Albright on the Western Front as the new US Secretary of State gets to know the EU

A RESOLVE to put flesh on the transatlantic agenda emerged from yesterday's get-to-know-you meeting between the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, and the European Commission.

Sources said afterwards there was a clear expectation that the May EU-US summit would produce tangible progress in the form of agreements on reducing trade barriers - notably through mutual recognition of standards - and in controls on the trade in drug precursors and dangerous military technology.

But the Trade Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, made clear that if the US wanted to defuse tensions over the vexed Helms-Burton dispute, it should not refuse to accept World Trade Organisation adjudication on the issue.

The dispute over the extra territorial character of the Helms-Burton legislation, which allows seizure of the US assets of foreign companies trading with Cuba, comes to a crunch tomorrow. Then the EU has the right to ask the Secretary-General of the WTO, Mr Renato Ruggiero, to establish a dispute panel which would rule on the compatibility of the legislation with WTO rules.

The US has hinted in the past few weeks that, as the issue is one of "national security", it may not accept WTO adjudication - a form of refusing to recognise the court. Sir Leon has urged that the "national security" defence should be argued at the hearing instead, when the EU is confident it will be unsuccessful.

The EU fears that rejection of a WTO role will inevitably lead to an escalation of the dispute, including the use of the retaliatory measures currently being planned.

Ms Albright was reported to have been non-committal on the issue, but emphasised her deep personal interest, as "a child born in a divided Europe", in improving transatlantic relations.

On enlargement, Ms Albright won favour by stressing the need to enlarge both NATO and the EU in tandem and emphasising that EU membership should not be seen as a consolation prize for those not admitted immediately to NATO.

The Secretary of State also spoke of the need to "see a secular Turkey anchored to the west" and of the need to strengthen EU-US co-operation on Cyprus.

Seamus Martin adds from Moscow:. Ms Albright will make her first contact with the Russian bear in Moscow on Friday and all the signs are that it will be a bear with a sore head. In a city where the wind chill hit minus 35 Celsius last night, the political temperature is almost at boiling point.

Having met the Palestinian leader, Mr Yasser Arafat, in the morning, President Yeltsin issued a strongly anti-US statement in the afternoon through his press spokesman. The US, Mr Yeltsin said, was indulging in "inadmissible behaviour" in trying to "discredit Russian arms sales", particularly those to Cyprus and Colombia. The matter, the spokesman said, would be raised at the meeting with Ms Albright.

The main issue in the talks will be the eastward expansion of NATO and an idea of the official Russian position was given in the government newspaper Rossiiskiye Vesti yesterday. It reported that more and more politicians, scientists and military officers in the west have come to question the advisability of NATO's eastward expansion.

It quoted the leading US opinion-maker Mr George Kennan, of the Institute for Long-Term Studies, as describing the move as " fatal mistake for American politics" and a retired US admiral, Mr Eugene Carroll, as believing, there was no military justification for expansion.

The German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, arrived in Moscow yesterday for two days of talks with Russian opposite number Mr Yevgeny Primakov. Mrs Kinkel, unlike most politicians, has been optimistic concerning a deal on the NATO issue.