Clinton: Russia to accept Baltics in NATO

LISBON - Moscow will eventually accept NATO's eastwards expansion to countries along its borders, including the three Baltic republics, U.S. President Bill Clinton said during a two-day USA-EU summit held in Portugal.

"Countries such as Russia and other former Soviet republics that are against NATO enlargement will eventually come to see NATO as partners and not adversaries," Clinton told reporters at a press conference held at an 18th century palace just outside of Lisbon on May 31.

Portugal currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

Clinton made the comment after being asked for his opinion on the so-called "Big Bang" expansion proposal made by the foreign ministers of the nine NATO candidate countries at a conference held in Vilnius in mid-May. Under this proposal, which was engineered by Lithuania, all nine candidate nations would be invited to join the alliance at its 2002 summit.

Moscow opposes NATO membership for any nation of the former Eastern bloc, but has taken a particularly tough stand against the inclusion of the Baltic republics in the military alliance.

Many Russians, raised during the Cold War to see NATO as a potential invader, are uncomfortable with the idea that the alliance could now include nations formerly part of their territory.

Russian leaders have said a "red line" would be crossed if the Ukraine or any of the Baltic states, were to join NATO.

The three Baltic republics are the only nations of the nine currently lined up to join NATO which were once part of the U.S.S.R. Moscow maintains that all former Soviet republics belong to its sphere of influence.

But Latvia, along with its Baltic neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, have made NATO membership a foreign policy priority since regaining their independence after 50 years of Soviet occupation in 1991.

NATO has tried to calm Russian fears over eastern expansion by promising not to place any nuclear weapons near Russian borders. And since the creation of a joint NATO-Russian Council in 1997, Moscow has received regular updates about NATO' s policies.

Clinton said he was confident this sort of cooperation would continue -and it would reduce Moscow´s unease about NATO expansion.

"We will see further cooperation and integration, that is what I see happening," said President Clinton.

NATO expanded to include the former east bloc nations of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1998. NATO officials have said in the past that no new decisions on enlargement would be made before 2002.

Clinton travelled from Portugal on to Germany and then to his fifth official visit to Russia for his first meeting with Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin.