Soviets Warned by U.S. on Lithuania : Diplomacy: Troop movements worry Washington. The White House urges Moscow to use caution. Shevardnadze rules out the use of force.

WASHINGTON —  The Bush Administration, deeply worried by Soviet troop movements in and around Lithuania, warned Moscow on Tuesday against creating an “atmosphere of intimidation and increasing tension” in the Baltic republic.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater issued the unusually tough statement, warning Moscow against using its army to enforce Soviet control of Lithuania, which declared its independence March 11.

“The activities and statements of the Soviet government over the past few days are cause for concern,” Fitzwater said, noting “troop movements that have been sighted along the border, around certain institutions (and) public facilities.”

“The United States notes that the Lithuanian government has expressed its readiness to address all legitimate Soviet interests, including economic interests, through negotiations,” Fitzwater said, adding a call for “the Soviet government to address its concerns and interest through immediate negotiations with the government of Lithuania.”

Despite rumors in Lithuania, Soviet authorities deny that there have been any extraordinary or unscheduled troop movements in or near the republic. But on Monday, Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov ordered various government ministries to take steps to prevent the Lithuanians from disengaging their economy from that of the Soviet Union.

Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the Soviet Parliament have declared the Lithuanian assertion of independence illegal and invalid, and Gorbachev said that there can be no negotiations over the issue. But Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, acknowledging that his republic cannot survive economically if it wrenches itself away from the SovietUnion, continues to express confidence that there will be talks.

In Windhoek, Namibia, where he met with Secretary of State James A. Baker III, Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze sought to reassure the United States.

“We are against the use of force in any region and particularly against using force domestically,” Shevardnadze told reporters.

Baker said he accepted the Soviet official’s words. “The minister made it very clear to me that they are hopeful that questions involving Lithuania will be handled through dialogue,” Baker said after his four-hour meeting with Shevardnadze.

“He said that force would not be a solution to the problem,” Baker added. “I thought he was fairly definitive. . . . There is no reason that we know of not to take him at his word.”

In Washington, however, Administration officials were voicing a far more skeptical line.

Soviet use of force against the Lithuanians would “kill perestroika with the West” and complicate negotiations on issues from arms control to German unification, an Administration official said. Perestroika is the term used to describe the economic and political reform effort under way in the Soviet Union.

A forcible suppression of the Lithuanian independence movement would raise again the fears, for now subdued, that the Soviet leadership “is a bear that really hasn’t filed down its fangs,” the official added.

As one of the republics that make up the Soviet Union, Lithuania has a separate government with limited powers. That government is now controlled by pro-independence forces. Although the United States has not formally recognized the new government as an independent sovereign state, American officials never officially accepted Soviet rule over the region, which was taken over by the Soviet army during World War II after a deal was struck with Nazi Germany.

President Bush, the Administration official said, had specifically raised the issue of the use of force in the Baltics when he met with Gorbachev in Malta in December.

“The President raised the issue of self-determination” and “noted the use of force would be counterproductive,” the official said.

Gorbachev, in turn, assured Bush that force would not be used. He and other Soviet officials have repeated that pledge since then, even after the Lithuanian assertion of independence.

Bush and Gorbachev have not specifically discussed the situation in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the three Baltic Republics, since their Malta meeting. But, said Fitzwater, the Soviets “are aware of our position” through other diplomatic contacts.

For the last several days, the Administration had been taking a hands-off stance toward Lithuania, hoping that negotiations leading to a peaceful settlement would soon begin between Moscow and Landsbergis’ pro-independence regime.

Bush, commenting to reporters before a meeting with congressional leaders Tuesday morning, repeated that hope.

“They’ve been very good about it--the Soviets have--all through Eastern Europe,” the President said. “That’s what everyone wants to see, a peaceful evolution in Lithuania.”

But the Soviet troop deployments around Lithuania have sent a shudder through the Administration, which has invested substantial political and diplomatic resources in supporting Gorbachev and his reform efforts.

The United States appears willing in some situations to accept the Kremlin’s use of its armed forces to put down internal unrest. Earlier this year, for example, Administration officials offered generally supportive statements about the use of troops to end unrest in Soviet Azerbaijan.

Lithuania, however, is a “different case,” the Administration official said.

“We’re tied down with the political aspects of 40 years” of U.S. statements supporting Lithuanian independence, this official said. In addition, the movements for independence in the Baltic states enjoy considerable support among their neighbors in Eastern Europe, the official noted.

Widespread violence in Azerbaijan and neighboring Armenia allowed the Soviets to claim their military presence was needed to restore order in that situation. In Lithuania, however, the independence movement has been peaceful.

Although partially overshadowed by the concern about Lithuania, the meeting between Baker and Shevardnadze concentrated on German reunification and Third World issues.

Officials on both sides said the talks, which took place at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Namibia on a hill overlooking Windhoek, were part of the complex process of fixing the agenda for Bush’s summit meeting with Gorbachev, tentatively scheduled for Washington in June.

Shevardnadze said that at least two more such foreign minister-level meetings will be required, the first scheduled for April 4-6 in Washington and the second, not yet set, presumably in the Soviet Union. The two men largely left arms control matters for those later meetings.

Lauter reported from Washington and Kempster from Windhoek.