Russia Needs Investors, Not Aid, Clinton Says

Signaling the start of a new chapter in relations between the United States and Russia, President Clinton said Monday that the two nations should build “a normal economic relationship,” not one based on American subsidies.

Concluding his first summit with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, Clinton acknowledged that Russia must find its own path in the post-Yeltsin era and that the U.S. must resist the temptation to think it has all the answers.

“Clearly, Russia has entered a phase when what it needs most is outside investment, not aid,” Clinton said in an address to Russia’s parliament. “What Americans must ask is not so much what can we do for Russia, but what can we do with Russia to advance our common interests and lift people in both nations.”

Clinton, taking what is expected to be his last trip to Russia while in office, became the first U.S. president to address the Duma, the lower house of parliament. He used the 45-minute speech to lay out his vision of how the two nuclear powers can overcome differences and cooperate in the future.

Barely hinting at the alleged atrocities of Russian troops in Chechnya, Clinton painted an optimistic picture of Russia’s rebound from the economic collapse of 1998 and urged the Duma to aim for membership in the World Trade Organization.

“When we look at Russia today, we do not see an experiment gone wrong,” he said. “We see an economy that is growing, producing goods and services people want. We see a nation of enterprising citizens who are beginning, despite all of the obstacles, to bring good jobs and a normal life to their communities.”

Clinton’s speech received a lukewarm reaction. Scores of Duma deputies did not bother to show up, and only parts of the address were broadcast on Russian television.

Many Russians are still angry at the United States for its leading role in the bombing of Yugoslavia last year by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Some also blame the Clinton administration for urging Russia to embrace “market reforms” during the 1990s that contributed to widespread corruption and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few powerful oligarchs.

“It was a totally false speech,” said Tula Gov. Vasily A. Starodubtsev, a hard-line Communist who attended the speech. “The man who took a direct part in helping rob our country bare is behaving today as if he had nothing to do with it at all. What cooperation can he talk about if Russia is being used as a second-rate country, whose raw materials are siphoned off on a daily basis by the West, America included?”

Boris Gryzlov, leader of the pro-Putin Unity faction in the Duma, was more complimentary, calling the address “thought out, balanced and quite well prepared.”

“The most important thing in this speech is that Clinton defined Russia as one of the most important European states and said that a stable and prosperous Europe cannot be built without the participation of Russia,” he said.

The speech followed a series of meetings between Clinton and Putin that dealt primarily with arms control and the U.S. proposal to modify the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. While the summit did not produce any breakthroughs, it did result in a slight shift in each country’s position.

Russia, which had accused the U.S. of exaggerating the potential threat from so-called rogue states, agreed for the first time that countries such as North Korea and Iran pose “a dangerous and growing threat . . . [that] represents a potentially significant change” in the international nuclear balance.

In return, Russia won a pledge from the Clinton administration to use the ABM treaty to address the threat from such countries, rather than completely abandoning the treaty as many Republicans suggest. Clinton committed himself to efforts “to strengthen the ABM treaty and enhance its viability and effectiveness in the future.”

The United States also agreed to link its primary goal--building a missile defense system--to deeper cuts in each side’s nuclear arsenal, which is Russia’s top priority. Russia cannot afford to maintain its arsenal at much above 1,500 missiles, fewer than the 2,500 both sides are allowed under the START II treaty. The Kremlin wants Washington to maintain nuclear parity by agreeing to a limit of 1,500, a level the Pentagon has said is too low.

Two hours before Clinton’s departure from Moscow, Putin flew to Rome to push his own missile defense plan, in which Russia and NATO would develop a system to intercept missiles at their launch rather than the higher-altitude targeting envisioned by the Americans.

The Russian leader told Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato during a two-hour meeting that his plan would lead to “a common, joint, European antimissile defense system.”

“On one hand, it would avoid all the problems linked to the balance of force,” Putin told reporters. “On the other, it would permit in an absolute manner a 100% guarantee of the security of every European country.”

The Russians had already broached the plan with U.S. officials. Without rejecting it, Clinton said it would take at least 10 years to develop the required technology, while the threat of long-range missiles from “rogue” states was more immediate.

Putin’s gesture in Rome was a pitch for closer Russian ties with Europe. On his first visit to the West since his inauguration, the former KGB official also met for half an hour with Pope John Paul II, appealing for Vatican help in “the process of integration between East and West.” He is to meet Italian business leaders today.

While Putin was taking his first steps on the world stage, Clinton had the air of a statesman imparting his final wisdom before he exits. At the Duma, he noted that he had visited Russia five times as president and twice as a young man, far more than any other U.S. president.

Acknowledging that Russia’s hopes and expectations of democracy and free markets had not been realized, Clinton said Russia has suffered from “unfulfilled expectations” and “unexpected difficulties” over the past eight years.

“I know the people of Russia do not yet have the Russia they were promised in 1991,” he said.

Speaking from a blond wood lectern decorated with the double-eagle symbol of Russia, Clinton told the Duma that it was up to the United States and Russia to take responsibility for their shared future. “We are not destined to be adversaries,” he said. “But it is not guaranteed that we will be allies.”

Outside, demonstrators pressed up against a police barricade across the broad Okhotny Ryad street where the Duma is situated in the chunky, Soviet-style office building once occupied by Gosplan, the state economic planning agency.

About 100 people, some of them waving the red hammer-and-sickle flag of the Communists, carried signs denouncing the proposed U.S. missile defense system as “a threat to the world.”

As he has in nearly every speech he delivers in the United States these days, Clinton urged ethnic, racial and religious reconciliation. But that message has particular meaning now in Russia, as its troops carry out a brutal war against separatist rebels in Chechnya.

“I know when trying to come to grips with these problems, these old problems of the modern world, the United States and Russia have faced some of our greatest difficulties in the last few years,” he said. “I know you disagreed with what I did in Kosovo, and you know that I disagreed with what you did in Chechnya.”

After the Duma appearance, Clinton visited former President Boris N. Yeltsin at his residence outside Moscow. Yeltsin, who was frequently ill during his second term, stepped down Dec. 31 and named Putin his successor. The choice was ratified by voters in March.

Clinton and Yeltsin, who enjoy a first-name relationship, talked for 40 minutes over tea and cakes baked by Yeltsin’s wife, Naina. Clinton told reporters afterward that Yeltsin was “in good spirits.”

“He’s got a beautiful place,” Clinton said. “We all just had a nice visit, just like old days. He’s in good shape.”

Clinton returned to Washington late Monday and was scheduled to meet Jordanian King Abdullah II today at the White House.

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Times staff writers Maura Reynolds in Moscow and Richard Boudreaux in Rome contributed to this report.

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CHERNOBYL TO CLOSE

Ukraine announced that it will close the entire Chernobyl nuclear plant in December. A6