Clinton and Yeltsin End Summit With New Unity, Pacts : Russia: The two leaders sign arms, economic accords. They also agree on a series of steps designed to help Moscow stay on the road to a free-market economy.

President Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin concluded their two-day Moscow summit with a blizzard of new agreements on economic and security issues Friday, cementing what aides described as a new, more realistic relationship between the United States and Russia.

In solemn Kremlin ceremonies, the two leaders, joined by Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, signed an accord to remove all nuclear weapons from Ukraine and agreed to stop aiming long-range missiles at any of the world’s countries.

And Washington and Moscow reached agreement on a series of steps designed to help Russia continue its progress toward a free-market economy while cushioning the impact of change on ordinary citizens.

Yeltsin, in the only significant public disagreement with Clinton in two days of determinedly positive exchanges, sharply rejected the admission of East European countries to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--unless Russia joins at the same time.

Indeed, Yeltsin deftly turned his endorsement of Clinton’s “Partnership for Peace” into a formula for forestalling NATO membership for individual countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The beauty of the American plan, he said, was that it provides for taking none of the European states into the alliance until they are admitted en masse, he said.

That is not the way Washington sees the partnership at all, but Clinton and other Administration officials let Yeltsin’s assertion pass without direct challenge. Who joins NATO and when is a question to be answered down the road, they made clear; what matters now are concrete steps to deal with the problems immediately at hand.

The outcome, Russian and American officials said, reflected a significant evolution in the relationship, a step beyond both the terrors of the Cold War and the starry-eyed illusions of the first years of peace.

“Before, we had the romantic phase,” said Russian scholar Alexander Konovalev, an expert on East-West relations. “Now this is becoming a normal working relationship between two countries.”

The stakes are still high. The United States desperately wants Yeltsin’s economic and political reforms to succeed, U.S. officials note, because behind the Russian president stands the threat of aggressive nationalism in the form of neo-fascist Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky.

But the negotiations are much easier now. “When we were adversaries, we had to negotiate every understanding line by line,” said a senior U.S. diplomat with long experience in Moscow. “Clinton and Yeltsin are willing to give each other the benefit of the doubt.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov called the meeting “the most substantive, businesslike and concrete” of any he had attended.

Clinton agreed to meet with Yeltsin again in July, when the two will attend the annual economic summit of big industrial powers in Naples, Italy.

And he invited Yeltsin to make a state visit to Washington this fall, making three meetings in the span of one year.

“We’re doing a lot of business,” a senior U.S. official said.

That was confirmed by the long list of agreements finalized in a flurry of signing ceremonies. They included:

* A new joint effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Clinton and Yeltsin pledged to take “energetic measures” to block the spread of nuclear weapons, and they called on North Korea to comply with international demands to open its nuclear facilities for inspection.

* Common concerns on human rights. The leaders issued a statement saying “aggressive nationalism and political extremism are the main threat to peace and democracy” and pledged to combat human rights violations, including anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

* A $100-million investment fund to help turn large Russian state firms into private enterprises. Clinton appointed Michael Blumenthal, former Treasury secretary in the Jimmy Carter Administration, to chair the so-called Fund for Large Enterprises in Russia.

Also, the Overseas Private Investment Corp. announced three protocols supporting U.S. private investment projects in Russia, including plans to modernize telecommunications systems, restart idle oil wells and boost crude oil production.

Clinton and Yeltsin discussed at length a social welfare system that would help Russians make the transition to a free market system with less pain.

“I made it perfectly clear to the President that we would expand the scope of reforms, focusing more on the social dimension,” Yeltsin said. “I am confident that this country will have greater stability and durable social peace.”

Even when the leaders disagreed, it reflected the overall improvement of their relationship, Russian and American officials said: The two countries can now argue candidly over individual issues without threatening each other with dire consequences.

Yeltsin was characteristically blunt at the summit’s final news conference when asked whether he agrees with Clinton’s policy of holding out possible NATO membership to some former Soviet Bloc countries in Eastern Europe.

“Admitting us one by one is no good,” Yeltsin said. “I am against that.”

He said NATO should invite Russia and all other East European countries to join the alliance at the same time--an approach NATO leaders rejected at their summit meeting in Brussels this week.

U.S. officials shrugged off the dispute, saying it would not get in the way of other dealings with Russia.

The President made a determined public show of support for his Russian “partner,” as he repeatedly dubbed Yeltsin, talking up his reforms and expressing respect for Russia’s greatness both in official public meetings and in events designed to reach out to average Russians.

He paid his respects to the war dead at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, attended a formal Kremlin dinner and accepted an invitation from Yeltsin to stay overnight in a guest apartment inside one of the Kremlin palaces. And he led Russia’s first live TV “town hall,” modeled on the campaign events that became Clinton’s political trademark.

Hillary Rodham Clinton and daughter Chelsea arrived in a snowstorm to join the President on Friday.

Clinton visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at 8 a.m., looking still tired from the previous night’s three-hour dinner at Yeltsin’s dacha.

Clinton and a party that included Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev followed three goose-stepping soldiers, who carried a wreath to the black-and-red granite tomb, which is next to the Kremlin wall.

Clinton stood with bowed head before the memorial, which contains the remains of soldiers who died in what Russians call “the Great Fatherland War” of 1941 to 1945. It is inscribed: “Your name is unknown but your deed is eternal.”

Such visits are part of the standard rituals of summitry, but this visit carried an added message to the Russian people, the White House hopes: Clinton respects both the enormous suffering that has marked their history and the greatness of their role in the world.

Both presidents hailed their agreements on nuclear weaponry as a significant step toward security from nuclear attack. Most important, they said, was the three-nation agreement to remove nuclear weapons from Ukraine.

Whether Kravchuk can keep his end of the bargain remains in doubt. Kravchuk has agreed to remove the weapons several times since 1992, only to run into stiff resistance from Ukraine’s Parliament, the Rada. This week, after the new agreement was announced, some leading members of the Rada denounced it, and almost all said the Parliament would insist on debating the pact.

Under the agreement on missile targeting, Russia and the United States will alter the guidance data for their long-range missiles so that by May 30 the weapons are not trained on any country.

Most U.S. missiles will simply be left without target data, but the aging Minuteman III system, which requires targeting, will be aimed at remote areas in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, officials said.

Unlike most arms control agreements, this one does not include any procedure for verifying that it has been carried out--because that would be virtually impossible, officials said.

And, they noted, either side could restore targeting data to its missiles in a matter of minutes.

But the agreement is not merely symbolic, they said. Removing the targeting data from long-range missiles means that in the event of an accidental launch of Russian missiles, New York, Washington and Los Angeles would no longer be among the likely landing points.

In their human rights declaration, the two presidents denounced “aggressive nationalism . . . xenophobia and anti-Semitism.” U.S. officials said they believe it is the first time Russia has specifically condemned anti-Semitism in a diplomatic statement.

But human rights also figured in the two presidents’ disagreements. Yeltsin complained about the treatment of ethnic Russians in the Baltic republics of Latvia and Estonia, where Russia still has an estimated 20,000 troops, saying, “There should be no double standard, whether it happens in Haiti or the Baltics.”

Clinton has already pressed the leaders of Latvia and Estonia to treat ethnic Russians fairly, but he is also pressing the Russians to withdraw their troops.

The two sides also disagreed over their policies toward Iran, where Russia wants to continue selling weapons. And they disagreed over Russia’s military peacekeeping operations in neighboring Georgia and other former Soviet republics.

But the disagreements did little to spoil an overall mood of satisfaction.

“We have certain disagreements between ourselves,” Yeltsin told reporters. “We do not agree with each other on everything. But the main thing is that we have goodwill and partnership.”

Times staff writer Richard Boudreaux contributed to this report.

An Array of Accords

Steps announced Friday by President Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin at a joint news conference:

REDIRECTING MISSILES

A declaration signed by the two said that by May 30, no country will be targeted by the missiles of either the United States or Russia. “For the first time since the earliest days of the nuclear age, the two countries will no longer operate nuclear forces, day-to-day, in a manner that presumes they are enemies.” Three of the four U.S. strategic missile systems--Trident I, Trident II and Peacekeeper--will contain no targeting information. Older-technology Minuteman III missile computers, which require alignment, will be aimed at oceans.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Clinton and Yeltsin signed a three-way agreement with Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk under which Ukraine pledged to transfer all the nuclear warheads it inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia for dismantling “in the shortest possible time.” The 46 SS-24 missiles in Ukraine, the most potent weapons, would be deactivated within 10 months. The agreement still faces opposition in Ukraine’s Parliament.

NON-PROLIFERATION

The two issued a joint statement listing goals and priorities on efforts to discourage the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and to control sensitive dual-use technologies. They called on North Korea to honor the treaty requiring inspection of its nuclear facilities and urged India and Pakistan to join in treaties to ban nuclear-weapons tests.

HUMAN RIGHTS

A joint statement said respect for basic human rights is “indispensable for the maintenance of good relations between countries.” It pledged joint efforts to combat human rights violations, including anti-Semitism and xenophobia. The statement answered concerns about ultranationalism in Russia and discrimination against Russian-speaking people in other former Soviet republics.

URANIUM

Under a contract signed in Moscow, Russia will convert 500 tons of highly enriched uranium extracted from dismantled nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium that can be used for nuclear power plants. The uranium then will be sold to the United States Enrichment Corp., which will use the material to supply nuclear power stations around the world. Over the 20-year life of the contract, Russia will earn about $12 billion at no net cost to the U.S. government. Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus get compensation for the value of the uranium in warheads they transfer to Russia.