Clinton, Yeltsin Open Talks Over Expansion Of Nato
Both on the mend, President Clinton and Boris Yeltsin opened talks Thursday struggling to calm tensions in the thorniest East-West dispute since the Cold War. Changing his tone from tough rhetoric, Yeltsin hoped for “compromises” while Clinton offered arms concessions.
Clinton said he was encouraged by the Russian president’s conciliatory remarks - after Yeltsin’s remark last Friday that this would be his “most difficult” summit ever with an American president. “I think we’ll work something out,” Clinton said. “I hope we will.”
The two leaders were deadlocked over the U.S.-led move to expand NATO eastward toward Russia’s borders. “We’re going to disagree on NATO enlargement,” said Sandy Berger, Clinton’s national security adviser.
The question of NATO expansion has been a sticking point between Washington and Moscow since 1994 but tensions have grown as the date nears for NATO’s July announcement of new members. The United States says NATO will invite states whether or not Moscow likes it. But Clinton and other leaders are trying to make the medicine easier for Yeltsin to swallow.
Six days after knee surgery, Clinton arrived in snowy Helsinki in a wheelchair, lowered from Air Force One in an accordion-lift food catering van. He smiled but looked uncomfortable.
Two hours later, Yeltsin stepped off his plane, walking stiffly but looking fit. Fifty pounds slimmer, Yeltsin is rebounding from quintuple bypass surgery followed by double pneumonia. He gave hearty handshakes to VIPs and stood unflinching in the cold for the Russian national anthem.
“We have difficult and serious talks ahead of us,” Yeltsin said. “I think that Bill Clinton and his team are in the same mood of looking for constructive approaches and compromises to all controversial questions, so that we can depart again as friends.”
In a mostly social evening, the two presidents met over dinner at the Presidential Palace on the waterfront by an open air market. Known for its opulent Hall of Mirrors, the palace is decorated with French crystal chandeliers dating from 1868. Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev held a summit at the palace in 1990.
Yeltsin spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said, “The working attitude for tomorrow is splendid.”
It was the 12th meeting between the two presidents and the first since Clinton’s trip to Moscow last April, before they each won re-election.
Clinton came to Helsinki with a package of arms control proposals aimed at soothing Russian fears that the West is seeking military advantage. The United States also hopes the package will encourage Moscow to ratify the START II arms control treaty, signed in 1993 but never put into effect.
Russian critics say the treaty is a bad deal that was accepted out of weakness. The pact sets a warhead limit of 3,500 on each side, down from pre-treaty levels of about 8,000. Importantly, it calls for elimination by 2003 of land-based nuclear weapons with multiple warheads, which would strip Russia of its SS-18, the most powerful weapon in its arsenal. Russia then would have to build single-warhead missiles it cannot afford.
The U.S. proposal would cut the warhead level by about an additional 1,000 warheads, reducing the limit to 2,000-2,500 for each side.
Also, Yeltsin would be offered a delay of several years in the 2003 deadline for Russia to destroy silos in which banned missiles are deployed and for scrapping banned bombers and submarines.
Clinton’s team described the proposal as negotiating guidelines for START III. In return, Clinton wants a “clear, unequivocal commitment” from Yeltsin that the Russian parliament would ratify START II this spring. Republican leaders in the House sent Clinton a letter cautioning against “surprise concessions” on U.S. missile defenses.
On NATO, Russia adamantly opposes enlarging the 16-nation Western military alliance, born at the dawn of the Cold War to deter any Soviet aggression. NATO’s first new members are likely to be three former Soviet satellite states: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.