The declassified US minutes of the meeting between HW Bush and Yeltsin in 1992 reveal why the US does not consider Russia an “ally”.
The US National Archives Agency (NARA) on February 1 published a series of declassified minutes on a number of meetings between Russian and American officials after the dissolution of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991. At this time, the leaders Russia’s new leadership had expected Moscow and Washington to become allies.
But according to the minutes of the meeting between then US President George HW Bush and his counterpart Boris Yeltsin on February 1, 1992 at Camp David, USA, Washington rejected Moscow’s proposal to consider the two countries as “comrades”. bright”. Mr. Yeltsin was making his first state visit to the US at the time.
According to the declassified minutes, near the end of the meeting, Russian President Yeltsin asked Bush: “Are we still enemies?”
US President George W Bush (right) shakes hands with his counterpart Boris Yeltsin at the end of a press conference at Camp David, February 1, 1992. Photo: AP.
“No, we are no longer rivals,” the US president replied, adding that a statement had been prepared to bring “the two sides out of the old era” and asked the Russian leader to take a look.
After watching, Mr. Yeltsin said “there is no paragraph in the statement that the two countries are no longer rivals and are moving towards allies”.
“The statement mentioned friendly relations,” then-US Secretary of State James A. Baker interjected.
But Mr. Yeltsin expressed dissatisfaction, continuing to emphasize that the statement should clearly state that “the two countries are moving from the stage of rivals to allies”. According to him, the word gives a “new quality” to the message.
Bush explained that the US administration’s “use of this transitional language is because it does not want to act as if all the problems between the two countries have been resolved”.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin (right) and US Secretary of State James A. Baker. Photo: Sputnik.
During the meeting, President Yeltsin also said that despite the Russian government’s commitment to democratic and market reforms, the country is going through “difficult times” and needs the US “support and cooperation, not aid”. .
The Russian leader also made a number of proposals to reduce nuclear weapons and create a common global missile defense system, but were not warmly received by the US side.
Despite their differences of opinion, both leaders at the time described the meeting as “extremely positive”.
This is the first time the US has released the content of the discussion between Mr. Bush and Mr. Yeltsin. The documents related to the meeting have been kept confidential by NARA for the past 30 years.
Duc Trung (Theo NARA, RT)