Latvian President Accepts Kremlin Demand for Vote on Independence

RIGA, Soviet Union — Latvian President Anatolijs Gorbunovs, in a major concession to Moscow, said Wednesday that he had accepted Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s demand for a referendum on independence in the Baltic republic.

Gorbunovs, briefing his Legislature and reporters on Tuesday’s peace talks at the Kremlin, said also that he agreed with the Soviet president that some laws passed by the nationalist-controlled Parliament might have to be reviewed and possibly changed.

But the Latvian leader said he insisted to Gorbachev that his people could not “return to zero” and accept the authority of the Soviet constitution in the republic, which was annexed in 1940, along with neighboring Estonia and Lithuania.

In a nationally televised address Tuesday night after his 2 1/2-hour meeting with Gorbunovs, Gorbachev expressed regret over recent military assaults in Lithuania and Latvia but refused to budge from his demand that the two republics and Estonia follow Soviet law.

The cobblestoned Old City streets of Riga, Latvia’s medieval capital, remained heavily barricaded. Four people were killed Sunday when Soviet soldiers attacked the Latvian Interior Ministry.