BALTIC STATES BID FOR U.S. ATTENTION AT HELSINKI SUMMIT.

In a Finnish press interview published yesterday, as the U.S.-Russian summit opened in Helsinki, Lithuanian foreign minister Algirdas Saudargas described Western reluctance to extend security guarantees to the Baltic states as "indirect recognition of the Soviet occupation’s consequences." The three Baltic states’ quest to join NATO is ultimately a "struggle against international isolation" and a refusal of their relegation to "former Soviet territory," Saudargas observed in the interview with Finland’s leading daily, Helsingin Sanomat. (BNS, March 20)

Kazakstan Differs with Russia on Central Asian Security.