Gorbachev to Meet Leaders of 3 Dissident Republics
President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has agreed for the first time to meet with the presidents of the three Baltic republics to discuss their campaigns for independence, spokesmen said today.
The Kremlin chief was scheduled to sit down with the Baltic leaders Tuesday after a meeting of the Federation Council, a new presidential advisory body, according to Paul Raudseps, spokesman for Latvia’s Parliament, and Rita Dapkus, a spokeswoman for Lithuania’s Parliament.
The two spoke by telephone from Riga, the Latvian capital, and Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, respectively.
It will be the first time Gorbachev has met jointly with the presidents of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. It could signal a new Kremlin diplomatic initiative to try to break the stalemate over the three republics’ independence campaigns.
The three presidents formed a united front last month to press their drives to restore the independence they lost in 1940 and asked at the time for a meeting with Gorbachev.
Dapkus said the Kremlin finally agreed to the session but she did not know how or when.
Vytautas Landsbergis of Lithuania, Arnold Ruutel of Estonia and Anatoly Gorbunov of Latvia met today to prepare for the Kremlin session, Raudseps and Dapkus said. No details of their meeting in the Lithuanian town of Panevezys were available.
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