MOSCOW — Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin welcomed Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to the Kremlin on Tuesday, hoping to boost Moscow’s profile in Middle East peace talks so

far dominated by Washington. It was the first time since Yeltsin underwent heart surgery in November that he has met a foreign leader in the Kremlin, rather than at a country residence where

he has been recuperating. But the meeting appeared to be more an exercise in mutual back-slapping than a forum for any new initiatives. A Kremlin statement played on the good relations

between Moscow and the Palestinians but avoided specifics. Russia has been a joint sponsor, with the U.S., of the Middle East peace process, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is