Leaders Call for Cease-Fire in Lebanon

Confronted by an escalating Middle East crisis, presidents Bill Clinton and Boris N. Yeltsin and seven other world leaders dispensed with the traditional gaiety of a Kremlin dinner Friday to urge Israel and Lebanon to make peace.

The leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized democracies, the European Commission and Yeltsin declared themselves “seriously concerned” about the spiraling Mideast bloodshed and called for an immediate cease-fire.

“Only a political solution can provide a lasting settlement to the present crisis and enable a resumption of the peace process,” the leaders declared.

In a further sign that the Mideast crisis is overshadowing the summit on nuclear security, Russia, the United States, France and Italy dispatched their foreign ministers to the Syrian capital of Damascus to press the case for a cease-fire.

The cautiously worded statement by the most powerful leaders in the world cast no hint of blame or censure on either side of the bitter conflict, likely a reflection of the deep rifts dividing the G-7 states over Mideast policy, as well as between the economic alliance and Russia.

Yeltsin and French President Jacques Chirac had invited the elite circle to Moscow for what was supposed to be a meeting at which the Russian president could play the influential statesman as he battles his way through a tough reelection bid.

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But the glittering gala, set amid the gilded salons of the Grand Kremlin Palace, was sobered by the spiraling death toll from the Middle East, where an Israeli rocket attack Thursday killed at least 75 civilians and provoked retaliatory shelling from Islamic guerrillas in Lebanon on Friday.

Both Clinton and Yeltsin emerged from the dinner of stuffed pike and wild goose looking flushed and weary.

Others here for the summit appeared uncomfortable indulging in the pageantry against the deadly and divisive Mideast backdrop.

Before Clinton’s evening arrival, Yeltsin met for one hour each with the leaders of the European Commission and the G-7 countries of Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Canada for talks that focused on the Mideast, according to his spokesman, Sergei K. Medvedev. The United States and Italy are also G-7 members.

“Judging from the talks today, the approaches are identical,” Medvedev said. “There are no differences. First, Hezbollah must be disarmed. Second, there must be an unconditional withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon. In terms of the approach to this problem, we should seek an immediate cease-fire.”

He noted that Yeltsin is dispatching Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov for talks with officials in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

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The serious work of enhancing nuclear safety was to get underway in the Kremlin today, with Russia already declaring its readiness to enter into a test-ban treaty and a sheaf of agreements on cooperation and stricter accounting of sensitive materials awaiting the leaders’ signatures.

However, the Kremlin has woven itself a loophole by making the test-ban treaty conditional on unanimous support within the world nuclear club--a consensus unlikely to emerge with reluctant China not even in attendance.

Moscow has also said it reserves the right to withdraw from the accord whenever it deems fit.

Yeltsin and Clinton are to meet Sunday in a thinly veiled effort to give each other moral support ahead of elections in both countries.

Clinton began Friday in St. Petersburg, drinking in the history and culture of Russia.

In a dreary morning drizzle, he visited Piskarevskoye cemetery, a monument to the hundreds of thousands who died in the 900-day Nazi siege of Leningrad, as St. Petersburg was known during the Soviet era.

Surrounded by the mass graves of the uncounted and mostly nameless victims of bombardment, starvation and disease from 1941-44, Clinton paid tribute to the “staggering losses” suffered by Russia in World War II.

More than a million residents of Leningrad alone lost their lives in the siege; in all, an estimated 20 million Soviet soldiers and civilians died in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

“For 900 days and 900 nights, the citizens here wrote with their blood and defiance one of the greatest chapters in all the history of human heroism,” Clinton said after somberly laying a wreath of red and white roses at the eternal flame that marks the entrance of the vast graveyard.

Clinton also used the occasion to remember the victims of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City a year ago.

He said that although he was thousands of miles from Oklahoma, “our hearts must be very close to home and to the sadness and sacrifice of our own citizens.”

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Clinton also offered a prayer for an end to the violence in the Middle East “and everywhere where neighbors still fight over their ethnic and religious differences.”

After leaving the cemetery, Clinton visited the Russian State Museum, which houses about 400,000 pieces of Russian art dating back 1,000 years.

He paused before a picture of a long-ago Russian leader, who Clinton’s guide said loved women, food, drink and life.

“Good for him,” Clinton said with a laugh.

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Clinton’s tour next took him to the Church of the Spilled Blood, built over the site of the assassination of Czar Alexander II.

Onward to Kazan Cathedral, which in Soviet times housed the Museum of Atheism and Religion. The magnificent baroque structure has been partially restored and now serves as the seat of the city’s Orthodox prelate, the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg.

Clinton’s final stop before flying to Moscow was at the Hermitage Museum, housed in the magnificent 18th century Winter Palace and several adjoining buildings added by Catherine the Great overlooking the Neva River.

The president spent two hours strolling among the paintings, tapestries, books and gilded rooms of the palace. He inspected the new “Hidden Treasures Revealed” exhibit, which contains Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings looted from vanquished Germany at the end of World War II.