(VILNIUS) - Lithuania on Thursday denied planning to thwart Russia's effort to join the World Trade Organisation, but warned Moscow about trying to skew Baltic Sea commerce in its favour.

"Lithuania isn't threatening anyone," a foreign ministry official told AFP in the wake of reports that Vilnius was planning to torpedo Moscow's efforts to become part of the 152-nation WTO.

Russia, which has been trying to join the WTO since 1993, is now the only major economy outside of the global trade grouping. Under WTO rules, Moscow is obliged to reach agreement with all member states to secure membership.

In May, Georgia, which like Lithuania broke free from Moscow's rule in 1991, warned it would block WTO entry in protest at Russian trade links with its two separatist regions.

Despite rejecting claims that it would adopt a tough stance at the WTO, Lithuania took Moscow to task over apparent moves to corner the Baltic maritime market.

Russia is upgrading its Baltic Sea ports with a view to halting oil and coal exports through its former territories Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia by 2015.

Vilnius argues that deliberately shifting commerce to Russian ports would constitute a breach of trade rules which say that all WTO members must be treated equally.

"The possible segregation of the Baltic states' ports from the other ports on the Baltic Sea coastline would contradict the WTO practices of free and fair competition," the ministry said in a statement.

The Lithuanian ministry said that while such a Russian move would "have only limited relevance" -- noting that Russian cargoes account for only 13 percent of total turnover in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda -- preferential treatment for Russian ports would also violate a three-year-old bilateral trade deal between the two countries.

"We therefore urge Russian officials to stop playing cheap politics," it said.

The three Baltic states have remained important outlets for Russia's West-bound exports since they won independence from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, and notably since they joined the European Union in 2004.

But political relations with their former overlord have often been rocky, and tensions sometime spill into the trade arena.

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