ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin, seeking the moral high ground over the United States, said Wednesday he had signed a draft law approving a global nuclear test ban and sent it to parliament for ratification.

The Senate dealt President Clinton an embarrassing blow Oct. 13 by rejecting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, drawing widespread international condemnation.

Yeltsin said he had signed the bill and sent it to the Duma before flying to Istanbul Wednesday for a 54-nation European security summit at which Moscow is expected to face a barrage of Western criticism over its military offensive in rebel Chechnya.

``Today, I have signed the draft law on ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This means that Russia is making its concrete and real contribution to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation regime and strategic stability in the world.

``I call on all states to follow this example,'' he told journalists after meeting Turkish President Suleyman Demirel.

Russia signed the treaty in September 1996 but, of the five official nuclear powers, only France and Britain have completed ratification so far.

The treaty can only enter into force once all 44 states with nuclear research programs -- including Iraq, Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan -- endorse it.

Yeltsin's spokesman told reporters the Russian leader would discuss issues of nuclear arms control and strategic stability in Europe at a private meeting with Clinton Thursday morning.

Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, said in response to the Russian move: ``We would certainly welcome ratification by the Duma or the Congress of a comprehensive test ban treaty.''

The Duma is still holding up ratification of the Start-2 strategic arms reduction treaty with the United States, although the two former adversaries have already begun talks on a third, more radical treaty to cut deeper into Cold War arsenals of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Republican majority in the Senate voted 51-48 to reject the test ban treaty, the first time it had thrown out a major international agreement since it defeated the Treaty of Versailles after the end of World War I.

Republicans argued that the verification provisions were inadequate to prevent cheating and some rejected any constraint on Washington's ability to develop its own nuclear weapons. But U.S. analysts widely interpreted the vote as driven by partisan politics and a determination to wound the Democratic president rather than by arms control considerations.