Four European Union foreign ministers announced Sunday they had reached a deal to get Lithuania to lift its veto on launching talks on a new EU partnership accord with Russia.

"Principal agreements were reached today on the proposals of Lithuania," said a statement issued by the foreign ministers of Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Slovenia, which holds the presidency of the 27-nation EU.

"We have found ways to reflect in the mandate of the talks the issues of the Druzhba pipeline (carrying Russian oil to Lithuania), issues of legal cooperation with Russia, and frozen conflicts."

Last month, Vilnius unilaterally blocked EU attempts to kick off talks on a new partnership deal with energy-rich Russia, to replace the old deal signed in 1997 when Moscow was still reeling from the Soviet collapse.

Any of the EU's 27 member states has the right to block talks between the union and other countries if it feels its national interests are being sidelined.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas held closed-door talks in Vilnius Sunday evening with counterparts Sweden's Carl Bildt, Poland's Radoslaw Sikorski and Slovenia's Dimitrij Rupel in a bid to lift Lithuania's veto.

Vilnius had demanded that a number of sensitive issues be spelled out in the EU negotiating mandate, including Russia's active cooperation over energy supplies.

Russian oil supplies via the "Druzhba" pipeline to Lithuania were cut off in 2006, allegedly because of maintenance work, after Lithuania decided to sell its only oil refinery -- Mazeikiu Nafta -- to a Polish group instead of a Russian one.

"The success of the negotiations with Russia will directly depend on the renewal of supplies via the Druzhba pipeline," Vaitiekunas told reporters Sunday.

Lithuania, which broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 and joined the EU in 2004, had also demanded that the EU push Moscow to deal with the legacy of the communist past.

It also sought to press Russia to fulfil its international obligations, including compensating people from Lithuania and its fellow Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia who were deported to the Soviet Gulag after Moscow took over the three countries during World War II.

Finally, it sought a special declaration on Georgia and Moldova, stressing respect for their territorial integrity and calling Russia to cooperate in solving the "frozen conflicts" in both countries.

Georgia is currently in the spotlight because of a bitter dispute with Russia over the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia -- which is run by pro-Moscow separatists and where Russian troops are deployed -- and Georgia's pro-Western government has warned of a risk of conflict with Moscow.

The four ministers who gathered in Vilnius Sunday were due to head to Georgia on Monday for a mediation mission, along with their Latvian counterpart Maris Riekstins.

The mandate for the EU-Russia talks is to be discussed at a meeting of all 27 EU foreign ministers on May 26.

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