U.S. EMBASSY DOWNPLAYS SPYING INCIDENT.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said yesterday that a spy case publicized a day earlier by the Russian media was an old one and had not caused any diplomatic fallout between Moscow and Washington. Representatives of the embassy were nevertheless reported by a Russian source to be conducting closed-door discussions with the Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the incident. An anonymous source in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was quoted on September 25 as saying that a Russian spy, identified only as Finkel, had been arrested "some time ago" for passing information to the CIA. The FSB source had also claimed that a diplomat in the U.S. embassy’s consular section — identified as John Satter — had recruited the spy one year earlier. (See Monitor, September 26) The embassy spokeswoman denied that last charge, and said that no officer of the U.S. embassy had "been declared persona non grata, arrested, or charged in recent years." She also claimed that the arrest had occurred more than two years ago. (UPI, Interfax, September 26)

Stand-Off Over NATO Enlargement Continues.