|
Associated Press, Moscow, Russia, April 20, 2004
MOSCOW (AP)--The Russian and Ukrainian governments asked their nations'
parliaments to simultaneously ratify two key bilateral agreements on
Tuesday, trying to put behind them a border dispute that chilled relations
between the two.
Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada voted 352-16 to ratify the treaty on the state
border between Russia and Ukraine , and later overcame opposition to a
second agreement on cooperation in the use of the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait,
approving ratification in a 274-59 vote.
Its Russian counterpart, the State Duma, scheduled its votes for later in
the day after turning down an opposition attempt to take the treaties off
the agenda to protest Ukraine 's recent move to require all Ukrainian
television and radio stations to broadcast only in Ukrainian rather than
Russian.
After hours of debate, the Ukrainian parliament also voted 265-60 to ratify
an agreement creating a free trade zone between Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and
Kazakhstan. The Duma was also expected to vote on the agreement, which
Ukrainian critics said would hurt their country's economy and infringe on
its sovereignty.
Russia and Ukraine were long locked in a dispute over the Azov Sea, which
has busy shipping routes, rich fishing grounds and prospective oil fields.
The conflict was exacerbated last fall, when Russia started building a dike
from the Russian mainland to Ukraine 's Tuzla Island, located in the Kerch
Strait linking the Black and the Azov Seas.
Ukraine deployed its troops to the island to prevent what many Ukrainian
politicians called a Russian attempt to annex the tiny island and seize
control of the Kerch Strait. Russian officials said they wanted to prevent
erosion.
Following tense high-level talks, Russia stopped construction about 100
meters from Tuzla, but demanded that Ukraine withdraw its border guards from
the island. Ukraine drew Moscow's ire by building up its presence on Tuzla
instead.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma
signed a framework agreement to share the Azov Sea waters equally in
December.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told lawmakers Tuesday that it was in
Moscow's interest to ratify the border agreement, as well as the treaty on
cooperation in the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait.
"The key thing about the treaty is that it envisages that the Azov Sea and
the Kerch Strait will be used together," he said. "As to judicial
delimitations of the Azov Sea and on how to agree on the use of the Kerch
Strait...we'll need to establish the delimitation line. The talks on this
are under way now."
After the second vote in the Ukrainian parliament, opposition party leader
Yulia Tymoshenko said lawmakers had approved "the surrender of the Kerch
Strait" to Russia. Tymoshenko's party and another westward-leaning
opposition group, Our Ukraine , are wary of Russian intentions and voted
against ratification.
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
|
back
