Grigory Yavlinsky: The main purpose of the visit of the President of the United States to Moscow was to discuss issues related to the anti-missile defence system. I think that these talks should be continued with President Clinton until the elections in the US, and then with the new President of the United States. I think that Russia has an opportunity to formulate a clear and comprehensible position here. This position can be summed up as follows. We are ready to recognise that the United States has the right to develop a tactical anti-missile system that would protect the USA from terrorist attacks. But the United States and NATO must also recognise that Russia, as well as Europe in general, also needs such a system. Secondly, such a system for Europe can be created only with Russia-s participation. Russia must insist, provide reasons and develop the direction which I would call the creation of a Russian-European anti-missile defence system, based on Russian high technologies. Corresponding negotiations have been conducted for over 18 months already. I discussed this with the former President of Russia and with Vladimir Putin, as well as at the Security Council. I also had an opportunity to discuss this with the leading politicians of the United States. I think that this direction is the most reasonable and could resolve a whole range of security issues for Russia, contribute to the development of the Russian military-industrial complex and create real pre-requisites for the development of deep, effective security systems between Russia and Europe, which would be very useful for Russia. There are also some reasons that were provided by Vladimir Putin, which were also mentioned in President Clinton-s speech to the Duma today, which demonstrate that the negotiations may be aimed at creating a Russian-European anti-missile defence system.

Question: Is there any interest in this in Europe?

Grigory Yavlinsky: Europe is obviously interested. All the meetings and contacts confirm that, even though Russia-s proposal was somewhat unexpected for Europe and taking into account that today Russia is having a rough ride in its international policy, this is such an important and essentially right idea that it might be supported by Europe. The problem is that such negotiations are difficult to conduct with the United States, as the United States was initially interested in creating their own system, including their system in Europe. They were even ready to create such a system for Russia. But we are interested in the creation of a real Russian-European anti-missile defence system based on our technologies. In particular, everyone acknowledges and recognises that the Russian designs C-300 and C-400 have better specifications and quality than the American "Patriot". This means that one can achieve more using Russian military technologies, than present American technologies. Therefore, there is such an interest in Europe.

Question: Grigory Alexeevich, how do you assess today-s speech by President Clinton to the Duma? Was it a farewell for Russia from a President, whose term comes to the end, or did President Clinton offer specific proposals and should this meeting be analysed more seriously?

Grigory Yavlinsky: Basically the nature of discrepancies in foreign policy issues between the republicans and the democrats in the United States is determined more by the election campaign than by actual content. Consequently, in terms of basic principled positions, the ideas worded today by the American President will be meaningful to the next administration in the USA. Even if this is a republican administration.