Yeltsin Offers Minor Concessions to U.S. : Summit: He modifies sale of nuclear technology to Iran and softens his objections to NATO expansion. ‘No one will ever solve all the problems,’ Clinton says.

A summit between President Clinton and Russia’s President Boris N. Yeltsin ended Wednesday with largely cosmetic concessions from the Russians and palpable disappointment on the U.S. side.

Yeltsin agreed to drop a proposed sale by Moscow of uranium-enrichment equipment to Iran and to participate in discussions about the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into the nations of the former Soviet empire.

But these concessions were the minimum hopes of U.S. officials entering the one-day meeting. Their low expectations of the summit appear to have been met in full.

Yeltsin made little effort to disguise the fact that significant differences remained on several fundamental issues, such as NATO.

“Today we better understand the interests and concerns of each other, and yet we still don’t have answers to a number of questions,” he said at a news conference at which both leaders wore grim expressions. “Our positions even remain unchanged.”

Clinton also offered a downbeat assessment of the meeting during a break in the almost three hours of one-on-one discussions between the two leaders.

“No one will ever solve all the problems,” the President said bleakly.

A senior U.S. official involved in the discussions with the Russian leadership said of the current state of the Washington-Moscow relationship, for which hopes were so high in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union: “I was never seized of euphoria. Occasionally, I have to fight depression.”

If there was any progress for the Americans to trumpet, it was on the question of whether Russia would participate, even grudgingly, in the process of admitting former Warsaw Pact states to NATO.

Yeltsin agreed to join the Partnership for Peace, the club of former Soviet bloc nations applying for eventual NATO membership.

But he still expressed grave doubts about the pace of the Atlantic Alliance’s expansion.

Clinton acknowledged that he and Yeltsin had not resolved Moscow’s deep opposition to the admission of Poland, Hungary and other Eastern European nations to NATO.

But he said the beginning of a dialogue between Russia and the Western allies was a “success” of the summit, following Yeltsin’s hostile rejection of the partnership arrangement six months ago in Budapest, Hungary.

“There must be a special relationship between NATO and Russia,” Clinton said.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns took pains to portray Yeltsin’s movement on the alliance as a significant accomplishment of this meeting.

“Obviously, after Budapest, we had to make some adjustments to restore momentum in the relationship,” he said. “I’m not saying this meeting was somehow a huge leap forward, but at least we’ve made the progress we’ve wanted to see for the last six months.”

On Russia’s proposed $1-billion sale of nuclear technology to Iran, Yeltsin announced that he will cancel the transfer of a gas centrifuge to Tehran, a move that had been signaled in advance of the summit by Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev.

U.S. officials had vehemently objected to the deal because they believed that the technology was destined for Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The centrifuge, experts say, can be used to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels.

Yeltsin and Clinton agreed to submit the rest of the deal, involving the provision of two light-water reactors to Iran, to study by a commission formed by Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin.

There was no indication, however, that Yeltsin was willing to consider cancellation of the lucrative contract or to halt work in progress on the power plants.

Yeltsin was reminded by a questioner at the news conference that many members of the U.S. Congress are calling for an end to U.S. financial aid to Russia if Moscow goes through with the reactor deal.

Yeltsin replied huffily: “We’re not afraid of threats. We never react to threats.”

The Russian president also gave absolutely no ground on the conflict in the secessionist region of Chechnya, even denying that the war there is continuing, despite reports of heavy Russian and Chechen casualties in fighting in the past two days.

Interfax news agency reported that Russian forces had killed 38 Chechen rebels, while Russian troops suffered one dead and 11 wounded. Three more Russian soldiers were injured by Chechen shelling Wednesday, Interfax said.

At Wednesday’s news conference, Yeltsin dismissed the fighting in Chechnya as merely the confiscation of weapons from “some small, armed criminal gangs” and described the rebellion as “an internal matter for Russia.”

Clinton, who had hoped for the declaration of a permanent cease-fire in Chechnya, said he had expressed to Yeltsin the “strong concern of the United States” about bloodshed there.

He later appealed over Yeltsin’s head in a speech to students at Moscow State University to bring an end to the war.

“As I told President Yeltsin earlier today, this terrible tragedy must be brought to a rapid and peaceful conclusion,” Clinton told the students. “Continued fighting in that region can only spill more blood and further erode support for Russia among her neighbors around the world.”

Clinton, in an apparent concession to Yeltsin, said he will support modifications in a conventional arms treaty that would have the effect of permitting Russia to maintain large numbers of tanks and other armor in the north Caucasus region, which includes Chechnya and several other potential sources of instability.

Russia now has several hundred pieces of equipment in the area; they are supposed to be removed by November.

Clinton said he would be willing to consider changes in the Conventional Forces in Europe pact that would “preserve the integrity of the treaty and compliance with it, but, in the end, respond to the legitimate security interests of Russia.”

Clinton, his somber visage and weary tone belying his words, put a brave face on the meeting with Yeltsin in summing up the results.

“We advanced the security interests of the people of the United States and the people of Russia,” he said. “There was significant progress made. And we still have work to do.”