Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 24, 1990 TAG: 9005240597
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A/3 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
On Wednesday, Lithuania's legislature offered to shelve some laws promoting independence - but not the declaration itself - in an effort to draw the Kremlin into negotiations.
But Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov said the Lithuanian offer was not sufficient to bring Kremlin leaders to the negotiating table, the unofficial Interfax news agency reported.
"I think that they have not made a single step forward and have not withdrawn from their position," Interfax quoted Ryzhkov as saying today before he presented an economic reform plan to the Supreme Soviet legislature.
Soviet officials have objected to measures passed by the secessionist parliament to create a system of special identification cards for Lithuanian citizens, bar Soviet army draft boards in Lithuania and establish Lithuanian control over its borders.
The resolution said the republic was prepared "to temporarily suspend, for the period of official interstate negotiations, those actions and decisions arising from realization of the March 11, 1990, acts of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania related to interests that could be defined by both parties as objects of negotiations."
The Lithuanian Supreme Council, or legislature, convened this morning, but a spokeswoman said she was not aware of the Kremlin rejection or whether it would be discussed.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has insisted that Lithuania and its sister republics, Latvia and Estonia, retreat from independence. Latvia and Estonia have made more cautious moves toward independence.
Gorbachev has responded to Lithuania's independence drive by cutting off oil, natural gas and key Baltic leaders have said they are willing to compromise, but will not surrender their goal of seceding from the Soviet Union, which forcibly annexed the three republics in 1940. raw materials. Since energy supplies were cut off on April 18, industrial production has dropped sharply, traffic has thinned and 19,000 people have been thrown out of work.
The gasoline shortage may force Lithuanian authorities to stop all but emergency transport, driving another 28,000 people into unemployment, officials said Wednesday.
In Estonia, meanwhile, pro-Moscow workers today ended a three-day strike protesting the independence drive. They returned to their jobs at Gorbachev's request, a correspondent for the republic's ETA news agency said.
Strike organizer Vladimir Yarovoi told ETA that he told workers to go back to their jobs after Soviet Vice President Anatoly Lukyanov sent a telegram on behalf of Gorbachev saying the workers had shown a "measured and balanced attitude" but should return to work.
Strikes, which appeared to have little popular support, affected 21 enterprises in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, news reports said.
by CNB