Lithuania Will Get Some Natural Gas Today, Kremlin Aide Says

A member of the Communist Party Politburo confirmed Friday that the blockade of natural gas to Lithuania will be partially lifted starting today as a gesture of Kremlin goodwill.

Moscow ordered the cutoff of all oil, most natural gas and some raw material shipments to Lithuania in April in an effort to persuade the republic to rescind its independence declaration of March 11.

The Kremlin gave the first sign that it may be ready to ease the blockade Wednesday, when Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov reportedly told Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene that 15% of the republic’s natural gas supply would be restored. However, there had been no sign of the gas actually arriving.

At a news conference Friday, Politburo member Yuri Maslyukov said natural gas supplies to a large fertilizer plant in Lithuania would be turned back on, as promised in the talks between Prunskiene and Ryzhkov.

“At that meeting, as far as I know, there was a request from Prunskiene to supply gas,” Maslyukov said. “Ryzhkov gave that instruction, that is 3.5 million cubic meters of gas starting from tomorrow to be supplied to that plant.”

Maslyukov, who is also head of the state planning committee, said it was a goodwill gesture from the Soviet Union and a “reiteration of the Soviet government’s interest in speeding negotiation.”

A spokesman at the Jonova fertilizer plant, Mysyunas Tautvid, said the company received a telegram confirming that natural gas supplies would be restored today.

At a separate news conference, Soviet Vice President Anatoly Lukyanov said that the whole blockade of oil and natural gas will be lifted once Lithuania’s Parliament freezes the implementation of its independence act.

Lukyanov said that suspending the implementation of the declaration of independence would meet the constitutional requirements set by the Congress of People’s Deputies in March when it declared Lithuania’s actions invalid and illegal.

“We are ready for negotiations and political dialogue, but first the mandate of the Congress of People’s Deputies must be fulfilled,” Lukyanov said.