Russia Takes Steps Toward Closer Ties With NATO

NOORDWIJK, Netherlands —  Forty-six years after it was established as a bulwark against Soviet aggression, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization consummated a marriage of convenience with Russia on Wednesday, starting a new era of military and political cooperation between Cold War-era enemies.

Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev formally presented to foreign ministers of the Atlantic Alliance plans for NATO-Russian relations, which Moscow had refused to provide last December, a time when Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin warned of a coming “Cold Peace.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, probably the alliance’s chief advocate of closer ties with Russia, hailed Moscow’s decision to participate in NATO’s Partnership for Peace as crossing “the threshold into active engagement with NATO.”

“For Russia, for NATO and for Europe, this is a historic choice with enormously positive implications,” he said.

But there were clear misgivings on both sides.

Christopher and his NATO allies had to swallow warnings that Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya threatened to slow, or perhaps block, its integration with the West. And Kozyrev protested that NATO’s plan to open full membership to some Eastern European nations that were once satellites of the former Soviet Union could strangle the NATO-Russia dialogue at birth.

In his formal statement marking Russia’s acceptance of the new relationship, Kozyrev renewed his objections to NATO expansion, which he said “may threaten the establishment of truly mutually advantageous and constructive relations between Russia and NATO.”

“It will not create greater stability and security either,” he said.

Kozyrev called on NATO to transform itself from a military alliance to a purely political organization. If NATO’s purpose is defense, he said, “we would need to clarify whom NATO is going to defend itself against.”

NATO Secretary General Willy Claes sought to reassure the Russians that “the alliance considers no state its opponent.”

That may be so, but Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and other former members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact have applied for full NATO membership because of their concern that they would need Western protection should Moscow attempt to reconstitute its crumbled empire.

From the standpoint of the 16 NATO nations, the conflict in Chechnya has cast a long shadow over earlier visions of political and military cooperation across the old Cold War-era dividing line.

Claes told a news conference that Chechnya “is not a positive element” in the new relationship.

“We could have said [to the Russians], ‘You are not respecting human rights and we will interrupt all dialogue,’ ” Claes said. “I think it was wise to maintain the dialogue and to have a permanent channel of communication. . . . In maintaining the dialogue, we have the opportunity at every meeting to insist on the necessity of stopping immediately the violence.”

Despite Kozyrev’s renewed objections to NATO expansion plans, the atmosphere at this Dutch seaside resort offered a sharp contrast to the situation in December when the Russian foreign minister shocked NATO officials by refusing to go through with the carefully scripted step that he finally took Wednesday.

Later in the day, Christopher and Kozyrev agreed that U.S. and Russian military chiefs should have regular contact. A senior U.S. official said Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Russian Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev will probably confer next week.

NATO and Russian experts will begin negotiations within the next few weeks on a framework for the relationship. U.S. officials said the agreement will be more detailed than the documents exchanged Wednesday and will point the way to an eventual treaty.

Wednesday’s developments overshadowed the NATO expansion process, at least for now. The alliance plans to decide by December on the criteria for membership but will not begin picking new members until next year at the earliest.

While no decisions have been made about which countries will gain full membership, it is virtually certain that Russia will not be among them. Moscow is unsure it wants to join, and though the United States has said it would “not exclude the possibility” of eventual Russian membership, each of the other 15 NATO members has said they do not want Moscow in the club.

U.S. officials say this makes the emerging NATO-Russia relationship even more important because it will be the only liaison between the nuclear-armed alliance and the other nuclear superpower.

Technically, the NATO-Russia relationship is part of the 17-month-old Partnership for Peace, an organization open to former Soviet allies and European neutrals. So far, 26 countries have signed up; 14 of them have agreed to the sort of individual arrangements that Russia accepted Wednesday.

But there is no doubt that the NATO-Russia relationship is far more important than the others.

“With a country of Russia’s size and importance, it is inevitable that our relationship extends beyond the [Partnership for Peace] framework,” Claes said.

A senior U.S. official put it more starkly: “You can’t imagine a secure and peaceful Europe without a stable Russia.”