BALTS SAID TO BLOCK NORMALIZATION WITH RUSSIA.

"The Baltic states’ reluctance to accept Russia as a good neighbor is the principal obstacle to normalization of relations," Valery Loshchinin, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s main official in charge of Baltic affairs,said yesterday. Faulting the Baltic states for "demonstratively refusing to see that Russia wants to cooperate with them on an equal footing," Loshchinin warned that their bid for NATO membership will further complicate their relations with Moscow and "not strengthen those states’ security." He conceded that the Baltic states’ citizenship laws "comply with international norms from a purely legal point of view," but called for waiving them in order to naturalize the Russian populations there. (8)

Russian Democrats Fail To Agree.