Baker Wants Explanation From Soviets : Keyword: Secretary of state says he’ll ask Shevardnadze why Moscow hasn’t begun talks with Baltic states.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III said today the Soviet response to pleas that they open negotiations with Baltic republics pushing for independence is “not encouraging.”

Baker, starting four days of talks with Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, said he would press Soviet officials to explain why they have not negotiated with leaders of the restive Baltic states.

“That dialogue has not yet developed,” Baker said before going into talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who also is visiting Moscow. “It’s not encouraging to us to see the absence of a dialogue between leaders there and the Kremlin.”

After meeting with Mubarak, Baker met with Jewish “refuseniks” who have been denied Soviet exit permits. He then sat down with Shevardnadze to prepare for the U.S.-Soviet summit in Washington later this month.

Baker, who also will meet Friday with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, hoped to revive stalemated arms control talks as well as discuss the unrest in the Baltics.

Shevardnadze told reporters before his session with Baker at the Soviet Foreign Ministry that the fact “we are able to discuss any problem shows we have reached a new frontier.”

He also pledged to try to speed arms control agreements that were to serve as a centerpiece for the summit. “We have been working very intensively,” Shevardnadze said.

Asked if the Soviets had retreated, as some U.S. officials insist, Shevardnadze replied through an interpreter: “I don’t think so. This is the view of those who really don’t know what’s happening.”

Baker, meanwhile, said the effort now to bridge differences “is very important when you consider we have only two weeks to go.”

Leaders in the Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have been attempting to open talks with Gorbachev over independence efforts, but the Soviet leader has balked.

A pro-independence newspaper, The Estonian Independent, reported that Estonian Prime Minister Edgar Savisaar told Baker in a telegram that the Estonian government “would be deeply surprised were the incidents in Estonia and Latvia not to find reverberation” in his talks with Shevardnadze.

Tension between Moscow and the three breakaway republics casts a shadow over the summit, which is due to begin May 30. There are also deep differences between U.S. and Soviet negotiators over missile reductions.

“It’s our desire--and I hope it’s the desire of the Soviets, they say it is--that we can close the gap on all of the major substantive issues by the time the two presidents get together in Washington,” Baker told reporters.

But he stressed that “We still have a pretty good road to travel. . . . There are still a number of issues between us.”