Bush Will Meet With Lithuania’s Prime Minister
President Bush will meet with Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene on Thursday to get a firsthand report on conditions in the rebel Baltic republic, but the White House said Tuesday that the talks do not mean a change in U.S. policy.
“The President feels that it’s important to get an authoritative readout and description of events in Lithuania. . . . He is meeting with her as an acknowledged and freely elected representative of the Lithuanian people,” rather than as “prime minister of an independent Lithuania,” spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.
Although the United States has never accepted the Soviet Union’s forcible annexation of Lithuania in 1940, Bush has refused to recognize the breakaway government, which declared independence March 11.
Bush has said that he does not want to undermine Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and possibly set back the rise of democracy in Eastern Europe.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
