(VILNIUS) - Lithuania's foreign minister Wednesday warned Vilnius would resist any attempts to water down a recent deal made to overcome its veto on key EU talks with Russia.

"We shall not surrender the basic, fundamental, principle issues related to Lithuania's interests," Petras Vaitiekunas told reporters.

Lithuania, which broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 and joined the European Union in 2004, last month vetoed EU attempts to kick off talks on a new "Partnership and Cooperation Agreement" with energy-rich and newly assertive Russia.

Any of the EU's 27 member states can impose a veto if it feels its national interests are threatened.

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

They included Russia's active cooperation over energy supplies, a probe of killings by Soviet troops in Lithuania in 1991, and the resolution of "frozen conflicts" in two other former Soviet republics, Georgia and Moldova, where Moscow is accused of backing separatists.

Vaitiekunas and his counterparts from Poland, Sweden and Slovenia -- the current president of the EU -- met in Vilnius last Sunday.

The four ministers reached a deal that would have Lithuania's concerns spelled out in the formal negotiating mandate for the European Commission, the EU's executive arm.

But Vaitiekunas claimed Wednesday that some EU members were seeking to undermine the understanding.

"The main issue which is being put up for revision is frozen conflicts," he said, without elaborating.

"Member states are not in the same geographical and geopolitical situation. Great Britain, Spain, France have their own interests, and we defend our interests based on our situation," he added.

"The EU still has a long way to go to learn to reflect common interests and to speak with one voice," he added.

Vaitiekunas would not explain if he was simply spotlighting the three countries as simple examples of EU member states or if they were specifically among those trying to amend the Vilnius deal.

Citing diplomats in Brussels, however, Lithuanian public television reported that the three, plus Germany and Italy, were trying to make changes.

On Tuesday, EU diplomats in Brussels told AFP that member states' ambassadors had given a green light, in principle, to opening talks with Russia, but had also made a new proposal which was "not certain" to please Vilnius.

A Lithuanian diplomat in Brussels said the country's leaders were "a little irritated" by the allegedly heavy-handed tactics of other EU members.

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

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