Lithuanian Hopes for Gorbachev Reassessment

Lithuania’s president said Monday he hopes that Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev will reassess his stance toward the breakaway Baltic state after returning from the Washington summit.

But President Vytautas Landsbergis added in an interview with the Voice of America radio that he did not hear any encouraging words from Gorbachev during his meetings with President Bush.

“The worst would have been if Mikhail Gorbachev came out with the impression that everything he is doing vis-a-vis Lithuania is permitted,” Landsbergis said in the interview.

Landsbergis said he hopes that the Soviet leader will “thoroughly review” the matter when he returns home.

He accused Gorbachev of using “propaganda methods” in dealing with the republic, which declared independence from Moscow on March 11 and triggered a Kremlin economic embargo of all fuel and most food supplies.

Gorbachev has demanded that the republic revoke the declaration before starting negotiations on Lithuanian secession on the basis of the Soviet constitution.

Landsbergis on Monday reiterated Lithuania’s refusal to reverse its declaration, saying, “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to take this step.”

At the summit, Bush and Gorbachev agreed to a trade pact that Bush said is conditioned only on the Soviet government’s approval of liberalized emigration laws. Bush previously had said Moscow also must end its blockade against Lithuania, but he changed that position on Sunday.