U.S. Warns Russia to Avoid Isolation

In a pointed warning that a Communist victory in Russia’s June presidential election will cut Moscow out of an increasingly unified Europe, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher on Wednesday challenged Russia’s voters to pick inclusion instead of isolation.

“Of course, Russia must not isolate itself,” Christopher told an audience that included the foreign ministers of 12 Eastern and Central European nations, most of them avidly seeking membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a shield against a possible revival of Russian imperialism.

“We hope the Russian people will choose leaders that are committed to the path of integration in Europe,” he said.

Although Christopher added a disclaimer that the United States does not wish to interfere in Russia’s election and will “work with whoever is elected there,” aides made clear that a victory by Communist candidate Gennady A. Zyuganov, the current leader in public opinion polls, would be a major setback to Washington-Moscow relations.

“We’re not participating in the Russian political campaign, but we can’t fail to speak out on American security interests even if the Russians are having an election,” a senior State Department official said. “We’re for integration with Russia, but not at any price.”

Christopher’s speech was shaped by a vote last week in the lower house of the Russian parliament to reestablish the Soviet Union, a measure that seems to have little practical effect but apparently had an enormous psychological impact on the United States and on the countries of Europe, especially those that have only recently escaped Moscow’s orbit.

“One of the central issues in the future of Europe will be Russia’s relationship with its newly independent neighbors,” Christopher said. “Last week, we were confronted with a dark vision of that future when the Russian Duma voted in favor of reconstituting the U.S.S.R.”

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Macedonia, Slovenia, Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic were unanimous in their denunciations of the Duma vote during a private lunch with Christopher at the U.S. ambassador’s residence here.

Czech Deputy Foreign Minister Alexandr Vondra told reporters that the vote shows Russian Communists “are thinking more of the past than of the future. We can’t ignore that. Of course, this is disturbing.”

For the nations represented in the meetings with Christopher, the preferred antidote to Russian expansionism is enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to include them. Czech President Vaclav Havel told Christopher: “NATO enlargement is important not only to us but to Europe as a whole.”

Christopher made no new promises but described the NATO expansion plan in terms that most of the Eastern and Central European leaders found encouraging.

“NATO has made a commitment to take in new members, and it must not and will not keep new democracies in the waiting room forever,” Christopher said. “NATO enlargement is on track and it will happen.”

Under a schedule Christopher said will not be changed, NATO foreign ministers are to decide on a timetable for expansion at a meeting in December. But it may take several years after that before the first new members are inducted.

Even under the regime of President Boris N. Yeltsin, who is generally more friendly to the West than Zyuganov is, Russia has been bitterly opposed to NATO expansion.

Recently, Russian officials have hinted that Moscow might go along with a limited expansion that would exclude all former Soviet republics and would impose severe restrictions on new members.

Christopher flies to Moscow today.