Yeltsin Names Spymaster as New Foreign Minister

Tapping a spymaster with close ties to the Arab world to lead Russia’s foreign policy, President Boris N. Yeltsin on Tuesday appointed intelligence chief Yevgeny M. Primakov as his new foreign minister.

Primakov, 66, has directed the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service for the past five years, and by some accounts has succeeded in boosting morale and limiting the number of defections. A Communist Party member for three decades, he has spoken with pride of the KGB’s spying success during the Soviet era.

But Primakov may be best known as a Middle East expert. Fluent in Arabic, he spent years in the region as a journalist for the newspaper Pravda and has nurtured a relationship with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in the summer of 1990, Primakov tried in vain to broker a compromise and avert war.

Although Primakov has long concentrated on the Middle East, he also speaks English fluently and is not considered a hard-line foe of the West.

“My impression has been that he’s a very careful, rational thinker who tries to balance his opinions,” said foreign policy analyst Andrei V. Kortunov. “His appointment says above all that Boris Yeltsin wants as a foreign minister someone trustworthy, loyal and balanced.”

Primakov’s predecessor at the Foreign Ministry, Andrei V. Kozyrev, came under harsh criticism for his pro-Western attitude. Nationalists accused him of standing by while Russia’s power ebbed. And Communists flogged him as a yes man for the West.

Kozyrev was ousted last week and will now take up a seat in the parliament.

In appointing a replacement, Yeltsin reached for someone with more hawkish credentials.

Primakov has insisted that Russia maintain its military might and defend its territorial integrity. In a report to lawmakers last fall, he emphasized--as a key goal of intelligence work--the need to keep Russia’s armed forces up to par with potential rivals. And he declared his opposition to the proposed eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In temperament as well as in outlook, Primakov looks likely to set a new tone at the Foreign Ministry. Trained as an economist, he is known as reserved and cautious--a contrast with the outspoken, emphatic Kozyrev.

“Primakov is pragmatic,” Kortunov said. “He does not hold very firm ideological positions. His appointment suggests that the president, and those in his circle, are trying to concentrate power in their hands.”