Washington, 17 January 1997 (RFE/RL) - The White House says U.S. President Bill Clinton yesterday met with his foreign policy advisors to discuss a number of major issues, including NATO and U.S. relations with Russia.
Spokesman Michael McCurry says Clinton met for more than an hour with retiring Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili and Secretary of State-designate Madeleine Albright.
McCurry said Clinton and his team discussed the future of a united, integrated Europe and Russia's relationship to it, which he said is one of the key foreign policy areas that Clinton will be working on in his coming term, which starts Monday.
The spokesman said they reviewed NATO expansion and the effort to create a Russia-NATO charter on the eve of what he said is very important discussion between NATO Secretary General Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
McCurry said they also discussed a variety of other issues that will be on the agenda of the scheduled meeting between U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.