Yeltsin Vow to Remove Warheads Stuns NATO

PARIS — Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin signed his country’s historic post-Cold War charter with NATO on Tuesday and then upstaged even that act with a stunning declaration that he will remove all nuclear warheads currently threatening nations belonging to the Western alliance.

In an unscripted announcement after President Clinton proclaimed “a great day” marking the end of East-West confrontation, Yeltsin took the floor at the ornate Elysee Palace ceremony to say he had just decided to withdraw any nuclear weapons targeting NATO states.

“I, today, after having signed the document, am going to make the following decision,” Yeltsin said in his surprise second speech celebrating the accord. “Everything that is aimed at countries present here, all of those weapons are going to have their warheads removed.”

Yeltsin’s bombshell, delivered in Russian, met with polite and confused applause from those gathered to endorse the charter that allows Russia to live with NATO expansion into East European countries that were once part of the Soviet Union’s political orbit.

It also set off a furious round of explanations among Russian and Western leaders and their top security advisors. Taken literally, Yeltsin’s remarks suggested a step that would go beyond anything yet agreed to in arms control negotiations.

But doubts about their precise meaning, as well as his ability to carry them out, added a mystery to what was supposed to be a meticulously orchestrated signing ceremony. On both the U.S. and Russian sides, some experts said Yeltsin had meant to convey a less significant change of “de-targeting” the missiles while leaving the warheads intact.

“This was totally unexpected. We’re all in shock,” commented Sergei Kazakov, head of Yeltsin’s presidential press service.

“You know as much as I do,” said Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger, the U.S. national security advisor, moments after Yeltsin’s remarks.

Yeltsin has already assured the United States that no nuclear warheads are aimed at its territory, but the number of Russian weapons aimed at Western Europe is unknown.

The backdrop for Yeltsin’s impromptu announcement was a series of speeches conciliatory toward Russia made by Clinton and other leaders gathered for the ceremony intended to showcase the prospects for a peaceful, undivided Europe. In July, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization plans to accept a group of new members--most likely Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic--that will push its collective border substantially closer to Russia.

In his comments, Clinton described the NATO-Russia agreement as a step toward building a radically different Atlantic alliance, “directed no longer against a hostile bloc of nations, but instead designed to advance the security of every democracy in Europe--NATO’s old members, new members and nonmembers alike.”

“This new NATO will work with Russia, not against it,” the president continued, adding that the goal is to “create a future in which European security is not a zero-sum game where NATO’s gain is Russia’s loss and Russia’s strength is our alliance’s weakness.”

“That is old thinking,” Clinton said. “These are new times.”

Yeltsin, Clinton said, had demonstrated “courage and vision and an unbelievable capacity to imagine a future that is different from the past that imprisoned us.”

The Russian president appeared delighted by the tone of his American counterpart, at one point patting Clinton on the shoulder as the U.S. president spoke in a room full of brilliant crystal chandeliers hanging from an elaborately sculpted, gilded ceiling.

After a brief break, Yeltsin, who had spoken already, returned to the podium to thank “Bill” for the “excellent statement.” The Russian leader then unleashed his surprise declaration, which dominated attention for the rest of the day.

Yeltsin’s disarmament proposal was as much a surprise to his own delegation as to the 16 Western leaders and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana.

Even Yeltsin’s press secretary, Sergei V. Yastrzhembsky, tried to play down the significance of the president’s declaration, suggesting that his promise to remove warheads was simply a different way of describing an ongoing effort to deprogram the weapons.

“The president means that the warheads will not be targeted at the states which have signed the [NATO-Russia] Founding Act,” Yastrzhembsky later told reporters.

Yastrzhembsky described Yeltsin’s statement as a goodwill gesture and said the president expects the warheads eventually to be dismantled.

Despite the confusion, other leaders showered praise on Yeltsin and offered their own optimistic visions of Europe’s future as Cold War-era confrontations come to an end.

“For decades, our European continent was divided,” said German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. “No nation suffered more grievously than we Germans, with the iron curtain running right through our country’s heart.” The NATO-Russia joint agreement, he added, “is without parallel in history. It is clear and visible proof that the division of Europe has now been overcome.”

Later, Clinton and Yeltsin met for an hour and went over a range of subjects, including NATO, arms control, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Afghanistan and Iran.

With his unexpected departure from the planned events of the Russia-NATO summit here, Yeltsin may have been trying to recover the initiative at a ceremony that some interpreted as the culmination of NATO’s triumph in expanding the alliance over Russian objections.

By making a spontaneous gesture aimed at enhancing European security, Yeltsin may have wanted to remind the NATO allies that he still holds important cards with his nuclear arsenal.

But he also raised fresh concerns about his health and reliability as the ruler of a nuclear power. While the attempts of his aides to put a different interpretation on his precise words were predictable, the protective reaction of U.S. officials claiming the Russian president was mistranslated suggested that Western leaders are also conscious of Yeltsin’s propensity to play the role of loose cannon.

The 66-year-old Russian president has a history of erratic behavior at high-profile international forums, although his outbursts have rarely spilled into the sensitive spheres of arms control and East-West diplomacy.

Yeltsin looked alternately playful and fatigued during the nearly two-hour-long signing ceremony, clowning before the cameras as he signed the charter with a theatrical sigh. During the succession of speeches by all the NATO leaders, however, he appeared tired and at times inattentive.

Western officials at the summit expressed both pleasure and bafflement at Yeltsin’s action.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright blamed the confusion on a bad translation, maintaining that Yeltsin was referring to the less drastic change of “de-targeting.” His actual words, however, meant removing the warheads.

Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov suggested that Yeltsin meant to promise no further targeting of NATO states, the Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported. Any removal of warheads, Primakov said, would be “subject to negotiation.”

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall in Paris and Vanora Bennett in Moscow contributed to this report.