(VILNIUS) - Four European Union foreign ministers announced Sunday they had reached a deal to get Lithuania to lift its veto on launching talks on a new EU partnership accord with Russia, with which Vilnius has a string of disputes.

"Principal agreements were reached today on the proposals of Lithuania," said a statement by the foreign ministers of Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Slovenia.

"We have found ways to reflect in the mandate of the talks the issues of the Druzhba pipeline, issues of legal cooperation with Russia, and frozen conflicts," it said.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas met with Sweden's Carl Bildt, Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski and Slovenia's Dimitrij Rupel, whose country is at the helm of the EU until June.

"Lithuania's vital interests have been taken into account and we should all be glad," Rupel said at a joint press conference afterwards.

"We have found a compromise that should satisfy other members," he added.

The mandate is due for discussion at a May 26 meeting of the council of foreign ministers from the entire 27-nation EU -- which will have to approve Sunday's deal before Lithuania formally lifts its veto.

"We have committed to continue negotiations with the 23 other member states. I believe that the mandate for talks with Russia will be confirmed at the next council meeting," Vaitiekunas said.

Last month, Vilnius vetoed EU attempts to kick off talks on a new "Partnership and Cooperation Agreement" with energy-rich and newly assertive Russia.

Any EU member can block talks between the union and other countries if it feels its national interests are being sidelined -- Poland was long a hold-out, because of a bitter farm trade dispute with Russia, now resolved.

Vilnius demanded that a string of issues be spelled out in the EU negotiating mandate.

They included Russia's active cooperation over energy supplies -- which Sikorski noted was also a concern for Poland.

Russian oil supplies via the "Druzhba" pipeline to Lithuania were halted in 2006, allegedly because of maintenance work, after Lithuania decided to sell its only oil refinery -- Mazeikiu Nafta -- to a Polish group instead of a Russian one.

"The success of the negotiations with Russia will directly depend on the renewal of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline," Vaitiekunas said Sunday.

Lithuania, which broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 and joined the EU in 2004, also wants Russia to be pushed to bring to justice members of the Soviet security forces involved in bloody crackdowns on the independence movement.

Fourteen civilians were killed in Vilnius and hundreds were injured in January 13, 1991, while seven Lithuanian border guards and policemen were gunned down on July 31, 1991.

Vilnius also wants Russia to respect its international obligation to compensate Lithuanians who were deported to the Soviet Gulag.

Finally, Lithuania sought a special declaration on Georgia and Moldova, stressing respect for their territorial integrity and calling Russia to cooperate in solving the "frozen conflicts" in both ex-Soviet countries.

Georgia is currently in the spotlight because of a bitter dispute with Russia over the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia -- which is run by pro-Moscow separatists and where Russian troops are deployed -- as Georgia's pro-Western government raises the spectre of war with Russia.

The four ministers are due to head to Georgia on Monday for a mediation mission.

"Progress in the solution of frozen conflicts in Georgia and Moldova is a direct condition for the successful result of the EU talks with Russia," Vaitiekunas said.

The EU hopes the talks can be launched at an EU-Russia summit in Siberia on June 26-27, when new president Dmitry Medvedev will represent Russia for the first time.

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