Independence Would Damage Its Economy, Lithuania Is Warned

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has told Lithuania that if it chooses independence, it will have to conduct its trade with the Soviet Union in precious hard currency, the republic’s president said Wednesday.

Algirdas Brazauskas, head of the Baltic republic’s Parliament, said it is clear that secession from the Soviet Union would greatly strain Lithuania’s fragile economy.

Gorbachev, in talks Tuesday, made it clear that an independent Lithuania would have to conduct its annual trade, worth about $13 billion, with the rest of the Soviet Union in hard currency instead of rubles, he said.

“This a big sum, one-third of our national product, and it is very difficult to know how we could settle this initially in hard currency,” Brazauskas was quoted as saying by the Lithuanian news agency Elta.

An earlier report of Brazauskas’ meeting with Gorbachev, released by the republic’s radio, said the Kremlin leader has suggested that Lithuania might have to repay $33 billion to win its independence. Vilnius Radio said Moscow estimated that Lithuania owed the central government $27 billion for capital investment in the republic and $6 billion for undelivered production.

Lithuanian sources said the Lithuanian Parliament will meet Saturday and might issue a declaration on moves to regain the republic’s pre-1940 independence.

Brazauskas said Gorbachev had arrived for their 90-minute meeting at the Kremlin with piles of documents that showed “preparations for independence were going on at a high level.”

The Lithuanian president appeared to be urging caution in the face of growing signs that the Parliament, dominated by the radical Sajudis movement, may be getting ready to move quickly on independence.

The Sajudis ruling council seems likely to make a definite decision on independence at a meeting in Vilnius today at which it is expected to map out a strategy for the parliamentary session.