GOP Warns Against Iran, Russia Deal : Summit: Gingrich and Dole signal that U.S. aid is at risk if Moscow makes reactor sale. Clinton says health of relationship goes beyond single issue.

The two leading Republicans in Congress bluntly warned President Clinton on Sunday that there will be harsh consequences if he fails to persuade Russian leaders at the Moscow summit this week to give up their plan to sell a nuclear reactor to Iran.

With friction between Russia and the United States already mounting, Russian persistence in the nuclear sale would have “catastrophic consequences” for the two nations’ relations and for any future economic assistance for Moscow, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) warned.

Clinton is making the trip, at Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s behest, to participate in ceremonies commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany in World War II.

But their summit on the edges of the anniversary ceremonies is already taking on particular significance, largely because of the developing troubles in the U.S.-Russian relationship.

Clinton is being confronted by a Congress that is increasingly assertive on foreign policy issues. Yeltsin is fighting strong economic and political crosscurrents as he tries to suppress the rebellion in the republic of Chechnya and manage the lucrative $1-billion sale to Iran despite fierce Western opposition.

On the eve of his departure for Moscow, Clinton indicated that his leverage over Moscow on the nuclear sale is limited and that the health of the U.S.-Russian relationship goes beyond one issue.

In remarks prepared for delivery to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington on Sunday night, Clinton urged critics not to overlook common interests shared by Russia and the United States, including Russia’s transition to democracy. He said that “we must not hold our relationship hostage to any one issue.” When differences arise, he said, “we must manage those differences candidly, constructively and resolutely.”

But Clinton said that “if this sale goes forward, Russian national security can only be weakened in the long term.”

Observing that Iran has sufficient oil to meet its energy needs, the President said Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear reactors, along with other evidence about its nuclear program, “supports only one conclusion: Tehran is bent on building nuclear weapons.”

“I believe Russia also has a powerful interest in preventing a neighbor--especially one with Iran’s track record--from possessing these weapons,” Clinton said.

Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), speaking in separate broadcast interviews, appeared to leave Clinton little room for maneuvering on the issue.

“I just think the tone in Congress about helping Russia will have changed very dramatically” if the reactor sale goes through, Gingrich said. “I think members of Congress are going to say (to Clinton), ‘Your job wasn’t to go to Russia to make Yeltsin happy--your job was to go to Russia to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.’ ”

If Clinton fails to get Russia to roll back the reactor sale, Dole said, “I think it’s going to really cool relations with Yeltsin, with the Russian republic,” though he expressed confidence Clinton will succeed.

“I’ve got to believe that the Russians understand that we’re much more important to them than this sale might be to Iran,” Dole said.

Will Congress rethink its plan to provide aid to Russia if Moscow insists on the arrangement with Iran? “I think it would be almost immediate,” Dole said on the CBS-TV program “Face the Nation.”

Since 1991, U.S. grants and loans to the nations that once made up the Soviet Union have totaled $14 billion, with most of that sum going to Russia.

Gingrich, speaking on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” said that selling a nuclear reactor to Iran without adequate protection against its turning spent fuel into uranium for nuclear warheads is “totally intolerable.”

Gingrich said that if Clinton returns from Moscow having responded to Yeltsin’s concerns about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but without Russia’s backing off from the nuclear sale, “the tone in Congress about helping Russia will have changed very dramatically.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher has held out little hope that Yeltsin will back down, although there have been indications Russia may be having second thoughts about a separate sale to Iran of a gas centrifuge capable of producing weapons-grade uranium.

* MOSCOW’S PARADE: Russia reins in citizens for World War II rites. A6