FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER UPBEAT ON RUSSIAN REFORM.

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTER UPBEAT ON RUSSIAN REFORM.

Following talks yesterday in Moscow with President Boris Yeltsin and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, French foreign minister Herve de Charette said he was satisfied with the Kremlin’s determination to maintain democracy and economic reform in Russia. Although Primakov has been characterized as a hard-liner likely to confront the West, de Charette described the Russian foreign minister as "warm" and the relationship between France and Russia as a "privileged partnership." The meeting was Primakov’s first with a Western foreign minister. According to reports of his remarks, de Charette neither criticized Moscow for developments in Chechnya nor suggested that recent changes in the Russian government would cause it to abandon reform. De Charette claimed to understand Russian anxiety over proposed NATO enlargement, noting that the Russian government’s "desire not to create new boundaries of conflict in tomorrow’s Europe" should be considered concomitantly with the "interests of central European countries who want to enter the alliance." No documents were signed at the talks, which included discussion of the G-7 summit on nuclear security scheduled for April in Moscow. (10)

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