Russian President Boris Yeltsin said Wednesday his country should not be penalized for revealing the possible presence of American prisoners of war, calling a senator's suggestion that aid be withheld unfair.
Yeltsin said some American POWs may still be alive in Russia, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Vietnam-era prisoner of war, said the United States should delay its share of a $24 billion aid package for Russia and other Commonwealth nations, called the Freedom Support Act, until the issue of American POWs is resolved.Yeltsin, speaking with reporters outside Blair House, said he was the one who disclosed the information and was trying to get to the bottom of the matter.
"We should not be penalized," Yeltsin said. "This is unfair."
Tuesday night, President Bush said McCain "has got it wrong" and added, "I'm going to talk to him."
The president said Yeltsin deserves U.S. support now, since "he's the one trying to get to the bottom of this. He's the one opening the (Soviet) archives."
White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater, asked about McCain's statement, said, "We're hopeful they (Congress) will not delay the Freedom Support Act.
"We expect answers in a very quick fashion" regarding the prisoners, Fitzwater said. "Everybody wants a quick accounting and answers immediately."
Yeltsin and Bush have instructed the heads of a joint commission investigating the fate of missing U.S. servicemen to meet immediately to discuss the possibility that some American prisoners of war are alive in the former Soviet Union.
The hastily called meeting between Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov and Ambassador Malcolm Toon was called after Yeltsin made his surprise revelation that "we cannot rule out the possibility of American POWs still living in the territory of the Soviet Union."
Yeltsin said Tuesday Russia knew most details of American POWs' fate in the former Soviet Union, but the possibility existed that some missing servicemen still could be alive.
"We have a clear picture as to how many POWs we had in our territory. We know where they were; how many of them died; how many went back to the United States; how many were buried and where they're buried," Yeltsin said.
"And still there are possibly some of them who may be still alive in the territory of Russia. We do not have clarity on this yet. Our two commissions will cooperate to make sure we know exactly what happened to each one of them."
It was unclear whether Yeltsin's comments on the issue over the past two days referred to Americans captured and then transferred to the Soviet Union for interrogation and detention during World War II, the Korean War or the Vietnam War.
Yeltsin said during an impromptu news conference following a luncheon with Secretary of State James Baker that Volkogonov and Toon will decide during a meeting in Moscow "on an overall scheme on their future work" regarding American POWs who may still be alive in the former Soviet Union.
Bush, who said he was caught completely off guard by the silver-haired Russian president's statement Monday, pledged later in the day that the commission would "spare no effort" in its investigation of American servicemen living or deceased in the Commonwealth of Independent States.
"If anyone's alive that person or those persons will be found," Bush said, "(but) we have no evidence of anyone still being alive."