U.S. Fears Friction From Closed Club in Commonwealth : Breakup: But officials say announcement of the new grouping appears to meet some American goals.

Senior Bush Administration officials warned Monday that the exclusion so far of non-Slavic republics from a new Soviet commonwealth could provoke dangerous and potentially explosive frictions within the crumbling Soviet Union.

With Russia, Ukraine and Belarus moving to create a Slavic association, Soviet Asian republics might now seek to form a “Muslim confederation,” one official said, and noted pointedly, “You can see where those sorts of things can lead.”

The signs of American uneasiness came as the Administration maintained a cautious distance from the struggle over the shape of a new Soviet commonwealth and other top U.S. officials voiced deep concern over a move that caught the United States by surprise.

In response to what the officials described as a weakening of central authority, one top policy-maker said that Secretary of State James A. Baker III is likely to ask that Soviet nuclear weapons be stored in Russia or some other central site in which the United States could more easily “police them.”

Seeking to put a positive light on the new commonwealth, the White House and the State Department said that the communique issued by leaders in Minsk announcing its formation appeared to meet some of the goals of long-standing U.S. policy. But Administration spokesmen said that the United States has no immediate plans to establish formal diplomatic relations with the “Commonwealth of Independent States.”

And as staff members at the National Security Council and other U.S. agencies tried frantically to gather details about the new institution, they warned that its fate hinges on the outcome of the power struggle between Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and could prove no more than another passing stage in the complicated splintering of the Soviet Union.

“There are times when you’re in a situation where you cannot predict where it’s going to go,” the senior Administration official said of the current situation, “(and) where the consequences of the developments can be terribly dangerous.”

“Is it a political union or an economic union?” another U.S. official asked. “Is it animal, vegetable or mineral? No one can make heads or tails of this.”

The Administration already had shifted sharply away from its goal of maintaining a powerful Soviet central government by agreeing, despite objections from Gorbachev, to offer diplomatic recognition to the newly independent Ukraine.

But that decision came only after months of debate. And the sudden formation of the commonwealth--and its initial inclusion of only three republics--clearly left senior U.S. policy-makers in a state of discomfort and some confusion.

The immediate focus of U.S. concern is the fate of Kazakhstan, the massive Asian republic that houses about 7% of Soviet nuclear weapons but was excluded, at least for now, from the new commonwealth formed in Minsk.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said that President Bush has been assured by Yeltsin that all Soviet nuclear weapons will remain in safe hands but conceded that the Russian president had given no “republic by republic” accounting.

Most of the Soviets’ 27,000 nuclear weapons are stored in the Russian republic, with others in Ukraine and Belarus, the other members of the new Slavic commonwealth. But more than 1,000 long-range missiles and hundreds of other tactical nuclear weapons remain in Kazakhstan, and Fitzwater was unable to say Monday whether the Gorbachev government, the Soviet army or some other institution remains in control of them.

The White House spokesman urged that the Soviet arsenal be kept under a “unified command,” and other U.S. officials emphasized that they had no indication that Kazakhstan might seek to take control of the weapons on its soil. Some said they believe that Kazakhstan will ultimately be included in the new commonwealth.

But the senior Administration official, citing accounts from “people on the ground,” described Kazakhstan as “kind of unhappy as hell” about its current exclusion from the commonwealth.

“You’ve got three Slavic republics coming together and non-Slavs kind of shoved out of the way, at least temporarily,” this policy-maker said. “This can lead to all sorts of dangerous kinds of reactions, like, ‘OK, I’ll go out and put together a Muslim confederation.’ And you can see where those sorts of things can lead.”

The official described nuclear weapons as a “massive problem” facing the United States as the Soviet Union continues to unravel. And without referring specifically to Kazakhstan, he warned that “as these people establish their own political structures,” the possession of nuclear weapons could be seen to provide indispensable clout.

In praising the steps taken in the formation of the commonwealth, the Administration spokesmen said that the three leaders had appeared to embrace some of the main principles that Baker had said would guide U.S. policy toward the republics.

Among them, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said, are guarantees for minorities, adherence to Soviet treaty obligations and a commitment to a democratic legal system.

Times staff writer Janine DeFao contributed to this report.