Lithuania Considers Changes to 3 Laws

Lithuanian leaders said Friday that they are willing to consider changes in three laws which Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov has said must be revoked before Moscow will talk to the rebel republic.

But despite a grinding economic blockade imposed by the Kremlin, the Lithuanians said they would not meet Moscow’s demand that they rescind their March 11 declaration of independence.

Deputy Prime Minister Romualdas Ozolas told a news conference that the republic could consider alterations in laws passed on citizenship, service in the Soviet army and property claimed by the small pro-Moscow Communist Party in the republic.

“We can talk about issues of property, we can talk about issues of the Soviet army and citizenship,” he said.

Ryzhkov, in an interview broadcast by central Soviet television Friday, said those three laws must be abrogated by the Lithuanians before Moscow would talk to them about their future.

“Call off those three items . . . Let us return to the time of March 10 and we agree to hold talks with you,” Ryzhkov said.

Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, speaking at the same news conference with Ozolas, also said the Lithuanians are willing to consider suspension of “certain documents.”

She said the Lithuanians viewed a French-German proposal made Thursday as a suggestion that the republic suspend enforcement of laws passed after March 11.

The proposal by French President Francois Mitterrand and West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl called for talks between Moscow and Vilnius and suggested that they would be helped by “suspending for a while the effects of the decisions taken by your Parliament.”

“I don’t think France and Germany voiced a position completely hostile to the interests of Lithuania,” Prunskiene said.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said Prunskiene had been granted a business visa with a VIP “diplomatic stamp” to visit the United States next week.

Prunskiene said she will meet in Washington with members of Congress and business executives to seek political and economic support for Lithuania.

Ozolas said Lithuania was busy establishing a new economic system as a result of the Moscow blockade of a long list of products, including oil, natural gas, tires and some agricultural machinery.

Meanwhile, pro-Moscow truck drivers briefly blocked roads in the capital city of Vilnius in a move apparently linked to the blockade.

The demonstration included about 50 trucks and was organized by Communist Party members and Russian workers, said Rita Radzevicius, a spokeswoman at the Lithuanian Parliament.

The Soviet news agency Tass said the truckers opposed the “adventurist decisions of the Lithuanian” Parliament. It said supporters of the Lithuanian popular front Sajudis dragged the trucks from the streets with tractors.

Radzevicius said the blockade ended after about two hours.