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Remarks of the President of the Republic at Dinner Hosted by Credit Suisse, January 13, 1998
13.01.1998

Mr. Hennessy,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening. Thank you for inviting my colleagues and me to launch our US visit here in the company of Credit Suisse and its friends. We are sorry to have missed Mr. Richard Holbrooke, but are glad for the opportunity that Mr. Hennessy and Credit Suisse has provided.

As you surely know, the primary purpose of our visit to the United States this time is to sign, along with President Clinton, an historic document known as the U.S. - Baltic Charter of Partnership.

The Charter recognizes the Baltic states' role in the American strategy to guarantee security and stability on the European continent and spells out, in black-and-white, that the United States has, and I quote, a ''real, profound and enduring interest,'' (end of quote), in the security and sovereignty of the Baltic states.

The bottom line is that this Charter advances the same agenda begun when the US led NATO to an historic decision to expand the Alliance eastward.

At first glance, this document may strike some as another empty political declaration engineered by the foreign policy spin doctors in Washington to give substance to the so-called post-Cold War architecture in Europe.

I can assure you, however, that this document, over a year in the making, has real meaning for us, and for the United States as well. I would also bet my dinner on the fact that certain other countries are paying rather close attention to this Charter, as well.

You might ask why? At a time when the Cold War seems but a hazy recollection, a faraway place in our collective memory, it makes sense to ask why the United States taking such pains over concluding a political charter with the Baltic states?

The short answer is that both the American government and the American people have long understood that for much of this century, the Baltic countries have been a kind of litmus test about the direction in which Europe was moving.

Within a few weeks, the US Senate will begin pondering full NATO membership for Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, a development applauded by the Baltic states. At the same time, the future accession for the Baltic states to the Alliance is a question that looms on the horizon.

To some, the suggestion that the Baltic states could ever become full members of NATO is tantamount to ''thinking about the unthinkable.'' But let us consider Poland. For some time now, the inclusion of Poland into NATO has been taken for granted. Had any one of you sitting here this evening told me in 1989 that in eight years, Poland, then still a member of the then still existent Warsaw Pact, would be invited to join NATO, I would not have believed it possible.

I would also not have believed in 1991, when we had just re-instated our independence and broken free from the Soviet Union, that by 1998, the Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal Index of Economic Freedom would rate Estonia as one of the world's freest economies. This prestigious index rated Estonia as 17th out of 156 countries, ahead of the Czech Republic, Denmark and Germany.

So you see, ''thinking the unthinkable'' is something to which my part of the world has got accustomed. We've come a long way, fast, but we have a ways to go.

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the crux of my message to the United States Government during our visit this week: it is finally time to turn our backs to the Cold War and look to the future.

Thank you very much.

 

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