Moscow Offers New Terms for Lithuania Talks

The Kremlin, seeking an end to a damaging six-week-old political standoff with Lithuania, has offered to accept the republic’s declaration of independence as long as Lithuania suspends for two years all measures leading to its implementation, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s spokesman said Monday.

The Kremlin offer, presented to reporters in Moscow by Gorbachev’s spokesman, Arkady A. Maslennikov, also called for the Baltic republic to reaccept the authority of the Soviet constitution, which its legislature has ruled invalid. Then, Maslennikov said, Moscow likely would agree to open negotiations with Lithuanian leaders.

But Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis unequivocally rejected the Kremlin suggestions, saying: “This is a proposal which could lead us back to the cage.”

The Moscow proposal for a way out of the deadlock appeared aimed at defusing the Lithuanian crisis before Gorbachev meets President Bush next month in Washington.

The Baltic republic, forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, declared its independence on March 11. Since then, it has been engaged in a war of wills with Moscow that has prompted concern and some criticism of the Kremlin from Western leaders, including Bush.

In an apparent attempt at compromise, Maslennikov said Moscow no longer requires that Lithuania rescind legislation bolstering the independence declaration. Earlier, this requirement had been voiced by Gorbachev himself, and the Lithuanian legislature’s refusal to comply led to Moscow’s imposition of economic sanctions, including a cutoff of oil and a drastic reduction of natural gas supplies.

“We are not trying to bring anyone to his knees,” Maslennikov said. “It is secondary in which way they (Lithuanians) come back to the Soviet constitution--by rescinding the independence laws or by freezing the laws. If Lithuanians want them to stand for history, then that is OK. That is their business.”

In a further sign of conciliation, Maslennikov said that if Lithuania, even while continuing to declare its independence, approaches Moscow “with a freeze and is ready to stop producing unconstitutional laws, this may provide a basis for negotiations.”

Until now, Moscow has refused repeated requests by Lithuanian leaders to open negotiations. Gorbachev has said that bargaining with Lithuania would be tantamount to recognizing the republic as an independent country and that it must first renounce its sovereignty declaration.

But Landsbergis, speaking to a news conference in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, said that agreeing to negotiate with Moscow under the conditions outlined by Maslennikov “would be like acting as though the prison sentence which we have received, which we know is unjustified, were just. . . . Even Franz Kafka (the late surrealist writer) couldn’t have thought of such a thing.

“The proposal just to go back and obey the constitution of the U.S.S.R. as if it were in force in Lithuania is completely illogical,” he added.

In a defiant gesture, according to Soviet television, the republic’s government ordered the 15 deputies who are members of the national Supreme Soviet, or legislature, to resign their posts in that assembly, saying Lithuanians could no longer participate in the legislative bodies of other countries.

“I believe that today marks a kind of breakthrough. We are coming into a period of active defense,” Deputy Prime Minister Romualdas Ozolas said of the decision.

Before the resignation of the deputies was announced, Maslennikov sounded a stern warning about the possible consequences if Moscow’s offer is ignored.

“The more rational redistribution of the oil and gas to satisfy other republics was a strong signal to Lithuania that there cannot be a free-for-all with this question,” Maslennikov said, referring to Moscow’s moves last week to cut off oil supplies to the republic and reduce natural gas supplies by about 84%.

Further, the spokesman indicated that Moscow would try to prevent Lithuania from replacing the energy resources with imports from the West, saying: “Lithuania is still a part of the Soviet Union, and what can be imported or delivered is a question for the Soviet Union.”

The Soviet action forced Lithuania to begin closing down its only oil refinery Monday due to a lack of supplies. Officials at the Mazeikiai plant, which normally refines 37,000 tons of crude oil a day and has an annual production of 11.5 million tons, said they planned to use the next few days to overhaul installations. But it was then likely the plant’s 3,000 workers would be laid off, they said.

Also on Monday, Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene said the United States has refused her a visa to visit the country next month, saying she could come only in June. Washington apparently did not want her in the country during the Bush-Gorbachev summit, scheduled for May 30-June 3, she told reporters at the airport in Moscow before traveling on to Vilnius after a weeklong trip to Norway, Denmark and Sweden.

In Washington, officials at both the White House and the State Department said they have no record of having received a request for a visa from her.

Prunskiene also said she opened a Swedish bank account Monday for Western contributions to the republic. She said two donations already had been received, including one for $100,000. She declined to identify the donor.

But she said the political support she felt from her trip was as important to her as any financial aid.

“We came back feeling that we were not alone, contrary to the wishes of somebody who would like to see us frightened,” Prunskiene said at a news conference.

Times staff writer Hamilton reported from Moscow, and Schrader, a free-lance journalist, from Vilnius.

THE U.S. RESPONSE--Moscow’s stand is a “welcome sign” of flexibility. A11