Yeltsin Hints Again at Land-Mine Ban

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin sent another perplexing signal Monday about his country’s readiness to join an international convention banning land mines, hinting that he might attend the pact’s signing in Canada in December.

But government officials quickly reiterated the many obstacles they see to Russia signing on to a global ban on the use of antipersonnel mines.

“We are not talking here about a sharp turnabout in Russia’s attitude toward this process,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Valery Nesterushkin said of Yeltsin’s comments.

Like the United States and China, which oppose the treaty, Russia kept its distance from the drafting of the document, which nearly 100 other states concluded at a conference in Norway last month. As a major producer of land mines that are used extensively by the military and security services, Russia would have difficulty--logistically, economically and politically--meeting the strict terms of the ban.

Nesterushkin said Russia has been demonstrating its theoretical support for a ban on land mines since introducing its own prohibition on their export from Russia last year. But to sign the convention in Ottawa would commit the cash-strapped government to a timetable for removing mines already in use that Moscow would be unable to comply with, he said.

Yeltsin’s verbal endorsement of the treaty was made in a formal statement Monday after his talks here with visiting Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, who will host the signing ceremony in Ottawa.

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In the joint statement, Chretien was quoted as urging Russia toward “the rapid joining” of the convention, to which Yeltsin replied that he “agreed with this opinion.” He told reporters later that he “could not rule out” traveling to Ottawa to be on hand for the signing.

The campaign against land mines was a personal cause of Britain’s late Princess Diana and won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for a group of activists headed by American Jody Williams.

Yeltsin first alluded to a change in Russia’s position after the Nobel announcement Oct. 10, saying that day that his country was ready to sign the convention, without making clear when.

That statement--made during a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac at a summit of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France--set off a storm of opposition in Russia, where Communists and nationalists cast any arms concessions made by the Kremlin as further evidence that Yeltsin and his government are being duped by Western adversaries into eroding the national security interests of Russia.

The comments were “nothing more than a fine gesture made for the benefit of Jacques Chirac,” the newspaper Izvestia stated. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, another daily, dismissed the statement as “pure populism” for a Western audience.

Russia’s borders extend for thousands of miles through mountainous and insecure terrain, making the use of land mines to deter intruders the only logical option for protection, Nesterushkin said. Mines are also needed, he said, to ensure against terrorist attacks at nuclear and chemical production sites.

At least 60 million mines are believed to be stockpiled or in use throughout Russia, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported.

Were Russia to join the convention banning land mines, Yeltsin’s signature on the treaty would have to be endorsed by the Duma, the lower house of parliament, which is dominated by his political opponents.

Yeltsin would also face fierce resistance from the military, which is poorly funded and commanded by many holdovers from the Soviet era already seething over the loss of most of Russia’s nuclear arsenal and its superpower status.