Clinton-Yeltsin Summit Relocated From U.S. to Finland

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s health will not delay his planned meeting with President Clinton next month, but their summit will be moved from Washington to Finland to ease the journey for the ailing Russian leader, U.S. officials said Friday.

By changing the site to Helsinki, about a 90-minute flight from Moscow, the two leaders were able to keep their planned meeting on track despite Yeltsin’s weakened condition.

The Russian president, 66, suffers from heart problems, recently underwent bypass surgery and was stricken with pneumonia last month. He canceled a visit to the Netherlands earlier this month.

The summit will come at a critical time in U.S.-Russian relations because the agenda will be led by Russian concerns over expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--an issue that has stirred strong feelings in that country.

Clinton addressed those concerns Friday as he met at the White House with Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin. “No one has any intention of providing an increased threat to the security of Russia,” Clinton said in that brief public appearance.

Clinton said he remains hopeful that the March meeting will ease Russian fears about the Atlantic alliance.

But he also explained in blunt terms why Russian officials are dubious about the U.S. effort to expand NATO into Eastern Europe.

“The Soviet Union is no more. The Warsaw Treaty is no more,” he said. “Russia has become and is becoming a different democratic country. But NATO . . . has remained. What kind of NATO has remained? . . . We would like [them] to understand.”

Chernomyrdin was in Washington for two days of talks with Vice President Gore in the eighth meeting of the joint U.S.-Russian Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation.

Another uncertainty that hovered over the talks was the question of Yeltsin’s health. Asked about it Friday, Chernomyrdin hesitated for a moment and replied that, while Yeltsin has not completely recovered, “he does everything that he has to do in the country.”

Two complications--his heart condition and recent surgery and a bout with pneumonia--are “too serious for one person at such a short period,” the prime minister said. For that reason, Yeltsin cannot be in the office every day.

Gore said the leading U.S.-Russian issues for discussion at the March 20-21 Helsinki meeting will be arms control, European security and the Russian economy, with a focus on Western investment.

But it is the planned eastward expansion of NATO that continues to trouble Russian leaders. Specifically, the possibility that NATO will invite Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic to its meeting this July in Madrid is creating anger among hard-liners and ultranationalists, especially in the Russian parliament. U.S. officials have sought to mollify Russia with pledges that NATO has a peaceful intent and by encouraging diplomatic relations between Russia and the alliance.

“My whole vision of the future is a partnership of all of Europe’s democracies, obviously including Russia,” Clinton told Russian reporters during an Oval Office photo session with the prime minister. “So I think we’ll be able to talk about that and make some real progress.”

Indeed, both Gore and Chernomyrdin made it clear that NATO is the main issue of contention between Russia and the United States and, thus, will be the subject of major discussions in Helsinki. Gore said, “We had narrowed the range of disagreement, primarily by developing a clearer understanding of what each other’s perceptions and positions are.”

But they were obviously far apart on substance.

There is a widespread belief in Russia that a NATO enlarged with former Soviet Bloc countries such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic might pose a danger to Russia.

Chernomyrdin said he personally does not believe that an expanded NATO threatens Russia. But he quickly added: “It’s a matter of understanding what’s behind this process.”

Gore denied that the former Soviet Bloc countries want to join the alliance because they are afraid of Russia.

“I think that Russians sometimes hear that concern when it is not being expressed,” Gore said. “The desire of countries in Eastern and Central Europe to join NATO comes from a desire to have stability, peace, an atmosphere in which they do not feel it is necessary to devote a lot of their budgets to building up their own military forces.”