Yeltsin Expects Summit Will Focus On Nato Russian Leader Forecasts ‘Most Difficult’ Meeting With Clinton

President Boris Yeltsin said Friday the dispute over NATO’s expansion would be the top issue at next week’s summit with President Clinton, and the talks would be his “most difficult” ever with an American leader.

Clinton and Yeltsin have met regularly in recent years and have a warm relationship. But the Russian leader said he would lay out his objections to a plan to bring former Soviet bloc nations in Eastern Europe into NATO.

“What the Americans are proposing - moving conventional weapons to the territory of Eastern Europe - would amount to a ‘cordon sanitaire’ around Russia,” Yeltsin said. “We won’t go along with that.”

“We are not going to make concessions that would weaken our country’s defense capacity,” Yeltsin told Russian journalists.

Russian political and military leaders are unanimously opposed to NATO expansion, though they acknowledge there’s virtually nothing they can do to stop it. In recent weeks, the two sides have been discussing ways to allay Moscow’s concerns, though no breakthroughs have been announced.

But in Washington on Friday, a senior U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said the Clinton administration rejects any attempts by Russia to limit NATO expansion or the weapons arsenals new members may bring into the military alliance.

Yeltsin predicted Friday that the talks with Clinton would be “the most difficult” with an American president since Yeltsin came to power in 1991, though he said there was also room to negotiate.

“In a recent telephone conversation, Clinton led me to understand that the United States is interested in a compromise. I’m for it, too,” the Russian president said. “We stand for a compromise that wouldn’t infringe on Russia’s security.”

The two leaders will meet March 19 in Helsinki, Finland, for talks on issues including arms control and economic cooperation. But Yeltsin stressed that the NATO question would be the dominant matter.

NATO’s first batch of new invitations are expected to be sent this summer to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

The Western alliance has held talks with former Soviet republics, including Ukraine. None is expected to be offered membership in the foreseeable future, though the three Baltic states are eager to join.

Yeltsin said that the former Soviet republics “should under no circumstances be brought into NATO.”

Russian leaders, he said, were alarmed about recent trips by NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana, who has been to many of the former Soviet republics, and was in Turkmenistan on Friday wrapping up a swing through Central Asia.

Also Friday, Yeltsin’s spokesman said the composition of Russia’s reorganized government will be announced early next week. The president ordered the Cabinet reshuffle this week saying he was unhappy with the current government’s handling of pressing economic and social problems.