Mikhail S. Gorbachev agreed Wednesday to grant independence to the Baltic republics, officials said, making them the first breakaway Soviet states to win such recognition from the Kremlin.
With Soviet central authority crumbling in the wake of last month's hard-line coup, Gorbachev will issue decrees formally freeing the Baltics, the officials said after meeting with the Soviet president.The move came as the highest Soviet lawmaking body Wednesday debated how power should be divided as the union is transformed into a loose confederation of sovereign states. Two-thirds of the Soviet republics have declared themselves independent.
Under a blueprint Gorbachev and the leaders of 10 of the 15 republics are trying to push through the Congress of People's Deputies, most of the central government's power would be transferred to the republics.
Negotiations Wednesday focused on who would wield the most power in the interim government that would be formed to manage the transition to a new union.
Gorbachev had been expected to raise the issue of Baltic independence at the Congress but did not because it apparently did not have enough support.
In Washington, Secretary of State James A. Baker III planned to fly to Moscow next week for a close-up look at the rapidly changing Soviet Union and to assess Gorbachev's chances of holding the turbulent country together, U.S. officials say.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Baker also is pondering a visit to one or all of the three newly independent Baltic republics with which the United States re-established ties after more than a half-century.
The Baltics, which began their independence drive three years ago, have already won recognition from dozens of foreign governments, including the United States. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia also have applied for U.N. membership, and Moscow has indicated it won't block the move.
Word of Gorbachev's agreement to grant Baltic independence came after he met with Baltic representatives from the Congress. He asked them to draft a declaration, said Algimantas Cekoulis, a former Lithuanian deputy who is attending the Congress.
The Soviet leader approved the general idea after he read their draft, Cekoulis said. Former Gorbachev aide Alexander Yakovlev also said Gorbachev would issue the decrees after lawmakers conclude a special session.Just 20 minutes into Wednesday's Congress session, Gorbachev ordered a recess because of "very serious remarks and proposals" from the Russian, Ukrainian and other delegations.
It was not immediately clear if Gorbachev's plan was in trouble. After a similarly ordered break in the first day of the session Monday, all the republics' delegations lined up behind the proposal.
One deputy told reporters that leaders of the republics' delegations needed to assure lawmakers they would have some sort of future role if they agreed to the proposal. The measures would effectively dissolve the Congress.
"This break has been called so the republics can bribe them (the lawmakers)," said Svyatislav Fyodorov, a lawmaker and noted eye surgeon.
A plan circulated by Russian legislators would shift almost all power into two of the interim government bodies proposed by Gorbachev - a governing council and an interrepublic committee that would set economic policy.
That would leave little power for an interim legislature.
Leaders of Russia, the dominant republic with most of the Soviet Union's riches and half its population, oppose giving too much power to Gorbachev and what they fear would be too conservative a legislature.
The so-called State Council would comprise the Soviet president and leaders of the republics. The economic committee, made up of the president and republic representatives, would coordinate economic policy.
The Gorbachev proposal urges all republics, whether or not they choose to maintain political ties with the Kremlin, to enter into an economic union.
For its first two days, the Congress was dominated by presidents Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia and Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan - two key figures in the emerging restructuring of the country.
On Tuesday, Gorbachev pressed the Congress for approval of the radically looser union with a passionate defense of the proposed new order and a stern warning that rejection would mean chaos and cost the deputies their jobs.
Speaking to reporters after Tuesday's session, he said that if deputies vote down the plan "the people will reject this Congress. . . . The Congress will have exhausted its usefulness."
But he stepped back from one element of the plan: a proposal to replace the Supreme Soviet standing legislature with a smaller body composed of an equal number of representatives from each of the republics.
That idea had run into stiff opposition. Of the 10 republics negotiating a new union, it would have given the six predominantly Muslim republics more representatives than Russia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine, the Slavic heartland.
Gorbachev also told reporters that he would not bring up independence for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia at the Congress, and there was speculation he might simply issue a decree granting recognition.
A Russian official said the Congress, a quasi-democratic body created two years ago and dominated by Communists, might vote against independence for the Baltic republics if Gorbachev brought the issue to the floor.