NATO's secretary-general and Russia's foreign minister reached agreement Wednesday on a vital charter linking Russia with the Western military alliance that was its Cold War enemy.
The pact, reached in talks that lasted nearly all night, still needs approval from NATO governments and the Kremlin. If enacted, it would remove the last obstacle to NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe.No details of the agreement were released. But both sides praised it as a major accomplishment.
"The president's vision of an undivided, democratic, peaceful Europe will be greatly enhanced by closer cooperation between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance," White House spokesman Mike McCurry said in Washington.
"It is a great victory of wisdom, a victory for the international community, a victory for Russia and other countries that want peace," said Russian Foreign Minister Yev-geny Primakov.
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana called Primakov a tough and intelligent negotiator and said they had finally "hammered out an accord that is suitable for all parties."
The breakthrough came after Solana conferred Wednesday by telephone with Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
Russia bitterly opposes the alliance's plans to offer membership to former Soviet satellites but cannot block the expansion. The Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary are expected to be invited to join the alliance this summer.
In an effort to ease Russian concerns, the two sides have been trying for months to reach the new agreement.
Russia wants the document to be ready for signing at a Russia-NATO summit in Paris on May 27. Aides say President Clinton is willing to go to Paris to attend the signing.
Among the biggest sticking points during negotiations was NATO's refusal to guarantee that it will not put nuclear weapons on the territories of new members. The alliance says it has no plans to do so but won't rule out such a move in the future.
Moscow and NATO also differed on possible limits on the number of combat troops that NATO can move to territories of new members. The two sides agreed that the alliance will not station "significant" numbers of troops in new member states, but they disagreed until the end on what qualifies as "significant."