Albright in bonn, Paris discussions on future of NATO

THE US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, continued her tour of world capitals yesterday with visits to Bonn and Paris dominated by talks over the future of NATO.

Ms Albright met the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, and the Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, in Bonn where she said that the US and Germany were "absolutely at one" over NATO enlargement and the need to include Russia in a new security system.

NATO hopes to agree at a summit meeting in Madrid in July to invite Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to join the alliance. But Russia remains implacably opposed to such an enlargement of the western alliance, a fact acknowledged by Mr Kinkel after his talks with Ms Albright.

"We must do everything we can to make it easier for President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian people to accept NATO enlargement," he said.

The two foreign ministers sought to play down differences between Washington and Bonn over German official attitudes to the Church of Scientology, which were criticised by a US State Department human rights report.

Mr Kinkel insisted that Scientologists were not the focus of official persecution but pointed out that Germany regards the organisation as a profit making enterprise rather than a religion.

The organisation recently took out full page advertisements in a number of European newspapers to condemn Germany's treatment of Scientologists, comparing it with Hitler's persecution of the Jews.

Ms Albright, who recently discovered that members of her own family were murdered in the Holocaust, condemned the comparison tasteless and insisted that the US and Germany would find an amicable resolution to their differences.

"Clearly it's a subject that needs to be worked out in bilateral relations. But I must say that any discussion which draws comparisons between what happened under the Nazis and what is happening now is historically inaccurate and distasteful," she said.

Ms Albright was greeted warmly in Paris by the French Foreign Minister, Mr Herve de Charette Washington and Paris are keen to improve relations following stormy rows last year over NATO, the UN and the Middle East.

"Madeleine Albright wants to improve the tone and quality of the relationship. She believes we need to work very closely with France on European security issues and on regional issues like Africa," a State Department spokesman, Mr Nicholas Burns, said.

But Ms Albright continues to oppose a French plan for a mini summit of five large NATO member states in Paris on Russia's relations with NATO and rejects French calls for the US to hand over NATO's southern command which controls the Mediterranean, to a European.

Ms Albright is due in Moscow today for talks which Russia hopes will help break the impasse over NATO's expansion plans and promote Moscow's role on the world stage.

Meanwhile, Moscow hopes to use a two day visit by the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, starting today, to raise its profile in the Middle East.

Moscow's hopes of success look slim. Russia has no clear way to increase its influence in the Middle East and both sides are sceptical of the chances of progress in the NATO enlargement dispute, although they welcome the start of real dialogue.