Bush Hoping to Meet Yeltsin at Summit Soon : Diplomacy: Need to stay in ‘close touch’ is stressed. No date for talks with the Russian leader is specified.

President Bush expressed concern Thursday about “economic deprivation” this winter in Russia and the other republics of the former Soviet Union and called for an early summit meeting with Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin, saying it is important for the two leaders to stay in “close touch.”

Bush did not specify a date for a meeting with the Russian leader but said he would like it to be soon.

Bush, a great believer in personal diplomacy among chiefs of state, had a close relationship with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev but in the past had been cool, at best, toward Yeltsin.

Now, the President said, “it is important we stay in very, very close touch.”

“I think it’s important. I think he thinks it’s important,” Bush said. “We want to handle this relationship as best we can. It doesn’t hurt to have that personal contact.”

An example of the close relationship that Bush had with Yeltsin’s predecessor was on view Thursday night, as ABC News broadcast film of Gorbachev discussing his departure with Bush in a last telephone call before he resigned Christmas Day.

In the call, Gorbachev, speaking through an interpreter, promised Bush that Soviet nuclear weapons “remain and will remain under strict control. You can have a very quiet Christmas evening.”

Bush, in turn, complimented Gorbachev “for the way you have handled that.” The nuclear issue, he said, “is of vital international significance, of course.”

ABC filmed the call as part of a special “PrimeTime Live” program on Gorbachev’s last days that was aired Thursday night. His resignation, Gorbachev told host Ted Koppel, was a first for Russia: “That is, the process, after all, is a democratic one. The psychological stress is hardest until you make the decision,” he added.

Meanwhile, as White House attention shifts to Russia and its president, Bush and his aides have been pondering how to establish a new set of personal ties.

A meeting between the two most likely would take place in Washington because Bush’s last meeting with Gorbachev was in Madrid. White House aides also are anxious to minimize the number of foreign trips that Bush makes between now and the November election.

In contrast with the last three years, Bush so far is scheduled to take only two overseas trips in the next eight months--one to Asia this month and one to Europe this summer for the annual economic summit of industrial nations.

Answering questions at a White House press conference, Bush said he believes that the breakup of the Soviet Union will make arms control negotiations easier, even though many more parties will be at the table. Now, he said, “we don’t have the concept on their part of viewing the United States as an enemy, as happened over all the years of the Cold War.”

In the future, he added, “I think it will be far easier now to hammer out whatever additional arms control agreements are in the world’s interests.”

Earlier Thursday, Bush signed ratification documents for the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, one of the last major arms control agreements negotiated with the Soviet Union. Ratified by the Senate, it limits manpower and weaponry deployed by the superpowers in Europe. Leaders of the now-independent republics have promised to honor the terms of the arms pacts adopted by the old union.

In his press conference, Bush again asserted that the Administration has received “proper assurances from all the republics” about the safety of the former Soviet nuclear weapons and that “our experts that have been in touch at the expert level see no reason to be concerned.”

But he warned that continued economic problems in Russia and the other republics could lead to instability and danger in the months to come.