European Summit Seeks Arms Cuts

A European security conference approved plans to seek further cuts in conventional arsenals across the continent, a process the United States and Western allies hope will establish a new military balance and ease Russia’s hostility toward NATO expansion. But in a tough speech that dismayed Western leaders, Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin insisted that North Atlantic Treaty Organization enlargement would create a dangerous fault line between East and West at a time when the continent should be striving to heal the old breach. “We have declared clearly, and declare clearly now, our firm opposition to the North Atlantic alliance’s plans to move itself and its military infrastructure toward our territory,” Chernomyrdin said at a two-day conference in Lisbon of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.