ALBRIGHT WILL PROPOSE ARMS REDUCTIONS IN EUROPE.

Byline: The New York Times

In a significant move aimed at placating Russian opposition to NATO's planned expansion eastward, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will take to Moscow new proposals to reduce conventional weapons sharply in Central and Eastern Europe, senior American and alliance officials said Tuesday.

In her first major speech overseas as secretary of state, speaking to a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels, Albright also proposed a joint NATO-Russian unit that could be used for peacekeeping. Though short on details, Albright cited the model of Bosnia and explained the proposal as another way to convince Moscow that cooperation with NATO can be peaceful and permanent.

The proposals are part of a larger NATO offer intended to persuade the Russians to acquiesce in NATO's expansion and negotiate a NATO-Russian charter to govern their relations. Albright is to discuss those issues with President Boris Yeltsin and Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov when she visits Moscow on Thursday and Friday.

Russian officials remain bitterly opposed to NATO enlargement, and no one expects them to suddenly embrace it. But Albright, after having laid the groundwork this week, will be able to describe in detail a unified alliance position in preparation for President Clinton's summit meeting with Yeltsin in Helsinki in March.

The speech by Albright, who flew on to London later in the day, was meant to soothe Russian concerns over NATO expansion, which she said was inevitable, though ``not adversarial.''

``No longer is NATO arrayed in opposition to any one enemy,'' Albright said. ``Its mission is peace and cooperation with all who wish to work with it.''

She urged NATO members to finish negotiations by the end of 1997 with the first wave of new members - likely to be Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The goal is for all 16 current NATO members to ratify the formal expansion by 1999, the organization's 50th anniversary.