Moscow will eventually accept NATO's eastwards expansion to countries along its borders, including the three Baltic republics, U.S. President Bill Clinton said during a two-day USA-EU summit held in Portugal.

"Countries such as Russia and other former Soviet republics that are against NATO enlargement will eventually come to see NATO as partners and not adversaries," Clinton told reporters at a press conference held at an 18th century palace just outside of Lisbon. Portugal currently holds the rotating EU presidency. Clinton made the comment after being asked for his opinion on the so-called "Big Bang" expansion proposal made by the foreign ministers of the nine NATO candidate countries at a conference held in Vilnius in mid-May. Under this proposal, which was engineered by Lithuania, all nine candidate nations would be invited to join the alliance at its 2002 summit. Moscow opposes NATO membership for any nation of the former Eastern bloc, but has taken a particularly tough stand against the inclusion of the Baltic republics in the military alliance. The three Baltic republics are the only nations of the nine currently lined up to join NATO which were once part of the U.S.S.R. Moscow maintains that all former Soviet republics belong to its sphere of influence. But Latvia, along with its Baltic neighbours Estonia and Lithuania, have made NATO membership a foreign policy priority since regaining their independence after 50 years of Soviet occupation in 1991. NATO expanded to include the former east bloc nations of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1998. NATO officials have said in the past that no new decisions on enlargement would be made before 2002.