STUTTGART - President Yeltsin arrived in Germany yesterday at the start of a two day visit during which he will meet Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and receive a "Man of the Year" award from German media.
Mr Yeltsin landed at Stuttgart airport from where he travelled by road to the spa town of Baden Baden, where the formal part of the visit is to take place today. The talks between the two leaders, their second meeting in three months, are likely to focus on intensive efforts to negotiate a charter defining Russia's relationship with the expanding NATO alliance.
Also certain to be discussed is the most awkward issue in relations between Russia and its closest friend in the West - the fate of priceless art treasures taken from Germany by the Red Army at the end of the second World War.
Russia's upper house of parliament yesterday delayed a vote on the fate of the art treasures. Deputies decided to hold a written ballot on a law which would keep the art works in Russia, and this means a delay until May.