To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what is Government policy concerning the development of democratic self-government for Lithuania and other Baltic states within the Soviet Union; and if he will make a statement.

We fully support the right of the Baltic peoples to determine their own future, and welcome the progress made in the last two years towards this goal. We have strongly urged the Soviet authorities not to reverse that process. To do so would contravene the Soviet Union's commitment to strengthen democracy, under the charter for a new Europe signed in Paris on 21 November 1990. Only free negotiation based on democratic principles can provide a solution to the problems of the Baltic peoples.