FINLAND: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT YELTSIN RETURNS HOME FROM HELSINKI SUMMIT скачать в хорошем качестве

FINLAND: RUSSIAN PRESIDENT YELTSIN RETURNS HOME FROM HELSINKI SUMMIT

(22 Mar 1997) Russian/Nat Russian President Boris Yeltsin returns home to Moscow having made a promise to Bill Clinton at the Helsinki Summit which may prove hard to keep. Yeltsin told the U-S president he would persuade parliamentarians in the Duma to back the START II arms reduction treaty. He also said Russia is interested in joining the European Union. But Yeltsin's political foes are already condemning his summit deals with the West as a betrayal. On the move and on the mend; Boris Yeltsin swept into the Finnish Presidential Palace on the last day of his first overseas trip since heart surgery. His performance here against U-S President Bill Clinton has been judged internationally as a diplomatic success. Yeltsin is not only back to health, but back in political terms as a force on the world stage. However, his boast to Clinton that Russia's State Duma can be counted on to back the arms reduction treaty may prove hard to keep. His Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov dismissed such worries, saying the deals worked out by Yeltsin in the Finnish capital will soften the Duma's hard line position. SOUNDBITE: "The decisions made yesterday largely correspond to the demands that have been voiced in the Duma" SUPERCAPTION: Yevgeny Primakov, Russian Foreign Minister And it's not just arms reduction which may prove a problem to sell back home. Yeltsin failed to stop NATO expansion eastwards towards Russia's borders - a fact his critics have already leapt on as a Kremlin betrayal of national interest. Yeltsin admits not everything he wanted to achieve at the summit was in the end possible. SOUNDBITE: (Russian) "Of course, not everything went smoothly during our talks yesterday - on a number of questions particularly that of former Soviet states joining NATO, we could find no agreement but that does not mean that we should let these disagreements ruin the partnership of our two countries Russia and the U-S-A." SUPER CAPTION: Boris Yeltsin, Russian President The Kremlin dialogue with the West needs to evolve further, for reasons other than just defence. Russian entry into the so-called G-7 group of industrialised nations was agreed this week and Yeltsin also said, apparently for the first time, that Russia is interested in joining the European Union. Membership of the G-7 will go some way to helping the Russian economy and towards keeping its people fed and in employment. That, in turn, will help Yeltsin deflect criticism on NATO and arms reduction - amongst ordinary citizens at least. As he heads home; it may come as some comfort to know that Bill Clinton will have a few problems himself getting the arms reduction deal past his political opponents in the U-S Congress. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...