UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26

    Russian President Boris Yeltsin told the United Nations today that
Russia's priority interests lie in the newly independent nations of the
former Soviet Union, and he served notice that Moscow believes it has the
prime responsibility for ensuring peace and stability among those neighboring
states.
   Yeltsin, who joined President Clinton in addressing the opening session of
the U.N. General Assembly, echoed a theme that has been sounded with growing
frequency by Russian leaders in recent months - a theme that has stirred
concern in the West about whether resurgent nationalism could spur Russia to
assume an arbiter's role in Central Asia and other adjoining regions.
   Yeltsin, who begins a two-day meeting with Clinton in Washington on
Tuesday, said his country's "economic and foreign policy priorities lie in
the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States... . Russia's ties
with them are closer than traditional neighborhood relations; rather, this is
a blood relationship."
     Some diplomats and domestic critics of Clinton's foreign policy feel
that Washington's courting of Russian support in the U.N. Security Council
for the U.S.-led military intervention in Haiti was a mistake because it
revived the Cold War concept of spheres of influence.
    According to this argument, Russia can maintain that if the United States
can take such actions in the Caribbean, Russia has a similar right to
intervene in the smaller and weaker countries of its neighborhood. Some U.S.
officials said they are interested in seeing how strongly Yeltsin asserts
this position in his talks with Clinton this week.
    Yeltsin insisted today that Moscow's desire for greater political and
economic integration of the former Soviet republics is shared by those states
and has "a foundation of goodwill and mutual benefit."
    But he left no doubt that Russia considers conflicts in the region "a
threat to the security of our state," and he added: "The main peacekeeping
burden in the territory of the former Soviet Union lies upon the Russian
Federation."
   He also obliquely but unmistakably repeated a warning made last week by
Yevgeny Primakov, director of the Russian equivalent of the CIA. Primakov
said that efforts by the West to stand in the way of reintegration of the
former republics are "dangerous and should be reconsidered."
   "Attempts by others to use the tensions between the commonwealth states
for one's own advantage are extremely short-sighted," Yeltsin said.
   Despite complaints by many of these republics about Russian involvement
that sometimes has brought outright military intervention, Yeltsin insisted
that Russia's efforts have been a force for peace. "A solid truce has been
established in Moldova," he said. "The peace process in Georgia is
developing; the hope of stopping bloodshed in Nagorno-Karabakh is emerging;
and the first agreements on Tajikistan have been reached."
    Yeltsin said also that Russia's interest in its neighbors is not limited
to trying to sort out the tensions between different ethnic factions that
have plunged some of these states into bloody civil war. He also asserted a
right to protect the interests of "millions of Russians in the newly
independent states who looked on these places as home and who now live there
as guests - and not always welcome guests."
   "We can't stay indifferent to the fate of our countrymen," he said. "I do
not mean special rights or privileges. But the people of Russia will not
understand if I don't say now (that) the independent states have to prove
through their actions that guaranteeing the human rights of national
minorities is indeed the cornerstone of their foreign policy. And here
neither selective approaches nor double standards are permissible."
   Despite the bluntness of some of his language, Yeltsin insisted that he
was speaking as the leader of a country that has "removed the legacy of
totalitarianism and the Cold War"; that is embarked firmly on the road to
democracy and free-market economics; and that wants "a serious and fruitful
dialogue (with Clinton) leading to establishment of a strategic partnership
between Russia and the United States."
    In particular, he said, he wants to discuss with Clinton ways to speed up
conclusion of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty so it can be signed
next year on the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.
   He said he also intends to raise such collateral issues as further limits
on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals; further nonproliferation measures
and destruction of existing weapons of mass destruction; and guarantees to
nonnuclear states that will make them feel safe from the need to develop
their own nuclear capabilities.