MOSCOW - President Yeltsin said yesterday next week's Russia US summit in Helsinki would be the hardest since he became Russian President in 1991 and he stepped up opposition to NATO membership for any former Soviet republics.
Mr Yeltsin (66) said differences over NATO's expansion plans could prove unbridgeable at the summit next Wednesday and Thursday with President Clinton, but he told Russian media chiefs that would not be a tragedy and he was ready for compromise.
The talks "will be the hardest in all the history of Russian American relations", Interfax news agency quoted Mr Yeltsin as saying. But he added "In a recent telephone conversation Clinton made clear the United States is interested in compromise, and so am I. We are for a compromise which would not abuse the security of the Russian Federation."