SOCIAL DEMOCRATS TO COOPERATE WITH RUSSIAN COUNTERPARTS.
The council
of Latvia's Social Democratic Workers Party (LSDSP) has
decided
to develop a cooperation agreement with Russia's United
Social
Democratic Party (ROSD), LETA reported on 17 January.
LSDSP
Secretary-General Janis Dinevics said the Russian party proposed
the
agreement, which would state that it will not cooperate with
any
other "would-be social democratic party in Latvia," including
Juris
Zuravlovs' Social Democratic Welfare Party. He
answered
complaints that the agreement would bring reproaches from
right-wing
political parties and the media by noting that the agreement
would
likely be signed in Latvia not by the ROSD's leader,
Mikhail
Gorbachev, but by party board member Aleksandr Yakovlev, who
has been
awarded Latvia's highest honor, the Three Star Order.
LSDSP
Chairman Juris Bojars proposed that the agreement include
a
stipulation that Russia's Social Democrats will facilitate
the
signing and ratification of the Latvian-Russian border
treaty.
FOREIGN MINISTER VISITS MOSCOW. In his capacity as
chairman of the
Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe,
Antanas Valionis led
a three-day (14-16 January) working visit to
Moscow, ELTA reported.
On 15 January he discussed with Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov
economic support for Kaliningrad Oblast and the
visa requirements
that will arise for the oblast's residents to visit
Russia after
Lithuania joins the EU. Earlier that day he had talks with
Russian
Transport Minister Sergei Frank about transport corridors from
Russia
to Kaliningrad and the possible construction of a 200 kilometer
gas
pipeline through Lithuania. Valionis and Frank, in their
capacities
as cochairmen of the Lithuanian-Russian intergovernmental
commission,
confirmed that the third session of this group will take
place in
mid-April in Moscow. The Duma's International Relations
Committee
chairman, Dmitrii Rogozin, told reporters after a meeting
with
Valionis in Moscow on 16 January that the Duma will not
ratify the
Lithuanian-Russian border treaty before Russia, Poland, and
Lithuania
submit a joint proposal to the European Union on visa
requirements
for Kaliningrad residents. Valionis also had a
meeting with Gazprom
Board Chairman Aleksei Miller to receive more
information about the
company's intentions to participate in the
privatization of
Lithuanian Gas and the possible gas pipeline to
Kaliningrad.
AGREEMENT WITH RUSSIA TO BUILD NEW BORDER
BRIDGE. Following two days
of talks in Vilnius, Russian Deputy
Transport Minister Oleg Skvortsov
and his Lithuanian counterpart Arijus
Ramonas agreed on 18 January to
conduct a cost-benefit study for building a
new bridge across the
Nemunas River from Panemune, Lithuania, to
Sovetsk (Tilsit) in
Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, BNS reported. The
current Queen
Luiza Bridge would serve only pedestrian traffic following
the
construction of the new bridge. Ramonas estimated that
the
construction of the new bridge would probably cost Lithuania some
$10
million of the total cost and would not be completed before 2007
or
2008.