EU on track for Russia talks

By Nerijus Adomaitis and Marja Novak

VILNIUS (Reuters) - The European Union looks likely to launch talks with Russia next month on a new partnership deal after Lithuania on Sunday dropped its veto on negotiations starting.

Lithuania had blocked agreement on a mandate for the talks, which the EU hopes to launch at a June 26-27 summit in Siberia, as it wanted the mandate to include several topics, including a resumption of crude oil supplies cut by Russia in 2006.

The Baltic state dropped its veto after talks in Vilnius with Slovenian Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

"I have to state that the EU is united today ... All Lithuanian concerns were taken into account in principle, in written (form)," Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas told a news conference after the talks.

He said he hoped the mandate for the talks with Russia, which will be conducted by the European Commission, would be approved at a EU foreign ministers' meeting later this month.

He added that a successful end to the talks with Russia on a new pact, covering trade and political partnership, would be related to success in the resumption of oil supplies and the solution of the frozen conflicts in Moldova and Georgia.

These were two of the issues Lithuania wanted in the mandate. It also wanted Russian cooperation in criminal investigations and compensations for Lithuanians deported to Siberia by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Rupel said the agreement in Vilnius showed EU states could work together, even though there were 27 of them.