MADRID, July 9: NATO ended an historic two-day summit today with leaders vowing to close the Cold War divide between East and West as the alliance brings former Soviet bloc foes under its security umbrella.

Setting NATO's (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) course for the rest of the century and into the next, the 16 member-states invited in Poland, Hungary and the Czech republic, promised to admit others in the future and launched a new security council spanning three continents.

US President Bill Clinton hailed it as the dawning of a new Europe ``undivided, free and at peace'' and predicted the new defence arrangements would help sweep away the last remnants of what was once known as the Iron Curtain.

But Russian Deputy Prime Minister Valery Serov, head of Moscow's delegation to the summit, reasserted Russia's strong opposition to the alliance's eastward thrust, telling reporters: ``the expansion of NATO presents more problems than answers.''

During the second day of the summit, NATO took another major step toward redrawing the European security map, inaugurating a new Security Council of nations spanning North America, Europe and former Soviet Asia.Leaders of the alliance and 28 partners formally launched the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, an organization intended to meet the security concerns of non-NATO members.

NATO also signed a sweeping new security charter with Ukraine, sealing the Slav nation's shift away from the former Soviet sphere of influence and closer to the western orbit.

The new grouping includes countries seeking alliance membership like Romania and Slovenia, neutrals such as Switzerland and Austria, and former Soviet republics like Lithuania and Tajikistan.

Within the alliance, the enlargement plan unleashed one of the most heated summit battles in decades. The debate also exposed serious differences over the US role as the world's sole remaining superpower and resentment about what is seen as growing American heavy-handedness.

``The negotiations were difficult, sometimes sharp, but we were able to build a bridge,'' German Chancellor Helmut Kohl told reporters. ``This is a huge success.''

The bickering that marked the summit's closed-door sessions came into public view at the leaders' final news conferences, with Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac at odds over the costs of the biggest expansion in NATO's 48-year history.

Chirac said France would not pay an extra franc toward NATO's budget to finance the admission of new members.

``We took a very simple position, that enlargement should be done at zero cost,'' he said. But at a separate news conference, Clinton said the United States and its allies would have to bear ``modest costs'' for building military infrastructure in the new member states.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.