Last of Kremlin’s Sanctions Lifted, Lithuania Says

The Kremlin has lifted its 10-week ban on rail deliveries of key foodstuffs to Lithuania, the last remaining economic sanction imposed to stop the republic’s independence drive, Lithuanian officials said Wednesday.

The shipments should resume within two or three days, depending on the availability of rail cars, said Gintaras Yatkonis of the Lithuanian Council of Ministers’ information center.

On Tuesday, natural gas flowed again into the Baltic republic, according to the Parliament’s information bureau.

Oil shipments resumed Saturday, one day after the Lithuanian Parliament agreed to freeze its March 11 declaration of independence. Its lawmakers accepted the 100-day freeze so that negotiations on independence with Moscow can begin. The freeze will start once talks begin.

Yatkonis said that a telegram from the Soviet Transport Ministry addressed to Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene arrived late Tuesday, saying that the ban on railroad deliveries had been lifted.

The ban was imposed to prevent Lithuanians from making private arrangements to receive sugar, coffee, fish, tea and citrus fruit from other parts of the Soviet Union and abroad.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev cut off all shipments of oil, most supplies of natural gas and other key items to Lithuania on April 18 after the republic refused to rescind its pro-independence laws. Lithuania’s 3.8 million residents depend on the Soviet Union for their energy supplies.

About 50,000 of Lithuania’s estimated 1.1 million workers lost their jobs because of the shortages.