Clinton, Yeltsin Put Best Face on NATO Standoff

A confident Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin predicted Thursday that he and President Bill Clinton will “depart as friends” after this most trying of their 11 summits, but he put the onus on the U.S. side to back off from a head-on confrontation over NATO expansion.

Yeltsin and Clinton met face to face on the first day of their two-day summit at a ceremonial dinner. Protocol dictated against delving into the heated standoff over NATO, encouraging both presidents to exhibit the good humor that has long characterized their relationship.

With Clinton traveling in “Wheelchair One” while he recovers from knee surgery and the 66-year-old Yeltsin only recently reinvigorated after heart surgery and pneumonia, the principals at what has been dubbed the Summit of Invalids couldn’t help but make fun of each other.

“There were a lot of jokes, predictably about their health conditions,” Yeltsin spokesman Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky said of the two leaders, who were seated together for the dinner at the palace residence of Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, the summit’s host.

Describing the mood between Clinton and Yeltsin as “splendid,” Yastrzhembsky said the two presidents were “determined to resolve even the toughest problems” besetting their relations.

“The president and Yeltsin were clearly striking a tone for the meeting which seemed to be very positive. There was a lot of banter back and forth,” White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said.

The summit takes place against a backdrop of fiery rhetoric over plans by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to offer membership to some Eastern Europe nations this summer--a move that Clinton contends will enhance security and cooperation in Europe, while Yeltsin fears that it will inflict new divisions on the Continent and isolate Russia.

Yeltsin and other Kremlin officials have warned that expansion will destroy the trust built between East and West since the Cold War ended and force Moscow to turn to Arab and Asian powers in search of new allies.

Despite their seemingly irreconcilable differences over NATO enlargement, Clinton and Yeltsin appeared intent on putting the best face on the disagreement.

“I believe Bill Clinton and his team are prepared to find constructive approaches and compromise so that we can agree on all the thorny questions and depart as friends, as we have after all of our meetings,” Yeltsin said upon arrival, looking stronger and more vibrant than at any time since his July reelection.

Clinton also expressed hope that “we’ll work something out,” but neither he nor other U.S. officials gave any hint that they were prepared to make further concessions to the Kremlin.

“There are difficult issues there, but we remain confident that the expansion of NATO is the right formula for preserving an undivided, democratic, peaceful Europe as we look ahead to the 21st century,” McCurry said of Clinton’s apparent intention to stand by the alliance decision.

The not-to-worry pose struck at the palace dinner hinted that Clinton and Yeltsin may have decided to tone down the expansion dispute because they know they cannot resolve it.

Compromise is considered unlikely; their positions are diametrically opposed, and Yeltsin would lose face if he continued to spotlight a NATO plan he can do nothing to stop.

Asked if the leaders are likely to come to some agreement during their talks, Yastrzhembsky replied: “No agreements, but maybe some statements.”

While the prospect of eventual NATO membership has also been held out to Russia, the Kremlin has rejected application in favor of a charter that would define its relations with the Western military alliance.

Russian officials have insisted that NATO refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any new member states, extend no invitations to former Soviet republics and promise not to build up troops or conventional weapons along Russia’s border.

Yeltsin has said that he opposes expansion in any manner and that Russia will not be swayed by financial or political inducements to accept a move it considers a threat to its security.

Moscow has already been offered U.S. support for its inclusion in what until now has been known as the Group of 7 major industrial democracies--which would make it the G-8--and arms-control treaty revisions that would spare Russia the need to spend heavily to maintain nuclear parity.

As a further gesture aimed at reassuring Moscow that NATO expansion lacks any hostile motive, a senior U.S. official told reporters aboard Air Force One as Clinton flew to Helsinki that Washington is prepared to offer Russia a better deal on a potential START III agreement.

In return, Yeltsin would have to promise to push the already-negotiated second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START II, through the Russian parliament for ratification.

But Yeltsin has little sway with the unruly Duma, the Communist-dominated lower house of parliament, which can be counted on to torpedo any deal that would cast Yeltsin as a foreign-policy victor.

High-level meetings aimed at breaking the deadlock on NATO enlargement have dominated the two countries’ diplomatic agendas for the past month, but little progress has been made in muting Russian objections.

The Kremlin leadership is convinced that NATO’s plans “could be the West’s biggest strategic mistake since the end of the Cold War,” Yastrzhembsky told reporters on the eve of the summit.

Clinton’s previous meetings with Yeltsin have been comradely affairs, with the presidents clearly at ease with each other and focused on celebrating the warming trend in their countries’ relations since the collapse of Communist rule in Russia.

That today’s session between the two leaders is fraught with unfamiliar tension was clear from the cautious assessments of both sides’ aides about the chances for breaking the deadlock.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met for 45 minutes with Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, but a senior State Department official implied that little was resolved by their talks.

Earlier in the day, Albright had dismissed Yastrzhembsky’s dire warnings about the consequences of expansion as rhetoric aimed at forcing further concessions from the West.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster and Elizabeth Shogren contributed to this report.

* OFF ON THE WRONG FOOT? In “Wheelchair One,” Clinton steps onto the world stage aboard a catering truck. A12

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

What’s on the Table

A look at how proposed concessions brought by President Clinton to his summit with Russian President Boris Yeltsin could pave the way to reductions in U.S. and Russian long-range missile arsenals.

THE GOAL

To end an impasse in the Russian Duma over the 1993 START II treaty, which would have required the United States, by 2003, to reduce its arsenal of strategic warheads.

****

CLINTON’S NEW OFFER

In exchange for Yeltsin’s promise of ratification this spring, the United States would:

* Renegotiate the totals, driving them down to between 2,000 and 2,500, depending on the outcome of talks.

* Still require START II’s 2003 deadline for destroying warheads.

* Give Russia several years more to destroy the silos where banned missiles are deployed.

* Delay the required Russian breakdown of banned bombers and submarines.

Long-Range Warheads

U.S.:

Russia: