Russia Is Key to Undivided Europe, Clinton Tells Hosts

On the eve of his first visit in Moscow with the new Kremlin leader, President Clinton called Friday for an expansive embrace to reconcile Russia with the family of Europe and invite it into military and economic alliance.

“No doors can be sealed shut to Russia,” Clinton said, mentioning specifically those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. “The alternative would be a future of harmful competition between Russia and the rest, and the end of our vision of an undivided continent.”

The president’s open-arms approach precedes a potentially contentious weekend in Moscow. President Vladimir V. Putin’s new government has vehemently objected to a proposed U.S. missile defense system. And for a decade, post-Communist Russia has been wary of Western overtures to join in a security arrangement, even as it seeks the economic benefits of greater cooperation.

Clinton’s relaxed day in this ancient German capital offered a study in contrasts: Its centerpiece, a sweeping history lecture and salute to the new unity that draws Europe; its undercurrent, the still unsettled future of the Balkans and the new divisions posed by the proposed antimissile system.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder conveyed the Western European allies’ deep concerns about the missile shield. It is “the object of intensive debate” and is a program that could “have an impact far beyond the USA,” he said.

Clinton Honored for Contributions to Peace

The two leaders spoke in the cobblestone square of a city that 1,200 years ago was the center of a European empire ruled by Charlemagne that stretched from the North Sea to the Adriatic. Aachen, the first German city liberated by the Allies in World War II, sits at the corner where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet in a commercial crossroad of modern Europe.

Clinton came here to accept the 50th International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen, born out of the rubble of World War II and presented to recognize contributions to peace and unity in Europe. The president was cited for efforts at reconciliation in Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Northern Ireland and for his work “to preserve . . . ethical norms and the rule of law” in the Balkans.

Among previous honorees was Winston Churchill, the wartime prime minister of Britain. President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and King Juan Carlos of Spain, who are also previous recipients, joined Clinton at the ceremony.

Before Clinton sat the 650-year-old Rathaus, the traditional center of civic life that was heavily damaged during World War II bombing and has been rebuilt. Behind him was the city’s cathedral, which Charlemagne began and where the 8th century ruler is entombed. Clinton bowed slightly so the diminutive lord mayor of Aachen, Juergen Linden, could place the gold medal, which hung from a yellow and black ribbon, around the president’s neck.

The city’s history offered a metaphor for the president’s message of transatlantic unity built on a foundation that reaches beyond geography. Clinton wove into his remarks the sweep of European history, in all its humanity and horror.

“Borders built to stop tanks now manage invasions of tourists and trucks,” he said. “Europe’s fastest-growing economies are now on the other side of the old Iron Curtain.”

He added: “Last year, as German troops marched through the Balkan countryside, they were hailed as liberators.”

“What a way to end the 20th century,” he said, his reference to Germany’s role in the two world wars escaping no one.

Meanwhile, Russia, in geography both a European and Asian power, is still finding its way. “We do not yet know if Russia’s hard-won democratic freedoms will endure,” the president said.

“We must do everything we can to encourage a Russia that is fully democratic and united in its diversity; a Russia that defines its greatness not by dominance of its neighbors but by the dominant achievements of its people and its partnership; a Russia that should be--indeed, must be--fully part of Europe.”

Proposal Stirs Fears of Arms Race

Although Schroeder shared in Clinton’s celebration of the transatlantic alliance’s democratic achievements, from rebuilding post-Communist Eastern Europe to punishing ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the German leader seemed more troubled than his guest about the security pressures on Russia.

Germans remember the painful division of their country during the Cold War and the tense standoff between the nuclear-armed East and West. The proposed U.S. antimissile system brings into play the frightening prospect of renewed strife in Europe. The issue has united political forces across the spectrum on the Continent.

In a surprising departure from protocol during the festive ceremony, Schroeder reiterated Europeans’ deep concern that the missile shield could rekindle the arms race. The project “is the object of intensive debate within the alliance at present” and portends consequences far beyond U.S. territory, Schroeder said in his speech honoring Clinton.

Putin, whose inauguration last month marked the first peaceful and democratic transition of leadership in Russia’s 1,000-year history, has made clear that he regards the antimissile plan as a threat to the strategic military balance between the U.S. and his nation, if not to Russia itself. The system would be intended to protect the United States--and its partners, if extended to them--from long-range missiles. The U.S. is increasingly worried about the potential of a missile attack from terrorists or such states as North Korea and Iraq.

Putin is expected to tell Clinton today that the U.S. and Russia should build a missile shield together. He told NBC News on Thursday that the system under consideration in Washington is possible only if “we pool our efforts and direct them toward neutralizing the threats against the United States, Russia, our allies in Europe in general.”

But Russian analysts were skeptical about Moscow’s potential contribution. Pavel Y. Felgenhauer, defense analyst with the daily newspaper Sevodnya, dismissed the proposal as politically impossible because Congress would not pay money that would benefit the Russian military industrial complex.

Besides, he said, “Russia has absolutely nothing it could contribute. . . . Back in the 1960s, the Soviet Union decided that it was impossible to create an efficient direct-interception system, and that was it. No research and no work in this sphere has been conducted since then.”

Clinton and former Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin enjoyed a relaxed and jovial relationship, but Putin--a former KGB operative--strikes a decidedly less congenial pose that might make it difficult for Clinton to finesse their clashing views on the subject.

Schroeder, who will host Putin just a few days after Clinton’s Moscow visit, has sought to convey to the U.S. administration that Europeans tend to see Russia’s concerns about missile defense as grounds for more serious scrutiny of the project.

Despite that rumple in the diplomatic fabric, Schroeder showered praise on Clinton for keeping the U.S. engaged in Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall and for guiding the Continent through the violent upsets in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, a province of the dominant Yugoslav republic, Serbia.

Western European countries such as Germany owe a debt of gratitude to the U.S. for lifting them out of the post-World War II rubble, an obligation that can best be settled by taking a lead role in peacekeeping and relief efforts in the roiling Balkans, Schroeder suggested.

Looking a generation ahead, Clinton predicted a greatly changed Europe: the European Union grown to 30 members from its current 15 and a Europe grander “than Charlemagne ever dared dream.”

“Europe and America should draw strength from our transatlantic alliance,” Clinton said, “Europe should not be threatened by it. . . . For America has a permanent interest in a permanent alliance with Europe.”

The ceremony began with the uplifting Allegro vivace movement of Mozart’s “Jupiter” Symphony. It ended on a more somber, but also hopeful, note: a symphonic rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” score, redolent of ethnic strife and reconciliation.

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Times staff writer Robyn Dixon in Moscow contributed to this report.