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Clinton, Castro: Getting to know you? |
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September 9, 2000
NEW YORK, SEPT 8 (AP) - President Bill Clinton said Friday his encounter with Cuban President Fidel Castro was over in a matter of seconds. "It just happened, you know?" Clinton said. The two leaders shook hands and exchanged brief greetings after a United Nations luncheon Wednesday. It was the first time they had met. Castro initiated the encounter, Clinton said. "There were a whole lot of people in line, and I was talking to them, and I turned around and he was standing there. He had apparently come up and waited," Clinton said. "The encounter lasted just a few seconds," Clinton added. "That's all that happened." Clinton spoke of the Castro encounter before entering a formal meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Clinton and Castro had no substantive discussion, U.S. officials insisted. Castro approached Clinton at the end of a luncheon of the United Nations Millennium Summit, a gathering of about 160 world leaders. "They exchanged a few words. It was nothing substantive," White House press secretary Joe Lockhart said Thursday. National Security Council spokesman P.J. Crowley called it "a momentary exchange." It was the first time Clinton and Castro had ever spoken although they have been in the same room before, Crowley said. Lockhart originally said Clinton and Castro did not shake hands. But after checking further with someone who was in the room, a White House official said Lockhart was wrong and that Clinton and Castro did shake hands. Crowley said Castro was among a number of leaders who were not invited to a reception hosted by Clinton at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Thursday night. The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Cuba and maintains economic sanctions against Castro's government. "Not every participant in the Millennium Summit was invited," Crowley said. "There are countries around the world that we have serious concerns about such as their support for terrorism. And we didn't think it was appropriate to invite them to a reception hosted by the president of the United States." He said, for example, that officials from Iraq, Iran and Libya were not invited.
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