MOSCOW, May 5: The Kremlin on Thursday angrily rejected demands for an apology over the Soviet take-over of the Baltics 60 years ago, fuelling an East-West diplomatic row that threatens to overshadow grandiose celebrations in Moscow marking the end of World War II. “There was no occupation. There were agreements at the time with the legitimately elected authorities in the Baltic countries,” the Kremlin’s European affairs chief Sergei Yastrzhembsky said.

The defiant statement upped the ante in a growing dispute with the European Union, including the three tiny Baltic republics — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — and the United States, which want Moscow to recognise that the Red Army occupied swathes of eastern Europe in the wake of the retreating Nazis.

European Commission vice-president Guenter Verheugen said earlier this week that Moscow’s relations with Brussels would depend on Russia admitting the illegality of Soviet rule in the Baltics.

Yastrzhembsky fired back: “I advise those who want to develop constructive relations with Russia to leave the analysis to historians and to experts, and not to bring too many phobias and historical prejudice into current relations between Russia and the European Union.”

Verheugen “does not properly remember the historical situation on which he is commenting,” he added.

Far from being a dry historical debate, the row about the nature of Soviet rule in the Baltics is spiralling into a full-scale diplomatic spat ahead of next Monday’s lavish Victory Day celebrations.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants the event, in which some 60 world leaders will watch a Red Square military parade, to showcase Russia’s historic contribution to defeating Nazi Germany and to boost Russia’s international standing.

But the presidents of Lithuania and Estonia, Valdas Adamkus and Arnold Ruutel, refused to come, while Latvia’s President Vaira Vike-Freiberga says she will use the occasion to remind the world “that at the end of World War II half of Europe was not liberated.”

Latvia’s ambassador to Moscow, Andrei Teikmanis, delivered that same message on Thursday.

“After the war the Baltic countries, particularly Latvia, were not among the countries where there was liberal democracy, but fell under Soviet occupation,” he told reporters.

“The situation should not be taboo. One has to speak openly,” he said, adding that a “difficult” discussion was needed with Russia.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen also turned up the heat earlier this week by calling on Moscow to make a historic apology.—AFP