EU on track for Russia talks

The European Union looks likely to launch talks with Russia next month on a new partnership deal after Lithuania on Sunday dropped its veto on negotiations starting.

Lithuania had blocked agreement on a mandate for the talks, which the EU hopes to launch at a June 26-27 summit in Siberia, as it wanted the mandate to include several topics, including a resumption of crude oil supplies cut by Russia in 2006.

The Baltic state dropped its veto after talks in Vilnius with Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

"I have to state that the EU is united today ... All Lithuanian concerns were taken into account in principle, in written (form)," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas told a news conference after the talks.

He said he hoped the mandate for the talks with Russia, which will be conducted by the European Commission, would be approved at a EU foreign ministers' meeting later this month.

He added that a successful end to the talks with Russia on a new pact, covering trade and political partnership, would be related to success in the resumption of oil supplies and the solution of the frozen conflicts in Moldova and Georgia.

These were two of the issues Lithuania wanted in the mandate. It also wanted Russian cooperation in criminal investigations and compensations for Lithuanians deported to Siberia by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Rupel said the agreement in Vilnius showed EU states could work together, even though there were 27 of them.

"I think Lithuania's vital interests have been taken into account and we should all be happy about it," he added.

In a statement released in Ljubljana, he also said the draft mandate included the frozen conflicts and integrity of Georgia and Moldova and effective cooperation with Russia on judicial and energy issues.

The Polish and Swedish foreign ministers were also in Vilnius on Sunday and were expected to travel to Georgia early on Monday with their Lithuanian and Slovenian colleagues.

The EU and NATO said last week that Russia had fuelled tensions by deploying extra troops in Abkhazia, which broke from Tbilisi in a war after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Georgia says Russia's move to send more troops there risks sparking an all-out conflict. Russia has said its troop build-up is needed to counter what it says are Georgian plans to attack Abkhazia. It has accused Tbilisi of trying to suck the West into a war, allegations Georgia rejects.