Clinton acknowledged that Russia had legitimate concerns over NATO expansion — archive

WASHINGTON, December 6. /TASS/. The 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, repeatedly assured his Russian counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, that NATO’s expansion eastward was not targeted against Moscow, even as he acknowledged in conversations with his circle that Russia’s concerns regarding this were justified, declassified US documents show.
According to the documents published by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, at a meeting with Yeltsin in Washington in 1994, Clinton reiterated that “NATO expansion is not anti-Russian; it’s not intended to be exclusive of Russia, and there is no imminent timetable.” In a letter to Yeltsin, dated November 1994, the US president wrote that expanding NATO would be “intended to enhance the security and promote the integrity of Europe as a whole” rather than “being directed at any country.”
At the same time, a memo prepared by Nick Burns, who was in charge of Russia and Ukraine issues at the National Security Council at the time, reveals that Clinton understood that “we must also deal with Russia’s real and legitimate security concerns about NATO expansion.”
Additionally, the memo, compiled by Burns following his conversation with Clinton, shows the US president’s “sincere desire to do it right and his search for a way to square the circle—expand NATO and preserve a great relationship with the reforming Russia.”
Clinton also wondered “whether or not we should try to be more candid with the Russians” about the US vision on expansion and its timetable, the memo reads.
According to Burns, Clinton felt “really pissed off” that Yeltsin had “publicly embarrassed him” with his criticism of US policy at Budapest.
Later, Clinton sent a letter to Yeltsin, stating that: “Our common aim should be to achieve full integration between Russia and the West—including strengthened links with NATO—with no new divisions in Europe.”