Baker Links Trade to Soviet Baltic Policy

Secretary of State James A. Baker III, starting three days of pre-summit talks with top Soviet officials, said Wednesday that the standoff in the Baltic republics is “not encouraging” and hinted that a Soviet crackdown might doom Moscow’s chances for long-sought trade concessions.

President Bush, speaking at a press conference in Washington shortly after Baker began his first meeting with Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze, said that Soviet pressure on Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia “certainly puts some tension” in superpower relations just two weeks before summit talks with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

Baker and Shevardnadze met, with just one aide each to take notes, for four hours Wednesday night. After that meeting ended at 9 p.m., arms control specialists began a late-night working session to prepare for another Baker-Shevardnadze meeting today.

Shortly before the first meeting, Baker said the United States and the Soviet Union remain far apart on key elements of a proposed treaty to limit long-range nuclear weapons despite a new U.S. proposal that was submitted to the Soviets when he and Shevardnadze met earlier this month in Bonn.

Shevardnadze told reporters that the U.S. initiative, which had not been disclosed previously, was “very useful.” He said the Soviet response was “constructive.” But Baker said Moscow’s reply “leaves us with some ground we still have to cover.”

U.S. officials refused to provide details of the proposal.

Baker said that the latest American initiative leaves “the ball in the other court” awaiting a more comprehensive reply from Moscow during this round of talks.

Bush said in Washington that the possibility of an arms control agreement at the May 30-June 3 summit will be determined by the outcome of the Baker-Shevardnadze talks.

“I would not predict that these matters cannot be resolved in time for the summit,” Bush said.

For his part, Baker said, the talks will be difficult.

“It is our desire--I hope it is the desire of the Soviets; they say it is--that we can close the gaps on all of the major substantive issues by the time the two Presidents get together in Washington in only two weeks,” he said. “But we still have a pretty good road to travel.”

Both Bush and Baker said they do not expect the Baltic crisis to torpedo the summit in Washington. The President noted pointedly that the United States “negotiated with the Soviets when all Eastern Europe was in captivity.”

But Baker strongly implied that increased Soviet repression in the three secession-minded republics would end Moscow’s chances for an early waiver of the Jackson-Vanik law, which for more than a decade has denied to the Soviet Union the most-favored-nation trade status. Without that status, enjoyed by China and most of Eastern Europe as well as more traditional U.S. trading partners, Soviet goods are subject to much higher tariffs than apply to the products of other nations.

Asked in an interview with CBS-TV if the United States could provide trade concessions in light of the situation in the Baltic republics, Baker said that Washington might be unable to do so “if there is a retrogression by way of use of force or coercion.”

A State Department official said the situation in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia was “at the top of the agenda” for Baker’s meeting Wednesday with Shevardnadze and for his talks Friday with Gorbachev. The official added that the Baltic crisis is “one of a number of factors” that will determine whether Bush will approve a waiver of the Jackson-Vanik law, which was intended to punish Moscow for restricting emigration.

Earlier this year, the Administration had said that the waiver would be approved as soon as the Soviet national legislature wrote into law the liberal emigration policy that has been in effect for the past year.

Richard Schifter, assistant secretary of state for human rights, said the Supreme Soviet planned to consider a draft emigration law on May 31, the day after the start of the Bush-Gorbachev summit.

“The law, itself, does not answer all questions clearly but if it is implemented in good faith, it would be a major advance,” Schifter said. But he added that “other factors,” clearly a reference to the Baltic republics, would affect the waiver even if the law is adopted.

Schifter said it was “mathematically possible,” although unlikely, for the waiver action to be completed before the summit ends.

Baker met Wednesday with 15 long-term refuseniks, people who have repeatedly been denied permission to emigrate. He assured them that he would raise the issue of emigration “at every opportunity,” even though there are only 79 names left on the list of refusenik cases that Washington is watching. A few years ago the number was in the thousands.

“I want you to know that every opportunity we have in the course of these meetings that we have with the Soviet leadership, we raise the issue of emigration and we raise specifically the cases of the long-term refuseniks.”