Yeltsin Says He’ll Sign Treaty With NATO

Dropping Russia’s growling reluctance to accept NATO as the future security framework for Europe, President Boris N. Yeltsin announced Thursday that his country will sign a treaty with the Western defense alliance in Paris next month.

“I want to announce here that on May 27 in Paris the leaders of NATO and Russia will sign a treaty,” Yeltsin said, slightly bemused by his own words, after a meeting with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Yeltsin has until now accepted only gentle nudging toward acceptance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s plan to extend membership to nations including former Soviet satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe--even from Kohl, his best friend in the West.

However, Kohl and U.S. officials cautioned that the NATO-Russian agreement is not a done deal.

NATO wants to issue the first invitations--to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic--at a Madrid summit July 8-9. Moscow wants to limit the stationing of alliance troops and weapons in Central and Eastern Europe, especially at Russia’s door, but NATO is reluctant to give sweeping guarantees that would condemn new members to second-class citizenship within the alliance. NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Wednesday that a deal with Russia might not be ready by May 27.

The idea of a treaty binding NATO to its Cold War-era enemy was first agreed to by Yeltsin and President Clinton at a summit last month in Helsinki, Finland. But the night before Yeltsin met Kohl, the Russian leader’s spokesman, Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, was still talking tough about the problems Russia had with negotiations.

However, Yeltsin’s views seemed to have evolved dramatically. Even the urbane Kohl was not quite as upbeat as the Russian president in his assessment of the progress made at their talks.

Kohl said he was confident that there could be a deal before the Madrid summit. But he referred repeatedly to a “document,” rather than the more formal “treaty” that Yeltsin says will be ready for signature next month, and said important differences remain to be ironed out. Although the first four parts of the planned deal are 90% worked out, Kohl said the fifth and final part--the military issues--still needs what the chancellor called “detailed” work. Both leaders declined to give more information.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns also expressed caution.

“Negotiations have not yet been completed, and so we can’t cite a victory before we have it,” he said. “But we hope very much that the optimism at the press conference today will be turned into reality in the substance of the negotiations.”

Yeltsin said he remains opposed to the alliance stationing conventional or nuclear arms in the territory of new members, and he hopes Kohl, an “authoritative politician,” will put his own weight behind Russia’s arguments.

Russia perceives Germany as its closest relative in the world community, and looks to Bonn for support--even if Kohl denies with a smile that he is Yeltsin’s “translator” to the rest of the West. Yeltsin made clear he wanted Kohl’s seal of approval for his new openness.

“For me it was very important that Helmut, my friend, supported the line I took with Clinton in Helsinki,” the frail-looking Russian president said, speaking haltingly and watched attentively by his wife, Naina, and Kohl himself. The Russian president had heart surgery last year and emerged from convalescence only in February.

Russia could be richly rewarded for going along with a NATO deal. Among the payoffs Yeltsin wants for his country are admission to powerful international policymaking institutions, such as the Group of 7 rich industrial nations and the Paris Club group of creditor nations.

Yeltsin said Kohl assured him of support and added that he thought Russia could get into the Paris Club next year.

The two leaders also discussed the controversial future of Russia’s treasure trove of “trophy art,” thousands of masterpieces removed from Nazi Germany by Soviet forces at the end of World War II and now in Russia. Both Germany and Russia claim the treasures.

Yeltsin, who says he wants to solve the problem in a “civilized” way, brought Kohl as a symbolic present half of the 1-ton archive of 1922 German Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau. He also announced that the papers of the East German Social Unity Party, held in Moscow since the 1970s, would be returned to Bonn.

Business also prospered. Under one deal signed, German banks will open for Russia a $2.5-billion credit to build a gas pipeline from northern Russia to Germany via Belarus, said Yastrzhembsky, Yeltsin’s spokesman.

The 66-year-old Yeltsin was invited to Germany to receive the “Man of the Year” prize awarded to him by the German media last year.