WASHINGTON, May 26: The United States is opening NATO's door to Russian accord to be signed in Paris on Tuesday that officials here hope will once again confirm that Russia's future lies firmly in the West.The new post-Cold War pact will allow the 16-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and Russia to consult each other on strategies to deter war on the European continent.

It adds a crucial new link between Moscow and the West to help manage disagreements over security and defence matters to prevent a spillover onto economic and political fronts.

``The NATO-Russia Founding Act does what we have wanted it to do... which is to secure Russia within Europe,'' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on Friday.

``We have made great strides in the US-Russian relationship.''The United States hopes its proclaimed ``partnership'' with post-Soviet Russia will finally materialise in the wake of the agreement called the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security.

As a first step, President Bill Clinton agreed to rename the Group of Seven summit of industrialized democracies to the Summit of the Eight to signal Russia's growing acceptance in the big power club.

Russia, which has been attending G7 summits since 1991, had long sought a formal status but the request continues to face Opposition from Japan, which has yet to resolve a territorial dispute with Russia over the Kuril Islands.

Moscow can expect a greater measure of US support as it seeks membership in trade organisations and integration in Europe that will help the leadership gain confidence in the post Cold-War world, US officials say.

``We have nothing whatsoever to fear from consultation with Russia,'' the administration's chief policy-maker on Russia, Strobe Talbott, said last week.

``Unlike Germany in 1919 and again in 1945, Russia in 1997 is not a defeated power,'' he argued.

``Quite the contrary, its people and its reformers deserve credit, support, gratitude and patience from all of us for their role in defeating the Soviet communist system.''

As an immediate test of the new east-west dynamic, Russia and NATO will have to cope with plans for the alliance's eastward expansion which will take shape in six weeks at the Madrid summit on July 8.NATO leaders will extend their first invitations to central European countries to join the collective security pact.

Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic are expected to become the first entrants. While Russia still opposes NATO enlargement, administration officials feel the groundwork has been laid for discussion and that the alliance may even consider extending membership to Russia some day.

``Looking into the long term ... it would be very mistaken to exclude Russia or any other country,'' said Talbott, the deputy secretary of state.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.