Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 1, 1990 TAG: 9007010090
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: MOSCOW LENGTH: Medium
Moscow's action removed the most devastating element of an economic embargo imposed in April and is expected to ease at least some of the political pressure on Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev as he looks toward Monday's opening of the 28th Communist Party Congress.
A flurry of compromise gestures by both the Kremlin and Lithuania seemed to indicate that the long period of angry confrontation between them is at an end and that negotiations on the question of Lithuanian independence likely would begin soon, probably after the party congress.
The two other Baltic republics, Estonia and Latvia, also have asserted their sovereignty and are demanding negotiations with Moscow, but it is still not clear what issues and which parties the upcoming talks will involve. The Soviet Union annexed the three Baltic republics in 1940 under a 1939 agreement with Nazi Germany. Between 1920 and the annexation, the Baltic states were independent countries and members of the League of Nations.
In Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, a government spokesman said that oil began flowing early Saturday evening to Maziekiai, the republic's only oil refinery. Officials at the Tyumen oil fields in Siberia sent telegrams asking whether the refinery was ready to accept "maximum amounts" of oil. Vilnius officials responded that the pipes were clear and ready.
By responding so quickly to the Lithuanian legislature's vote Friday to declare a moratorium on its declaration of independence, "Moscow has kept its word," said Lithuanian government spokesman Ceslovas Yursenas. He said that tractors that had been idled for weeks would be back in the fields later this week.
by CNB