arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Some NATO officials see the new relationship to be inaugurated outside Rome on Tuesday as a painless gesture of support for Russia, which has been an enthusiastic member of the U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition and has been pushing for more recognition as a top international player.

The new council is to replace a consultative body set up in May 1997 to ease Moscow's alarm over NATO's plans to include some of Russia's Soviet-era allies and neighbors. NATO officials optimistically described the arrangement as ``19 plus one,'' while the Russians regarded it as ``19 against one'' - a useless talk shop where their opinion made no difference.

The rupture over the NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia underlined the fragility of the council. Moscow abruptly terminated almost all cooperation with NATO, and plans to open a military mission in Moscow were frozen.

Under the 1997 agreement, NATO and Russia consulted only after the NATO allies had negotiated their own consensus - and the NATO position was set. Some NATO members were loath to engage Russia and some Russian members of the joint council refused to take part in working groups, said a diplomatic source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

This time, Russian diplomats will be in on the negotiations from the beginning. No less important, they will have access to the informal discussions where many positions are initially hammered out.

Venturioni also met Monday with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who praised the agreement as promoting ``a new quality of relations between Russia and NATO,'' in a report by Interfax-Military News Agency.

But the range of issues to be considered in the new council is limited, initially including crisis management, peacekeeping and such military areas as air defense, search-and-rescue operations and joint exercises. Under the new arrangement, NATO and Russia will decide only on those issues on which they can find consensus; more contentious issues will be left off their agenda, and NATO will keep a free hand in setting and implementing policy.

That annoys some Russian hard-liners.

``The relationship will be useless in helping European stability, and dangerous, too, because it creates the illusion of cooperation - cooperation in which Russia will be listened to, but not heard,'' said Leonid Ivashov, a former general in the Russian armed forces who is now vice president of the Institute of Geopolitical Problems in Moscow.

Russian analysts say the new relationship could founder if NATO should decide to take action against Russian partner Belarus' authoritarian leader or if the United States increases its military presence in formerly Soviet Central Asia and the Caucasus in its anti-terrorism campaign.