Word: estonians
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...creating new Soviet institutions. After the session, Gorbachev invited six Baltic delegates to his office to explain their position to him. He then told them he stood firmly on his plan to create a new federation and would stick to it in future negotiations with the Baltic states. Said Estonian journalist Tarmu Tammerk: "This was the first time he has admitted that Baltic independence is something we can legitimately talk about...
This latest sign of fragmentation in Mikhail Gorbachev's multi-ethnic empire comes just as he is trying to defuse the growing threat of secession by the three Baltic republics. Lithuania's Communist Party has already declared its independence from Moscow headquarters, and the Estonian and Latvian organizations are considering similar moves toward local autonomy. Gorbachev plans to visit the area this week in search of compromise. Now he must look southward as well, to festering nationality problems in Azerbaijan -- and the long-feared spread of Islamic fundamentalism from Iran into the six predominantly Muslim republics of the U.S.S.R...
...Soviet empire is disintegrating so quickly and in so many ways that * neither Moscow nor Washington has been able to adjust its policies fast enough to keep up with events. Last week, while the East German regime went into free fall, nationalists in the Estonian parliament prepared to consider a resolution that explicitly challenges the legitimacy of Soviet rule and implicitly raises the possibility of an eventual declaration of independence...
...diplomatic boycott made moral and political sense as long as Baltic independence seemed an impossible dream. Now the policy is applied too rigidly. An Estonian Deputy Prime Minister, Rein Otsason, and the republic's party ideologist, Mikk Titma, wanted to come to the U.S. recently to lay the foundation for what may be the next free government of their country. But the U.S. delayed the visitors' visas and gave them the official cold shoulder once they arrived...
...Estonian nationalists contend that Russians are exaggerating their plight and playing into the hands of Gorbachev's opponents. "It comes down to the question of who is for perestroika and who is against it," said Rein Kaarapere, an economist with the republic's Council of Ministers. He may have a point. Early this month delegates from Intermovement, which claims to represent 100,000 Russians in Estonia, joined members of similar groups across the country to found the United Front of Workers of Russia. The front is dedicated to battling nationalist movements, but it also expressed opposition to Gorbachev's plans...