Word: baltics
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...will guarantee treaties signed with the old Soviet Union, who will provide continuity with the foreign policy of the past and help interpret the themes and variations of each republic pursuing its own national interests. The international community may be lining up to grant recognition to the three Baltic republics; how it will deal with seven more candidates clamoring for full admission into the club is another matter. For the interim, foreign visitors will still want to stop first at the Kremlin to catch the familiar voice of Gorbachev above the babble...
...dead letter, judged totally inadequate to slake the republics' suddenly sharpened thirst for independence. At barest minimum, what was still officially one country on Aug. 19 will be four. The center, as Soviets call the government in the Kremlin, is no longer even trying to keep the three Baltic republics in any kind of union. A rapidly growing list of foreign governments last week formally recognized Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as independent countries and even began talking about seating them in the United Nations. But the headlong trend toward dissolution did not stop there. At last count, seven more republics...
...last foreign envoy accredited to the Baltic republics left 50 years ago, after the Red Army extinguished their sovereignty. When Lithuania declared its independence anew in March 1990, no one came. But now that Lithuania, along with Latvia and Estonia, has reclaimed its freedom from the rubble of the Soviet state, foreign ministers and diplomats seem almost breathless in their rush to return. The first new ambassador on the scene was Denmark's Otto Borch, who said, "No assignment I have received has brought me greater pleasure than this one." Somehow the Latvians managed to find a handful...
...later, the 12-nation European Community announced its recognition of the Baltics and its members' intention to open diplomatic relations "without delay." At an emotional ceremony in Bonn, the foreign ministers of the three republics personally accepted Germany's recognition. The 1939 nonaggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union set the stage for Stalin's annexation of the Baltic states the following year. "It is only today," said Estonian foreign minister Lennart Meri, "that the last consequences of the Second World War have been done away with...
Washington did not join in the initial rush. The U.S. never accepted Soviet sovereignty over the Baltics, but it resisted public pressure to send in the diplomats. It held back partly to avoid complicating Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to salvage the rest of the union and partly to be sure the three states were fully in control of their own territory. George Bush called on Moscow to stop standing "against the winds of the inevitable" and formalize Baltic independence. If Moscow keeps dawdling, the White House said, the U.S. would announce recognition this week...