Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, June 14, 1990                   TAG: 9006140228
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Medium

LITHUANIAN BLOCKADE RELAXED

In a meeting with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene and Communist Party chief Algirdas Brazauskas, Ryzhkov and Supreme Soviet chairman Anatoly Lukyanov said natural gas supplies will be doubled, from about 15 percent of the usual daily supply to about 30 percent. The gas will permit resumption of work at the Azotas fertilizer plant in Jonava, a major enterprise.

Negotiations on independence will begin soon "because both sides want them," said Rita Dapkus, a spokeswoman for Prunskiene.

While Soviet officials are still insisting Lithuania freeze its March 11 independence act, they are now making it clear they would respond to such a freeze by lifting the blockade and negotiating seriously, Dapkus said from Vilnius.

"We have a much clearer idea of what the U.S.S.R. is proposing," she said. That clarity makes it "much more likely than ever before" that the Parliament will freeze the independence act.

Soviet officials appear to have decided to treat Lithuania as a special case, not insisting on applying the new secession law that requires a referendum on independence and a five-year waiting period, Dapkus said. Both Prunskiene and Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis were surprised Soviet leaders this week did not raise the question of a referendum, Dapkus said.

But Arkady Maslennikov, spokesman for Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, suggested later at a news conference that Gorbachev cannot grant exceptions to the secession law. There was no explanation for the apparent contradiction.

The conflicting stories were typical of the continuing confusion over the precise positions of the two sides, which makes some Lithuanians hesitant to believe the three-month-old standoff is really ending.

But there are signs Gorbachev has decided to make a strong effort to settle the dispute and end the blockade, which threatens to mar his positive image abroad. He has boxed himself in, however, by rushing the secession law through parliament.

There may be a way out by claiming the law does not apply to Lithuania because it passed its act three weeks before the law was passed. Estonia also passed its declaration before the law was approved. The third Baltic republic, Latvia, approved its independence act when the law was already in effect.

Dapkus said that Ryzhkov outlined two models for a future Lithuania: with a special status within the Soviet Union and enjoying certain economic privileges or outside the Soviet Union and having no privileges. He said that either variant could be achieved in two to three years of negotiations.