Clinton, Yeltsin Schedule First Summit for April 4

The United States and Russia announced Thursday that President Clinton will hold his first summit meeting with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on April 4, a gesture intended to signal the new Administration’s strong support for the Russian reformer.

“It is of the utmost importance to the United States--indeed, to the world--that President Yeltsin’s reforms succeed,” Secretary of State Warren Christopher said at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev.

“A strong and cooperative U.S.-Russian relationship, a relationship with genuine partnership, is of the highest priority for President Clinton and his Administration,” Christopher added.

Kozyrev, at his side, noted that both Americans and Russians “are now concentrating on their domestic economic situation.” But, he argued, “assistance to Russian reform is on the domestic agenda of both countries.”

The two nations, co-sponsors of the stalled Middle East peace talks, also announced they will invite Arab and Israeli participants to reconvene their negotiations in April.

Kozyrev also offered a general endorsement of the U.S. plan to airdrop humanitarian supplies into besieged areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina, saying it “goes in the right direction.” But he did not offer to add Russian forces to the operation, officials said.

Clinton has said several times that he considers the success of Russia’s economic and political reforms his top foreign policy priority, because a failure could mean a return of the Cold War hostility between the nuclear superpowers.

“We are putting a lot of effort into trying to support democracy and trying to support economic recovery there,” the President told reporters in Washington after meeting with British Prime Minister John Major.

Clinton has ordered aides to begin drawing up an expanded program of economic and technical aid to Russia and its neighbors from the former Soviet Union, officials said.

The proposed aid program is still unfinished, but it appeared likely to exceed the $417 million in direct U.S. economic and technical assistance planned for the current fiscal year.

Congress is almost certain to slash foreign aid worldwide as part of overall spending cuts, but Administration officials have said Clinton may fight to exempt Russia and its neighbors.

The summit will probably last only one day, a senior official said, and will take place at a neutral site outside the United States or Russia.

It is likely to be Clinton’s first overseas trip as President.

Its date, April 4, could help give Yeltsin a domestic boost--it is only a week before a proposed referendum to ask citizens whether they believe the president or the Parliament should hold more power. The Russian Parliament has been a center of opposition to Yeltsin’s political and economic reforms.

Before he took office, Clinton suggested that he was not eager for an early summit because he wanted to devote his first months to enacting his domestic economic program.

But his own advisers--and Yeltsin--convinced him that an early meeting was a good idea, one official said.

A major function of the summit, officials said, will be for Clinton and Yeltsin to get to know each other better. The two presidents have spoken often by telephone since Clinton’s election, but they have met face to face only once--during the last U.S.-Russian summit in Washington in June, 1992.

At the time, Clinton was only a Democratic candidate at a low ebb in the polls--and Yeltsin appeared convinced that he would be dealing with then-President George Bush for another four years.

Other issues that Christopher and Kozyrev discussed were also likely to be part of the summit agenda, officials said:

* U.S.-Russian cooperation on regional concerns such as Bosnia and the Middle East. In Bosnia, the Administration is asking Yeltsin to intercede with Serbia for a peaceful settlement; in the Middle East, Kozyrev is helping Christopher steer the Palestinians into rejoining peace talks.

* Rescheduling Russia’s debt. Russia has taken over $75 billion in debt from the old Soviet Union and is finding the payments a crushing burden as it tries to create a market economy. The “Paris Club” of Western governments--Russia’s creditors--has been working on a plan to reschedule payments since last October but has reached no conclusion. Kozyrev asked Christopher for help in those negotiations, and Christopher agreed, a senior official said.

* Nuclear weapons. Congress and the Russian Parliament have not yet ratified the 1992 START II agreement to cut their nuclear arsenals by more than a half. Kozyrev said he hoped the two presidents would “coordinate” the ratification process. At the same time, the two countries are cooperating to try to secure the removal of all nuclear weapons from two former Soviet republics, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

* Non-Proliferation. The United States and Russia are already cooperating on efforts to prevent nuclear weapons and nuclear material from flowing out of Russia to other countries. But the Administration wants to step up the control of conventional weapons as well, including sales of submarines and other large weapons systems.

Russia, on the other hand, is increasingly focusing on arms exports as a possible partial solution to its economic weakness. The country inherited thousands of now-surplus tanks, missiles, airplanes and naval vessels from the defunct Soviet Union.

A senior U.S. official said Kozyrev asked for “a fair shot at arms sales opportunities in what he would consider--and we would consider--respectable countries.” He said the Russian had promised to confer with the United States before undertaking any sales.

The official said he understood the Russian’s concern, even though the United States wants to reduce the conventional arms flow.

He said the Clinton Administration has not yet responded to Kozyrev’s proposal. “The Russian arms industry . . . is in a state of some crisis because of the very sharp decline in Russian (military) procurements,” he said. “That is a problem.”

* U.S. RELIEF FOR BOSNIA: Clinton announces plan to airdrop aid to Bosnian villages. A6