Clinton-Yeltsin Summit? Yes and No Equal Maybe

WASHINGTON — President Clinton and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin will meet at a Moscow summit later this year.

Maybe.

Clinton and Yeltsin agreed when they met in Vancouver in April that they would get together again in Russia in the not-too-distant future. On Thursday, in Athens, Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in answer to a question that the two leaders will meet “in the next several months,” acknowledging that the details have not yet been worked out.

Several hours later, however, presidential Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said that the secretary of state must be mistaken because “there are no plans, specific or unspecific, for a meeting with Yeltsin in Moscow at this point.”

And so it was that the Clinton Administration talked about another matter that it has discussed but not decided. Like the long-pending Supreme Court nomination, the tortuous development of Bosnia policy and the fate of Justice Department nominee C. Lani Guinier, the summit talk demonstrates the extent to which Clinton Administration officials are willing to discuss issues still being debated and negotiated.

The result: backpedaling, protestations and, finally, embarrassment for one or more officials inside or outside the Administration.

Myers said Clinton and Yeltsin will meet in Tokyo in July at the economic summit of the so-called Group of Seven major industrial democracies. The Russian president will attend as a guest.

She insisted that no other U.S.-Russia summit is in the works.

The press secretary then attempted to clarify the secretary of state’s remarks. Christopher, she explained, had merely said “that at some point he expected that we would have a meeting with Yeltsin in Moscow but he didn’t mean to announce one or imply that there had been one scheduled. There just simply hasn’t been.”

Other officials, who asked not to be identified, said Christopher was correct that a Clinton-Yeltsin summit somewhere in Russia is in the early planning stages. The officials indicated that, while there is no firm date, it is likely to occur later this year or early next.