Yeltsin Not Planning to Attend NATO Summit, Aide Says
Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin has no plans to attend July’s NATO summit, at which membership will be offered to some former Soviet Bloc states, the Interfax news agency quoted his spokesman as saying Saturday.
“I will venture to say that participation at the forthcoming Madrid meeting . . . has never been seriously considered by the top Russian leadership,” said Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, noting that the Madrid summit did not appear on Yeltsin’s working schedule.
Kremlin officials declined to comment on whether the decision reflected a change in Yeltsin’s determination to sign a pact with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a month from now.
Yastrzhembsky said the Russian position on attending did not depend on getting an invitation to Madrid from the Western defense alliance. He added that Russian officials have plenty of opportunity to exchange opinions with NATO and its leading members.
Russian officials, led by Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, are urgently negotiating a treaty on Russian-NATO relations that Yeltsin said earlier this month he will sign in Paris on May 27.
The Kremlin, vehemently opposed to NATO expansion, wants a say in the enlarged bloc and formal security guarantees.
Some Western negotiators doubt that differences between the two sides can be overcome in a month.
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