to the fledgling border guards and armed forces of the Baltic
states. I'd like to express my admiration to Prime Minister Lipponen
for the initiative he unveiled in Luxembourg to accentuate what he
called the Northern Dimension of EU. (I should add my congratulations
on his forthcoming marriage. January seems to be a big month for
engagements over here; I guess it's an additional way of keeping
warm.)

Let me turn now to the third element of our Northeast Europe
Initiative -- the Russian dimension. This aspect of our strategy is
essential. Without it, our other objectives will prove far more
difficult, perhaps impossible, to achieve. If, on the one hand, Russia
smoothly integrates with this strategically and economically vital
region, it is more likely to integrate smoothly with the rest of
Europe.

But the ominous converse is also true: if Russia fails -- or refuses
-- to build strong ties based on mutual respect and mutual benefit
with this region, it will be much harder for Russia to find its place
within the new Europe. Moreover, it will be much harder for Europe as
a whole to realize the potential that has come with the end of the
Cold War.

As your leaders have reminded me often in the past, and as Prime
Minister Lipponen made clear again today, Finland has a special part
to play in this effort. You are the only current member of the EU to
share a border with Russia. Prime Minister Lipponen's Northern
Dimension initiative capitalizes on the opportunity to make sure that
your border with Russia -- which is also the EU's border with Russia
-- unites rather than divides; that it is increasingly a seam of
cooperation rather than a fault-line of confrontation.

Returning to the lesson that Jukka Valtasaari taught me over lunch
nine years ago, you Finns have had many decades of practice in deftly
managing from a position of sovereignty and independence your
relations with a large and, to put it gently, often problematic
neighbor. The Balts have regained that opportunity only recently. So
you have a lot to teach them, and my sense after talking to their
leaders last Friday is that they know it.

We all recognize that the relationship of the Baltic states with
Russia is one of the most acute challenges we face in our common
effort to enhance peace, stability, and security throughout the
region. For their part, the Balts harbor deep anxieties and suspicions
about Russian motivations. Like Finns, they come by their feelings
honestly. As for the Russians, they harbor anxieties of their own,
especially about the prospect of the Balts' fulfilling their entirely
legitimate desire to join the European Union and NATO.

President Clinton and Secretary Albright believe, quite bluntly, that
it's in the Russians' own interest to get over this particular
hang-up. For them to regard the Baltic region as a pathway for foreign
armies or as a buffer zone is at best an anachronism, since there are
no longer any would-be aggressors to be rebuffed.

In the final analysis, Russia will have to make that psychological and
political adjustment itself, by its own lights, for its own reasons,
in keeping with its own evolving concept of its national interest.

But we and our European partners can help. We can do that by applying
the general principle of inclusiveness in every possible specific
instance. That means involving Russia to the greatest extent possible
in the commercial, political, environmental, and other forms of
collaboration we are developing among the states along the littoral of
the Baltic Sea. The Barents Council and the Council of Baltic Sea
States are models of what is required, and the U.S. will participate
as appropriate in both.

We will also try to help foster Nordic-Baltic cooperation in our own
direct dialogue with Russia. What we are saying to Moscow is basically
this: if you Russians insist on looking to the 13th century for models
applicable to the 21st, then you should dwell less on the image of
Alexander Nevsky defeating Swedish knights on the ice of the Neva
River and think instead in what might be called "Hanseatic" terms.
That is, think about the Baltics not as an invasion route inward, but
as a gateway outward.

My colleague Ron Asmus, who is here today, laid out this concept in
some detail in October at a seminar co-sponsored by the U.S. embassy
and Nordicum magazine.

Generally speaking, our Baltic friends have found the invocation of
the Hanseatic League useful and salutary because it recalls a time
when their ancestors were deeply integrated into Europe -- and at
peace with Russia.

The Hanseatic concept should also appeal to Russians -- at least to
those Russians who will, we hope, prevail in the struggle underway in
that country for the soul and the future of their nation; that is,
those Russians who believe in integration rather than in a return to
isolation.

In addition to taking encouragement from us, they can also take
sustenance from their own past, especially from the legacy of Peter
the Great, who was himself a master-architect of modern Europe. After
all, he opened for Russia a window -- and a door -- to the West nearly
three hundred years ago. In fact, St. Petersburg is an obvious
candidate for participation in a revival of the Hanseatic concept.

So too might be Novgorod, and Kaliningrad, the former Konigsberg, both
of which were associated with the original Hanseatic League. In fact,
Kaliningrad is an especially tantalizing case, at least historically.
Those of us who labor in the thickets of CFE -- the Conventional
Forces in Europe talks -- tend to think of Kaliningrad as the
headquarters of the Russian 11th Guards Army with its 850 tanks and
100 combat aircraft. But it is also one corner of what is now Russia
that experienced the Enlightenment. It's where Immanuel Kant lived,
taught, and set forth several principles of international law intended
to bind like-minded democratic republics into a community of "civil
states" that could enjoy what he called "perpetual peace."

That ideal is still just that -- an ideal, a benchmark against which
to judge a highly imperfect reality. But that reality is evolving
auspiciously; it is easier today for Europeans, and Americans, to
imagine the fulfillment of that ideal than at any time in our history.
For the first time we have the incentive, the political will, and the
practical means to bring about, around the core of Europe, a community
of nations -- and, more to the point, a community of civic and
political values -- that extends west beyond the Atlantic, east beyond
the Urals, southeast beyond the Bosporus, and northeast beyond the
North Cape.

In ways that are far more than merely geographical, Finland is on the
frontier in that great venture; indeed, in many ways, Finland is
helping to lead the way. And the United States is glad to be at your
side. Together, we have reason to be proud of what we have
accomplished in the century now drawing to a close. Even more to the
point, we have reason to be optimistic about the one that begins in 1
year, 11 months, 10 days, 6 hours, and 20 minutes.

That barely leaves us time for what I'm sure will be a lively
discussion, so we'd better get started. I look forward to your
questions and your comments.

Thank you very much.

(End text)