MIGRANYAN CATEGORICALLY OPPOSED TO NATO ENLARGEMENT.

A Presidential Council member offered a markedly different analysis of Russian policy vis-a-vis NATO expansion in a May 15 Russian daily. Andranik Migranyan suggested that Moscow had been too flexible in its dealings with the Western alliance and that its willingness to accommodate the West had been interpreted as a sign of weakness. What Migranyan describes as recent indications that NATO still reserves the right to station nuclear weaponry in Eastern Europe signal the bankruptcy of Russian policy, he argues. The belief of Russian diplomats that the Partnership for Peace program would serve as an alternate to enlargement has also proved misguided, Migranyan writes. He calls for Moscow to return to making clear its categorical opposition to NATO enlargement and suggests that compromise proposals will come from the Western alliance, or certain of its members, as the import and the consequences of their desire to expand NATO become clear to them. (Moskovskaya pravda, May 15)

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