Summit Gets a Rave Preview Bosnia Not Seen As Casting a Pall Over Clinton, Yeltsin Talks

Thomas W. Lippman (Washington Post Staff Writer)

(C) 1994 The Washington Post (LEGI-SLATE Article No. 212849)

    When three senior Clinton administration officials gave reporters an
upbeat preview yesterday of next week's Washington summit conference between
President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin, none volunteered a
mention of Bosnia.

    The conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where winter is imminent but peace is
not, offers the most serious short-term potential source of disagreement
between Washington and Moscow. But officials of both sides said yesterday
that while Clinton and Yeltsin will certainly discuss it, tactical
differences over the war there will not be allowed to overshadow what they
said will be a productive summit meeting that will stress economic
cooperation.
    With Yeltsin now in firm control of the Russian political scene and his
country's economy somewhat stabilized, nothing remains of the crisis
atmosphere that characterized previous summit meetings between Yeltsin and
U.S. presidents, officials of both countries said. Bosnia is an irritant, but
it is secondary to such issues as the future relationship between Russia and
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, they said.
    Clinton has told Congress that if the Bosnian Serbs have not accepted a
proposed peace agreement based on a partition of Bosnia by Oct. 15, he will
ask the United Nations Security Council to lift the embargo on arms sales to
the mostly Muslim Bosnian government.
    Russia, which along with the United States, Britain, France and Germany
is a member of the "Contact Group" of nations that drafted the partition plan
and is pressing the Serbs to accept it, strongly opposes lifting the arms
embargo. Britain and France also oppose it, arguing that it would only widen
the war and would probably force them to withdraw the peacekeeping troops
they have stationed in Bosnia.
    Conversely, Russia is seeking an easing of an international embargo on
the government of Serbia, former patron of the Bosnian Serbs, because Serbia
has closed its border with Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia. The United States
is not prepared to take that step. The result is "serious strains developing
in the contact group," a senior State Department official said earlier this
week.
    Creation of the Contact Group has been "a big success" since the last
Clinton-Yeltsin summit, a White House official said. "But we and the Russians
don't share the same view on tactics." He said this was a "big issue" between
the two countries, but not one that would sidetrack a summit that both sides
said will look forward to new areas of cooperation rather than backward at
past disputes. Clinton and Yeltsin "will certainly discuss Bosnia," another
senior official said yesterday. "The Russians do not view lifting the embargo
with equanimity. But we believe our goals are not contradictory."
    "As long as the Bosnian Serbs refuse to accept the peace plan,
differences will occur, but we believe we can find a compromise," said Sergei
Karaganov, a foreign policy adviser to Yeltsin. "Why should we have a
confrontation over an issue of secondary importance to you and to us?"
      Yeltsin is officially on a state visit, complete with a White House
dinner Tuesday night, only the second of Clinton's administration. Yeltsin
will be the first Russian or Soviet leader to stay at Blair House rather than
at the Russian embassy, U.S. officials said.
    Neither side is planning to offer any major new nuclear arms reduction
initiatives. But the two presidents are scheduled to have extensive
discussions on nuclear security issues such as secure storage of nuclear
weapons materials, traffic in nuclear contraband and efforts to win
ratification in Congress and the Russian parliament of the START II arms
reduction treaty.
   The agenda is heavy on trade and investment issues, including a session
with senior business executives who will tell Yeltsin that U.S. corporations
are prepared to invest billions in Russia provided the Russian government
provides a stable legal framework and brings organized crime under control.