Summit Eve Anxiety Biggest Strain Is Moscow’s Objection To Nato’s Expansion Eastward

On the eve of the Clinton-Yeltsin summit, there are anxious words from the Kremlin and the White House.

The biggest strain by far is Moscow’s objection to the U.S.-promoted expansion of NATO eastward toward Russia’s borders. But tensions and uncertainty also linger about arms control, Boris Yeltsin’s health, the path of economic reform and a months-long vacuum in the top ranks in the Russian government.

No one is predicting breakthroughs in Helsinki.

“The relationship has deteriorated,” said Russian specialist Ilya Prizel of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It’s a very delicate moment. They are at a certain low point” after beginning to decline in late 1994 or early 1995.

Leon Aron, a Russian scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of a Yeltsin biography, agreed. “I have some strange premonitions about the summit,” he said. “I tend to be very optimistic about these summits, partly because of Yeltsin’s habit of creating a crisis and then coming in and pulling a rabbit out of the hat.” This time, however, he is worried about the outcome.

“On both sides, the presidents have very little room to maneuver,” Aron said. “The plate is extremely full and neither of these presidents is a foreign policy president, not a Gorbachev, not a Nixon or even a Bush.”

In their 11th meeting over the last four years, the two leaders will greet each other tonight at a dinner hosted by Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari at the Presidential Palace. That will be followed Friday by two rounds of meetings, followed by a joint news conference and a private dinner.

In recent weeks, a healthier Yeltsin has moved to reassert control and end the sense of drift in Moscow. He replaced his Cabinet with a team that the United States believes is more focused on economic reforms. As he prepared to leave Washington Wednesday night, President Clinton said he was encouraged by the appointments.

Despite repeated assurances, however, Clinton has been unable to convince Yeltsin that Russia has nothing to fear from NATO’s expansion, probably beginning with inclusion this summer of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

Clinton said the outlines of a proposed NATO-Russia charter would be discussed in Helsinki, and he reiterated that his goal was to build “a robust partnership” between the alliance and Russia.

Earlier in the day, Yeltsin’s spokesman Sergei Yastrzhembsky said Yeltsin was in a “very decisive mood” and warned that a compromise on NATO’s expansion was not likely this week.

As Yeltsin prepared to leave Moscow for Helsinki, Communist lawmakers proposed a resolution saying Russia should never become a member of NATO.