Blockade Not Easing Yet, Lithuania Says

Lithuanian President Vytautus Landsbergis said Thursday that he sees no sign yet of Moscow easing its economic sanctions against his breakaway republic despite reports that some natural gas deliveries would resume.

“I checked yesterday and no one knew anything,” Landsbergis said by telephone from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. “This may be a red herring but we will see what the future brings. So far we have nothing.”

He spoke as the Baltic region marked a day of mourning for thousands of Balts interned by Soviet secret police after Moscow took control of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1940. The mass deportations were part of Josef Stalin’s attempt to consolidate Soviet control over the republics annexed a year earlier under a secret agreement with Nazi Germany.

On Wednesday, Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene said after talks with Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov that Moscow had agreed to ease the blockade it imposed after Lithuania’s March 11 independence declaration.

The announcement heralded a possible breakthrough after three months of deadlock between Moscow and Lithuania over the Baltic republic’s drive for sovereignty.

But many barriers to direct negotiations remained.

The cutting of oil supplies and sharp reductions in natural gas deliveries have crippled Lithuanian industry.

Prunskiene on Wednesday said that Moscow had agreed to resume some gas deliveries.

Asked if Lithuania would be willing to back down and accept President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s key demand that it should freeze its independence declaration, Landsbergis said: “We will debate everything that came out of yesterday’s meeting.”

In the past, Lithuania has resolutely refused to discuss the issue of sovereignty.