Will Join NATO Program, Russia Says : Military: Statements by Yeltsin and Kozyrev come on heels of alliance’s rebuff of bid for special ties. But the two leaders signal disappointment.

Despite its obvious disappointment at terms offered by its longtime adversaries, Moscow is ready to enter a military partnership with the United States and its European allies, Russian leaders said Friday.

At separate news conferences, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and his foreign minister, Andrei V. Kozyrev, stressed that Russia will sign the military cooperation agreement with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The accord would open the door for Russia to work with the West in such areas as joint military exercises, defense planning and peacekeeping operations.

“Certainly we will sign it,” Yeltsin told reporters in Moscow.

Kozyrev, speaking to reporters here after addressing a meeting of foreign ministers from NATO and many of the former East Bloc states, said he hoped to come to NATO headquarters in Brussels “in the near future” to launch the cooperative arrangement.

After extensive talks with Kozyrev on Friday, Secretary of State Warren Christopher also said he expected Russian acceptance.

The statements were significant because they came less than 24 hours after NATO foreign ministers here effectively rebuffed Russian demands for a far more extensive agreement, including a formal political dialogue that many feared could give Moscow a direct influence within the alliance.

A communique issued after a meeting of NATO’s 16 foreign ministers Thursday noted that the alliance was “interested in a broad dialogue with Russia.”

But NATO Deputy Secretary General Sergio Balanzino clarified that any consultations would be informal and on a case-by-case basis.

“It is natural that it is not to their liking . . . (but) we said no to them,” summed up German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel.

But ambiguities in Yeltsin’s remarks and a clearly unhappy Kozyrev left the impression that Moscow had probably not yet given up its attempts to win a formal commitment from NATO that would expand the relationship to include talks on a broad range of European security issues as the price of its commitment to cooperate militarily.

So far, 20 nations, the majority of them once part of the Soviet empire, have signed the military cooperation accord with NATO, an agreement known formally as the “Partnership for Peace.”

But because of its size and power, Moscow has argued it needs a “special relationship” with the Atlantic Alliance that includes a formal political dimension.

Besides gaining a say in alliance affairs, Moscow would like to use such a dialogue to reshape the current system of European defense agreements in a way that would effectively devalue NATO’s role.

For example, Moscow reportedly would like to upgrade the role of the amorphous, 52-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, transferring to it cooperative efforts in peacekeeping activities now being developed under the Partnership for Peace.

At his news conference, Yeltsin indicated that Moscow will pursue its demands for a broader relationship by trying to get commitments written into a detailed list of cooperative projects that must be negotiated as part of the program.

He spoke of the need for a protocol with NATO to deal with military aspects of the cooperative accord. At one point, he seemed to make it a condition of Russian involvement.

“They will sign this protocol, and we will sign that Partnership for Peace document,” he said.

But then he added: “Certainly we’ll sign it. After all, even if some bureaucrats reject that protocol, we will sign it anyway.”

Neither Kozyrev nor Yeltsin gave any indication of when Moscow might sign the accord, although Kozyrev indicated that he wanted all negotiations on the details of cooperation completed before Russia signed the statement of principle committing it to the Partnership for Peace.

“I only want to come to Brussels once,” he said.

Other nations involved in the program have committed themselves first in principle and left details for subsequent negotiation.

Apparently irked at being rebuffed Thursday, the Russians held up agreement of a final statement on Friday’s meeting--which included other non-NATO countries--for more than five hours with Cold War-style intransigence.

“It has been quite an experience for me as it has been for the other participants,” admitted Balanzino, when asked about the Russian negotiating tactics.

Injecting a sense of history into Friday’s meeting, Polish Foreign Minister Andrzej Olechowski urged Moscow to join with the West and not draw a new line through Europe, saying: “The decision of the former Soviet Union not to participate in the Marshall Plan . . . was one of the factors clinching the division of Europe. We hope this mistake will not be repeated and Russia will join the Partnership for Peace, the program for the rehabilitation of European security after the period of confrontation.”