THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
July 6, 2009
[RUSSIA] PRESS BRIEFING BY DENIS McDONOUGH,DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, GARY SAMORE, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND WHITE HOUSE COORDINATOR FOR WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, AND MIKE McFAUL, SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR RUSSIAN AND EURASIAN AFFAIRS
Kempinski Hotel
Moscow, Russia
9:17 P.M. (Local)
MR. HAMMER: Good evening, everyone. We have today with us Denis McDonough, the Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications; and Gary Samore, who is the Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction at the White House; and Mike McFaul, Senior Director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Security Council. So we'll just pretty much turn it to your questions, if you gentlemen could join us up here.
MR. McDONOUGH: Mike, thanks a lot. We're ready to just fire away.
MR HAMMER: Go ahead, Jake.
MR. McDONOUGH: Jake.
Q President Medvedev said that, in response to the missile defense question, that one of the reasons why he felt better about talking to President Obama -- or suggested that one of the reasons why he felt better about talking to President Obama than his predecessor was because there is now linkage, when it comes to offensive and defensive weapons, even if not the national missile defense. And I'm wondering if you could shed some light on what he meant by that.
MR. SAMORE: As the President said -- and I think this was different than last administration's position, he understands why Russia has concerns and sensitivities about missile defense. And as he said, he understands the theoretical linkage between offense and defense.
But the important point the President made is that our missile defense system is designed to deal with a threat, Iran and North Korea, which is in no way comparable to the Russian nuclear and missile capabilities, and therefore we think we can convince the Russians that it's possible to proceed with an arms control agreement that reduces warheads and launchers under the current circumstances, even as we continue to move ahead with our missile defense system.
Q If I could just briefly follow up, yesterday you described the missile defense system that the administration is proposing as "very modest," and President Obama obviously had a great deal more to say about the robust and impressive Russian arsenal. And I'm wondering if you could shed some light on what you exactly mean by "very modest."
MR. SAMORE: Well, when I said modest, I mean it's designed to defeat a threat like that that North Korea or Iran could pose to us, which would be a very limited number of nuclear warheads with a limited number of missiles, and missiles that don't have the same kind of high technology and penetration aids which the Russians are capable of mounting.
In contrast, the Russians, even after this new START treaty, the Russians will still have -- and you saw the ranges today -- they'll still have hundreds of launchers and hundreds of warheads. So our system is not capable of significantly defeating or impacting Russia's nuclear forces, and we think we can demonstrate to the Russians that our current program and our planned program does not impede, doesn't stand in the way of a new arms control agreement.
Q I guess I should have been more specific. I understand the theoretical argument. I just mean when you say "very modest," how many missiles are you saying this very modest missile defense would be able to shoot down, as opposed to the Russian arsenal of hundreds if not thousands?
MR. SAMORE: Well, you know what our current system is, in terms of interceptors that are stationed in Alaska and California. We're conducting a review, as you know, of how to best position and deploy missile defense in Europe. The current system is being looked at from a standpoint of military effectiveness to see whether that is the most effective way to defend the U.S. and Europe against the Iranian threat, which has developed over time. I mean, I think one of the important and one of the most significant things that developed today was a Russian acknowledgment that we need to study the growing ballistic missile threat, as President Medvedev said. And that joint assessment is going to be focused on Iran and North Korea as the two countries which pose the most direct threat to the U.S. and its allies and to Russia, as well.
So I think we've made very important progress, in terms of coming to a common agreement with the Russians that there is a growing missile threat and that U.S.-Russia cooperation to deal with that threat is potentially something both countries would like to move forward with.
MR. McFAUL: Gary, let me just add something if I may.
MR. SAMORE: Sure.
MR. McFAUL: Could I just add a couple things, if I may? First, the Presidents both did say at a theoretical level there is a relationship between offensive and defensive weapons. But let's be very clear, we are not discussing limitations on missile defense in the post-START negotiations. We explicitly said we're not doing that in April when we released the negotiations' instructions, and that's crystal clear. It is not the assignment of the negotiators now to talk about how to limit missile defense capabilities. I think there's some confusion about that. First -- that's the first thing.
Second, I was in on all the meetings today. I was in on the small one-on-one meeting with the two Presidents and the larger meeting. I would report to you that the vast majority of the time one-on-one, which I hear went long -- it didn't seem long in the time because they were doing real discussions -- but were about missile defense and Iran. And we did not have a joint statement on missile defense when we landed this morning, and we did not have an agreement to do a joint threat assessment when we landed this morning. That was stuff that we did in real time today. And in particular, the joint statement before, about talking about missile defense, the Russians had always insisted upon that some reference to abandoning the third site be in that document. It is not in that document, as you saw it was released. That was a very important change that they made.
And I want to be clear about the general thrust of what we're doing, just to reiterate something that Gary said. The President said this to Mr. Medvedev very bluntly -- and elaborately, not just bluntly, but elaborate -- he elaborated on it in the meeting.
We are conducting a review of all of our missile defense capabilities and configurations, and we're not done with that, as the President reported. What he also said is we are trying to enhance missile defense capabilities in Europe. Whether that includes Poland or the Czech Republic or not, that's a question for the review. We're not prejudging that. But the goal is to increase our capability, because as Gary rightly said, the threat from Iran is increasing. So as that threat increases, we have to increase our capability. And the proposition that the President laid on the table, our President, that I think Mr. Medvedev was quite interested in, President Medvedev, is we can do this in a way that enhances the security of the United States, Russia, and our European allies. And that is the way that I read the joint statement that we released. That is now the kind of instructions going forward.
Q The President, in his interview with Novaya Gazeta, said that "my sincere hope is that Russia will be a partner in that project," meaning ballistic missile defense. "If we combine our assets on missile defense, U.S., Russia, and our allies will be more safe than if we go it alone." To what degree specifically today did they talk about any joint collaboration on missile defense, or are we there yet?
MR. McFAUL: So, to back up a little bit, if you remember the joint statement on April 1 in London, we had it in that document that we would cooperate, and we have our first run at cooperation in that give-and-take in that meeting.
We, then -- we, the Obama administration -- took our assignment from the President very seriously. We flew over several delegations, including the head of the missile defense agency, who was here not long ago, with very concrete proposals of how to cooperate, starting from what we've now reannounced today, JDEC, the Joint Data Exchange Center, which is an exchange of information about missile launches, all the way up to much more elaborate kinds of collaboration in terms of their assets and our assets.
I would say we're just in the beginning of that conversation. It would be wrong to say that we have an agreement about what we're going to use, but today, again, the two Presidents spent a good deal of time talking about what are the real threats, not the illusionary ones -- you saw the President said that today -- not some illusionary thing from the Cold War called Russia or the Soviet Union -- that's not a real threat and we're not focused on it -- but real threats from real places where Russia has assets that could be useful for us in terms of enhancing our security.
So what we released today I would say is a recommitment to look at those assets and configurations in which we might be able to work together.
MR. McDONOUGH: Major, can I just add to that, what Mike said? There's obviously some progression, as well, from the G8 foreign ministers statement last week in Trieste, wherein eight foreign ministers, to include, obviously, Foreign Minister Lavrov, underscored their concern about the developing threat from Iran, and you had today, very clearly stated, a joint commitment to conduct a joint assessment of the Iranian ballistic missile threat.
Q And on that, Denis --
MR. McDONOUGH: Go ahead, Major.
Q Yesterday, just real quickly, yesterday, Medvedev said in an interview that he didn't think Iran posed a threat in the context of ballistic missile defense. Are you saying that today's joint statement is his own reassessment of that and essentially a replication of what he said as recently as yesterday?
MR. McDONOUGH: I haven't seen the interview, Major, but I did hear what the President said today at the news conference, and you were there, as well.
Chuck.
Q I wanted to follow up on Iran. Did you get any new assurances that Russia would stop selling these S-300, these anti-missiles? Did you get into -- I mean, did they (inaudible)? Was that part of the discussions that took place?
MR. McDONOUGH: I don't have any for you on that.
Jonathan.
Q On Georgia, the President said that he brought up Georgia on his own. Do you have any more elaboration on what exactly the President said, and what kind of assurances he got for barring future military operations in Georgia?
MR. McFAUL: We had a long discussion on Georgia, as we always do with the Russians. The President made it very clear that the idea of a "sphere of influence" is something that belongs in the 19th century, not the 21st century. He laid down a marker, we're never going to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.
But then he took it further than that. That's the easy part. And, you know, Medvedev agreed to disagree. The President then went further and said, let's -- we both have an interest in no more violence in the South Caucasus, and to lean into that and to think about ways that both of us could use our different diplomatic relations with people in the region to make sure there's no more violence again. And on that we had agreement.
Q Can you give us some idea of what kind of assurance Medvedev gave on that? Did he say, "We will not invade Georgia"?
MR. McFAUL: He would never say that because he never believed he ever did that, so I would just say we agreed to disagree about the principle of sovereignty. The President was very clear about that, and he'll be very clear about that in remarks tomorrow, so stay tuned, and that we both agreed that reducing the violence was something that was in Russian and American interests.
Q Denis, since you cut me off really -- I mean, can you at least discuss why -- what was discussed about Iran? You said a lot of discussion about Iran. Obviously President Medvedev made it clear he didn't even want to say the word "Iran." It was something that President Obama had to keep saying. So was everything --
MR. McDONOUGH: Yes, fair enough.
Q Was everything discussed Russia's tight relationship with Iran or no?
MR. McDONOUGH: You know, I think it is fair to say that Iran was discussed. I think as we talked to you all last week in the run-up to this summit, we told you that Iran would be front and center. We believe that it was in the discussions. We believe that it was in the fact that there is an agreement for a joint threat assessment. That is both what the President said in his statement today as well as what's reflected in the statement that was released and worked on this morning.
I think that, as you just inferred yourself, you were not left wondering for too long what President Medvedev was speaking about when he talked about the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
So those are several of the issues that they discussed, and several of the issues that they'll continue to discuss that was laid out in the G8 foreign ministers statement, that's laid out in the joint threat assessment that they'll continue to work as we go forward.
Q Do you feel like you have transparency in that relationship, that you guys have an understanding of exactly what this Russian-Iran relationship is, that Russia is being forthcoming with you in all of their different --
MR. McDONOUGH: I think the President has been struck by the candor with which President Medvedev has underscored his concern about the growing threat from Iran.
MR. McFAUL: Can I just add something on this? I want to be clear: We came here to advance America's national security interests and our prosperity. There was only one dimension -- there's been a lot of talk about the joint understanding, and we're happy about that, because we have one and it's a great achievement. And Gary will give you details. But I want to underscore, that was one of several big important things that we talked about. Iran, in the one-on-one meeting, was the majority of the conversation -- was the majority, and there's a reason for that, because that is something that affects our real national security interests and the interests of our allies.
And I would just echo two things that Denis said. One is, go back and read the joint statement from the foreign ministers. And two, I don't think it's appropriate to read out what President Medvedev said; ask him. But just remember, if they wanted to have an adversarial relationship with us with Iran right now, there are all kinds of things they could do very easily that would make our situation a lot worse there, and they're not doing those things.
Q Thanks, guys. Two quick ones. On the reductions of the nuclear arsenals, can you clarify the time frame attached, seven years, and is that binding? Can you explain that?
MR. SAMORE: Yes, the agreement between us and the Russians is that the treaty would be enforced for 10 years, and for the first seven years would be when the reductions would take place, because obviously it takes some time to achieve those kinds of reductions. So you have seven years during which reductions of warheads and launchers would take place, and then the treaty would remain in force for three more years at those current levels.
Now, as the President said in the press conference, he believes we should begin negotiating an additional arms control agreement once this new START agreement is finished. So if we're able to make progress, we would replace this treaty, even during that 10-year period. But in terms of the treaty itself, what we've agreed with the Russians is a 10-year duration, seven years of build down.
Q Can I also -- quick one for Mike. Before the trip I asked in a briefing about whether there would be some specific numbers on reductions -- 1,500 -- and you said it's way too early to talk about 1,500 or a different number. Obviously that specificity was in the agreement today. Can you talk about what happened?
Q Can you repeat the question? We cannot hear very well.
MR. SAMORE: I'm not sure I can.
MR. McDONOUGH: The question was, what happened from last week when, in a pre-trip briefing we did not get into the specific numbers, and this morning -- or this afternoon, when the numbers were obviously agreed to.
MR. McFAUL: I would say a couple things. One is, I want to remind you how quickly we're trying to do this treaty. Gary can give you the details, but I think START was a 700-page treaty, Gary?
MR. SAMORE: Took nine years.
MR. McFAUL: Took nine years to complete the negotiations. We issued the negotiations' instructions April 1, and I think the delegations did not meet formally until just a few weeks ago.
So you're the judge of where we've come from where we're at, but the reason we didn't know what the numbers were was because we have been in intensive negotiations, joined by the President last week in a telephone call to President Medvedev, where he was getting directly engaged at the highest levels talking about this agreement.
Lots of other things happened, of course, and then they talked about it again in terms of where we go between now and December, which is not very far away. I want to remind you, we got a lot of work to do to get a treaty. But I do want to emphasize, we have, literally in a matter of weeks, we have got a framework for where we might be able to have a new treaty to replace what was -- is going to expire on December 5.
So a lot of work was done in just the last several days, literally, including engaging the President of the United States in this process.
Q When would you say that was locked in? Was that even today?
MR. SAMORE: Well, the two negotiators had done a good job of narrowing differences, and as usual in these kinds of negotiations there are many different ideas that are tried, proposals that are tried. As Mike said, the President's personal engagement, in my view, was what really closed this deal, and without that I don't know whether we could have announced numbers.
Now, when we came here we had a pretty solid basis on which we -- where we thought we were going to end up. The President discussed with President Medvedev some ideas for how to move forward, for how to narrow the gap on numbers, for how to deal with some of the other issues that are in play and that are listed, if you look at that joint statement. So as I say, we came -- the President came here with a pretty good basis on which to seal the deal, but I think getting to where we are now really required his personal involvement, and he discussed with President Medvedev some very good ideas for moving forward and for giving the negotiators, I think, some momentum.
MR. HAMMER: Peter, I think you had one --
Q Mike, during the meetings, did they -- the President obviously brought up, I'm sure, democracy. Did they have any conversation that went beyond the obvious talking points on issues of civil liberties or so forth? Did they talk about Novaya Gazeta?
MR. McFAUL: Did they talk about what?
Q Did the issues that he talked about with Novaya Gazeta, did they come up in any -- anything beyond the talking points? Did Khodorkovsky's name come up? Did Politkovskaya come up? Did Klebnikov's name come up?
MR. McFAUL: In my view, yes, they went well beyond just ticking the talking points. And I want to be very clear about this in a lot of dimensions, and then I'll get to the specifics. The President has spoken about democracy in his two major speeches already on foreign policy. He'll speak about it again tomorrow at the New Economic School and he'll speak about it again in Accra. It's an issue he cares about. It's an issue that he's not afraid to come and talk very deliberately about why he cares about it and why it's important, again, to the United States. It's not about us preaching to other countries; it's about why this advances our national interests. And in this speech tomorrow, I don't want to get too much more into it, but you're going to hear that very, very precisely, first thing.
Second, he can talk to whoever he wants, or he can choose to not talk to any reporters. Maybe you've had that experience before. He made a deliberate decision to do the interview with Novaya Gazeta, and he didn't choose the questions, obviously, but you saw the way he answered them. No punches were pulled. Mr. Khodorkovsky was mentioned in a very deliberate way, and he gave a very deliberate solution for what one should do about these kinds of things.
Q Novaya Gazeta or today?
MR. McFAUL: Novaya Gazeta, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Novaya Gazeta. No, no, in the Novaya Gazeta, the question was about Khodorkovsky, and he didn't say, well, you know -- there's a different way you could answer that question, and you know the way he answered it.
Tomorrow -- I'm getting there, hold on -- tomorrow, he's meeting -- he's giving a speech where this is included. He's giving -- showing up at a civil society event where the entire range of civil society will be there, giving remarks there, and then he's meeting with all the opposition here in Russia.
Today, in the conversation it came up, and to me the interesting part about what the President was saying was a couple of things. One is, he spoke very deliberately about stability of property rights, why investors need to know what the rules of the -- he didn't use "rules of the game"; that's what political scientists use -- he used something much clearer: We need to have stability in order for people to make investments. And when they don't know what's going to happen with that, that causes people to pull back. That was the first lean-in. Was Khodorkovsky's name mentioned specifically? No, but it was very clear what was going on.
And then second, this was a different dynamic. It was not him waving his finger saying, you should do this, you should do that, you should do that. There was none of that. Rather, it was affirming President Medvedev's agenda. President Medvedev has been very clear about what he thinks about corruption, and what Obama did today was affirm that this is something we applaud you for pursuing, and in particular, how you pursue corruption, independent press, independent judicial courts, and the freedom to allow for opposition -- in other words, the institutions of democracy. So I don't think he could have been any clearer.
Q Mike, in that affirmation of President Medvedev's agenda, is he trying in some subtle way or not subtle way to prop up Mr. Medvedev's --
MR. McFAUL: No. No. I know where -- no, he's affirming what he believes to be true and what he thinks is an agenda that serves Russian and American interests.
Q Medvedev didn't use -- was he speaking with the President without a translator?
MR. McFAUL: No, there was a translator at the meeting.
Q And can you tell us total how much time they spent together?
MR. McFAUL: Denis, do you know? I mean, I was there -- it was a long time.
MR. McDONOUGH: Yes, I think between three and four hours total -- that was before the press conference and then the dinner tonight.
Q Does Medvedev speak some English, because they were talking --
Q Whispering back and forth.
MR. McFAUL: Yes, he does. He does.
Q How good is his English?
MR. McDONOUGH: Excellent. (Laughter.)
Q A question at the press conference, the President made a point of calling Medvedev his counterpart. Would he disagree with the conventional wisdom in Russia and I think elsewhere that at least in this country, regardless of who owns the title, Putin has the power?
MR. McDONOUGH: You know, Jeff, I think the President gave a lengthy answer on what he believes about that and I don't think we could add anything to it.
Margaret.
Q Just going back to missile defense for a minute, the two statements are separate, but is the door still open to the Russians saying down the pipe during the START negotiations, well, wait a minute, we're not actually signing on for this till we get something on missile defense? Or have -- did the Russians agree to split these two things?
MR. SAMORE: Well, we're not prepared the hold the new START agreement hostage to limitations on U.S. missile defense. So if the Russians take the position of making some constraint or agreement on missile defense a condition for the new START treaty, then we won't be able to reach agreement on a new START treaty.
Now, I happen to think the Russians have a very strong interest, as we do, in completing a new START treaty. So I think at the end of the day, because our missile defense does not actually pose a threat to Russia's strategic forces, I think they'll be prepared to go ahead without trying to extract any price on missile defense.
MR. McFAUL: And I want to add, I think we made a lot of progress on that today. I think the fact that we have two statements, they spent a lot of time discussing it -- that card, if they were going to play it, you know, we saw it -- we've seen it shown before. And I just -- I get a sense that we're really on track now to finish this thing irrespective of what happens with the negotiations about missile defense.
MR. HAMMER: Okay, we have time for about a couple more questions. My Italian friend.
Q Just on -- back on missile defense. You know, the Russians have been saying that, A, this system could be easily transformed into an offensive system; and number two, that how would the U.S. feel if Russia installed some kind of equipment either in Cuba or in Mexico or nearby the border of the U.S.?
MR. SAMORE: Well, as I said earlier, our system is not capable of posing a threat to Russia's strategic forces. The current architecture that we're reviewing has 10 interceptors based in Poland. Even if we were capable of turning those into offensive systems, 10 missiles against, as the President said, Russia's mighty arsenal is not a significant threat. So I think, again, on the merits, I think we can make a good case technically that the kind of system we're looking at does not pose a threat to Russia's strategic capability.
In terms of Russians setting up missile defense, I think we're not really in the Cold War period where we're worried about the Russian activities in Latin America. I mean, we don't see ourselves locked in a struggle with Russia for influence around the world. We think, in fact, there are many more areas where we can cooperate, such as dealing as -- I think that both -- I was really struck in the meetings that the Presidents had. They both emphasized almost point for point the importance of dealing with the threat of nuclear proliferation and taking measures to strengthen the non-proliferation regime. It's almost as though they could have swapped talking points and used each other's points.
So I think there's much more of an area for cooperation in dealing with threats like Iran and North Korea, and as President Medvedev said, dealing with the threat of proliferation in the Middle East and Asia, trying to make sure that additional countries in those regions don't seek nuclear weapons.
Q And where do you see points of contacts, looking forward, where the two positions come together?
MR. McFAUL: We just released, I think, eight or nine joint statements where we're cooperating, and I'm a little bit --
Q For our missile defense.
MR. McFAUL: But then I'm a little bit nervous that all we're talking about here is missile defense. This is not the Cold War. This is not just a relationship about competition, confrontation, and the things we disagree about.
And I think if that -- in my view, what we did on Afghanistan today was historical. This has never happened before, folks. We're talking about 4,500 flights of American soldiers and equipment going through what used to be our enemy, and they're paying for it.
Now, this is something that's very concrete. This is a real war we're fighting. This discussion makes me feel a little bit like some of us want to fight. But it's not a real war. It's not real. The threat that we pose to Russia from our missile defense systems is not real. The President could not have been clearer about that.
And the eight or nine things that we did agree upon, and the multidimensional relationship that we're trying to put together in a very short period of time, is what we really talked about; not this part where we have so much contention.
Q Can you clarify what you said about they're paying for it, on Afghanistan?
MR. McFAUL: They're paying -- as part of their contribution to the war effort in Afghanistan, they are paying for all the flights that go through their country. And they have to pay for it. It's not -- the Russian government. They have to pay for navigation fees. There's -- I don't remember the number. I think we calculate that we save ourselves $133 million. That's a rough estimate. But they are paying for these flights; we are not. And that was a very major point of contention between us.
Q Paying whom? I don't understand?
Q Can you explain that?
Q Are they our planes?
MR. McFAUL: Yes.
Q They're paying for our planes --
MR. McFAUL: If a commercial flight flies to Russia, that plane pays a navigation fee to commercial folks here in Russia. And the Russian government is paying for those fees. We are not.
Q The navigation --
Q Paying the navigation --
MR. McFAUL: Navigation fees, yes, yes, yes. And it's a policy we've had for a long time now. We don't pay for these for military aircraft, and therefore Russia has resisted us ever doing this until this agreement.
Q Gary, can you clarify the ranges that were discussed today? Are these like the operative ranges that you think will be in the agreement? Are you trying to get to a fixed number? And finally, the President gave a number of up to a third of the warheads could be dismantled. What's the minimum number of warheads that could be dismantled under this -- what was outlined today?
MR. SAMORE: Yes, if you look at the ranges that were presented today, that captures the current status of the negotiations. Now, obviously, we would like to see that range narrowed, and if possible reach agreement on a common number.
Now, I think in the area of warheads, as you can see, the range is much less, and therefore it seems to me it's more likely that we'll be able to reach agreement on a single number.
The range for launchers is much further apart for reasons that I discussed the other day, because of the different configuration of forces and the question of how you count systems that are no longer used for nuclear delivery. So in that area, obviously it's going to be more difficult to reach agreement on a single point, and it may be necessary to have a range.
So the final sort of percentage in terms of reductions from where we are now under treaty limits will be determined by those final numbers or final ranges. And it could be more than a third. I mean, it just -- when the President was talking about a third, he meant the numbers as they currently exist, but we could very well end up with numbers that are reductions more than a third.
Q So what's the minimum that it could be under the ranges agreed to today?
MR. SAMORE: Well, I mean, it won't -- you'll have to do the math exactly, but I think it's -- I think it's about 30 percent.
MR. HAMMER: Well, one last question all the way in the back, yes.
Q I wanted to follow up on a point that Michael McFaul made about stability.
MR. HAMMER: I don't think we can hear you.
Q I wanted to follow up on a point that Michael McFaul made about investment. I'm from Bloomberg Television. What exactly was discussed in terms of business on the financial economic business front? I mean, we heard you say that the President discussed the importance of property rights. We heard the President talk about $1.3 billion of livestock being allowed into Russia. What else was discussed, and what can we expect tomorrow morning?
MR. McFAUL: Denis just corrected me. He did not use -- it was a more precise word; it was "consistency," in terms of what the government provides, that provides the stable environment for investors. So that was the precise word that he used.
And it was just a very matter-of-fact conversation about this is what one needs in order to rise investment levels, and both the Presidents agreed -- we have a lot of investments and we're going to hear more about them at the parallel business summit tomorrow, so I won't jump on their story tomorrow. But both of them agreed it could be a lot higher if they dealt with these kinds of issues.
Q What exactly did they discuss, in terms of other business, financial, economic issues today other than just that?
MR. McFAUL: We had a long discussion about WTO, and the President -- President Obama expressed his "surprise," I think, was the word he used, about the recent announcement, because we were working very hard at that as one of the other things that was outlined in April -- the April 1 statement. It said we're supposed to work to get this deal done. So that's -- those were our marching orders. And then suddenly this thing happened, and we were taken back by it, and Mr. Medvedev -- President Medvedev gave his explanation.
We spent time on beef. To answer your question, we talked about real things for real money for the American people. And we were delighted that the Russian government has lifted the ban on pork products from four states. The President joked about that the first one on the list was Illinois, by the way, probably not coincidentally, and he pressed him hard for -- it would be, let's do this right and lift them for all, because we don't accept the science that goes behind why they're banning them. But moreover he went into all of the restrictions on our meat exports, which as you heard the President say, this is real money about real things for the American economy. They had a pretty robust conversation about it.
Q What was President Medvedev's explanation for why they're not interested in joining the WTO at the moment?
MR. McDONOUGH: I think you can get that from President Medvedev --
MR. McFAUL: Exactly, yes. He needs to explain that.
MR. HAMMER: Yes, go ahead.
Q President Medvedev said that there was a discussion about the problem of the Middle East and said that he was hoping to host a summit -- is it something concrete, real? What do you think about it, and if Russia could play a serious role outside the frame of the Quartet, according to you?
MR. McDONOUGH: Yes, they did have a long discussion about the Middle East, and the President underscored his appreciation for Russia as a member of the Quartet, and obviously they've discussed the Quartet principles and the role that the Quartet can play in the ongoing effort that Senator Mitchell is undertaking, and that -- the Mitchell meeting just today in London with Defense Minister Barak, for example.
But as it relates to the Moscow conference, I think that the President -- Obama, that is -- indicated that we obviously are looking for additional opportunities for such efforts, but that he wants this to be at the right time so that it was used to maximum effect.
Let's go one more.
MR. HAMMER: One more, last one.
Q Question for Mike. Could you please elaborate a little bit more on Karabakh talks? Is there a prospective of a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, where Russia stands on that, because there was a lot of work there also? What's going on there?
MR. McFAUL: I think it would be wrong to report on the negotiations, but let me just say that the issue was discussed at length today and there was a lot of agreement in the room in terms of what both sides are trying to do in terms of the agreement. They got into some details I don't think would be proper to talk here about because it's an ongoing negotiation, as you know, but the issue was front and center.
And while I'm here, let me just make -- I want to make sure -- I may have misspoke or I may -- I don't want to contradict something I said five days ago. On missile defense, we are enhancing missile defense in Europe. We are not abandoning the third site. I want to make sure we're crystal clear on that. How we enhance it, what is the configuration -- we can't prejudge because we have the review going on.
But the goal is to do it, as the President has said many times, to enhance it, make sure it's affordable and it works and it deals with the real threat, which is Iran. And that is the language I think we all got to get used to, and that was most certainly the language that President Obama used in his discussions with President Medvedev today.
MR. McDONOUGH: Thanks a lot, guys.
MR. HAMMER: All right, thank you very much. Have a good night.
END 9:57 P.M. (Local).
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