NATO, Russia OK Pact Creating Joint Council

Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Wednesday agreed on a landmark pact that would pacify Russia on the contentious issue of alliance expansion into Central Europe and bring the two parties into close cooperation for the first time.

The accord was praised by Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, who said it will relieve Russia’s “anxiety” over the issue of NATO enlargement and give way to a “calm attitude.”

The long-awaited agreement, which would create a permanent Russia-NATO advisory council, declares that the Atlantic alliance has no immediate intention of basing nuclear weapons or “additional substantial” combat forces in countries that until recently were under Moscow’s control.

In Washington, President Clinton also applauded the agreement, saying, “Today in Moscow we have taken a historic step closer to a peaceful, undivided, democratic Europe for the first time in history.”

But hours after NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana and Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov struck the accord, Yeltsin and Clinton began expressing conflicting views on how much authority it would grant Russia.

The pact will be submitted to NATO’s member countries for approval, then probably signed May 27 in Paris at a 17-nation summit that would include Clinton and Yeltsin. In July, NATO is expected to invite at least three new members from the former Soviet bloc to join: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Russia has proved powerless to block the expansion of the alliance to its western border, but had sought concessions that would give the appearance, at least, that Moscow was still a force to be reckoned with.

Western officials said the Solana-Primakov pact was the result of “give” on both sides. But with little bargaining power, Moscow appears to have given a lot more than it got.

Russia gained only an advisory role and no direct power over NATO decisions, according to alliance officials. It also did not win the ironclad guarantees it sought that nuclear arms and additional combat troops would not be based in former Soviet bloc nations.

Nevertheless, in a national television interview Wednesday evening, Yeltsin attempted to put the best face on the agreement, contending it would give Russia veto power over NATO actions.

“The fact that the document is obligatory is clear,” he asserted. “Should Russia be against any decision, the decision will not pass. This is critically important.”

Yeltsin also declared that if the accord is ratified in Paris, NATO will be restricted in the forces and weaponry it can move into the new member countries. “This will be strictly observed, and they [armed forces] will not be deployed,” he said. “Nuclear arms will not be deployed, [and] the infrastructure remaining from the Warsaw Pact will not be used.”

Asked about the Russian president’s interpretation of the agreement, Clinton said NATO will have the flexibility it needs to deploy troops and equipment and use existing installations in the new member countries.

“Russia will work closely with NATO but not within--giving Russia a voice in, but not a veto over, NATO’s business,” Clinton said.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels, officials played down the conflicting views of the accord. “President Yeltsin has to sell the agreement to his people,” one NATO official said.

The official also suggested that Yeltsin’s remarks apply not to NATO but to the joint advisory council, where Russia will have a veto but will be unable to overrule the decisions of NATO itself.

“If Russia is against any decision, the council can’t take it,” the official said. “That’s what President Yeltsin means. But NATO can then go its separate way and do what it wants, and Russia can go do what it wants.”

The pact, officially to be called the “Founding Act,” would establish the Joint NATO-Russia Council, which would meet at least once a month, and at least twice a year at the foreign ministers’ level, NATO officials said.

Russia would participate in fixing the council’s agenda and could also establish its own military and diplomatic mission at the NATO compound in Brussels. In addition, Russian officers could be sent to NATO’s military commands in Europe to work as liaison officers.

Further, under the pact, NATO:

* Declares it “has no reason, no intention or no plan” in the existing environment to deploy nuclear weapons or build nuclear weapons storage facilities on the territory of former Soviet bloc nations.

* Says it has no plans to deploy new combat forces in any member country “in substantial numbers” under present circumstances.

* Pledges to work to amend the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, currently being renegotiated by its 30 signatories in Vienna, to make further cuts in the numbers of tanks and other weapons on the Continent.

* Agrees to reexamine NATO military doctrine and strategy.

In exchange for NATO’s commitments, Russia agreed not to object if NATO:

* Constructs common air defenses with its new members or uses existing military infrastructure in those nations.

* Stages joint military exercises with its new members.

* Uses NATO forces to reinforce those countries in the event of a military threat.

Russian negotiators had demanded serious security guarantees from the West for what seemed to many of their compatriots a political insult and a military menace. But in the end, the pact was designed to help Russia accept NATO enlargement.

Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy director of the USA-Canada Institute, a Kremlin think tank, said that Primakov, Russia’s former spymaster, “pushed NATO to the end of its concessions, to give all that it could give.”

Clinton said Russia agreed to the pact because it finally recognized that NATO has a new peacekeeping mission in Europe that does not threaten Russia.

“We’re looking for a partnership here between a democratic Russia and the democracies that are in NATO,” Clinton said. “This, in fact, will strengthen Russia’s security and reduce the sense of anxiety that it might have otherwise felt.”

Paddock reported from Moscow and Dahlburg from Paris.

* VICTORY FOR CLINTON: The NATO-Russian pact is a breakthrough for proponents of expanding the alliance. A9