Clinton, Yeltsin Agree to Set Early Summit Date : Diplomacy: The new U.S. President also telephones Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

In his first contact with a foreign leader since taking over the White House, President Clinton agreed Saturday to an early summit meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, apparently to reassure Moscow that the United States remains firmly committed to Russia’s economic and political reforms.

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said Clinton and Yeltsin decided to meet face-to-face during the course of a 30-minute telephone conversation focused primarily on Yeltsin’s economic troubles and the political challenges he faces from right-wing Russian nationalists.

Myers said the meeting will take place in a neutral setting, almost surely in Europe, although she said Clinton and Yeltsin “didn’t set a time or a place” for the talks.

In Moscow, the Russian press office said: “Yeltsin and Clinton agreed to instruct their respective foreign ministers to meet in order to prepare a summit in a third country in the near future.” No date or place was set for that meeting, which would be the first between Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev.

Yeltsin has been pressing for an early summit ever since Clinton defeated former President George Bush last November. But Clinton aides had previously said only that a meeting would be arranged sometime this year.

On his first Saturday in the Oval Office, Clinton also telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, promising to work closely with Israel to promote Middle East peace. The two telephone calls seem to be a clear signal that the President, who emphasized domestic issues in his successful election campaign, intends to put his own stamp on U.S. foreign policy as soon as possible.

Perhaps significantly, there was no talk of an early meeting between Clinton and Rabin. Traditionally, Israeli prime ministers try to be among the first foreign visitors to any new American President. But Yeltsin seems to have moved to the top of the priority list.

With the economy on the verge of hyperinflation and Russian nationalists contesting his leadership, Yeltsin clearly needs the sort of boost that he would get from a high-profile meeting with the new American chief executive.

From the American standpoint, continuation of democratic reform in Russia is of the utmost importance, because if Yeltsin falls from power he would probably be replaced by a hard-line nationalistic government that would be unfriendly to Washington.

Clinton also must try to shore up Russian support for Washington’s policy of military pressure on Iraq and diplomatic and economic isolation of Serbia. Moscow has gone along with the United States in both areas but it has begun to grumble a bit.

After last weekend’s American cruise missile attack on an industrial plant near Baghdad, Kozyrev suggested that the United States may have gone beyond its mandate from the U.N. Security Council. Although Yeltsin continues to support sanctions against Serbia, his nationalistic opponents have demanded Russian support for Serbia, a traditional Russian ally.