Word: lithuania
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...Union when it passed the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1974, which was intended to permit freer emigration. In 1989, 71,190 Jews left the country. As recently as three years ago, a mere 914 emigrated. However, congressional leaders of both parties have raised a new condition: movement toward granting Lithuania's demand for independence from Moscow...
...country's oil and 70% of its gas, would sell to domestic customers at world prices, which are about five times higher than those now charged to other republics. Yeltsin says signing agreements with the Baltic states would be a top priority, hinting that he might help Lithuania bypass the economic blockade that Gorbachev has enforced to halt its drive for independence. These ideas are radical by any Soviet definition and put Yeltsin directly on a collision course with Gorbachev...
Trade unexpectedly turned out to be the touchiest subject of all. In Moscow last month, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze told Secretary of State James Baker that the Kremlin understood American reluctance to sign a comprehensive trade deal while Moscow continues its economic embargo of Lithuania. But Gorbachev last week would not let the subject drop. In a sharp exchange with congressional leaders Friday morning, he expressed particular irritation that the U.S. still denies most-favored-nation trade status to the U.S.S.R., though it has just renewed that status for China despite last year's massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators...
...needed the political symbolism of bringing home some bacon. Bush reiterated that the U.S.S.R. must first pass a law guaranteeing free emigration, and even then it would be "extremely difficult" for both the Administration and the Senate to approve a trade deal unless Moscow eased its sanctions against Lithuania. Gorbachev protested that he could not do that just yet, lest he encourage separatists and anger his conservative critics...
...session Friday morning. This time Bush yielded. He told Gorbachev he would sign a trade treaty but would not send it to Congress until the U.S.S.R. passed the emigration law. He added that he expected Gorbachev to show the same understanding of U.S. concerns about Lithuania that the White House was showing for the Kremlin's economic needs, but apparently got no explicit promise in return...