Russia Criticizes Visa Regime Between Kaliningrad, Neighboring States

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, June 11, 2002

Russia Criticizes Visa Regime Between Kaliningrad, Neighboring States

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Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday criticized the introduction of visa regime between Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad and its neighboring states that are going to join the European Union.

"We'll never agree to a violation of the Russian Federation's sovereignty," Putin told a biannual meeting of the heads of government of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) in St. Petersburg.

"The visa regime should be unified for all citizens of the Russian Federation no matter where they live," he added.

The Kaliningrad issue is thorny in the EU-Russian relations.

The EU has insisted that once Poland and Lithuania join the EU,expected in 2004, Russians traveling between Kaliningrad and the rest of the country will have to obtain a transit visa. But Russian officials say this would infringe on the rights of Russian citizens and limit their ability to travel across their own country. An EU-Russia summit in Moscow last month failed to reach any agreement on the issue.

Putin on Monday still pushed the previous proposal for a transport corridor allowing Kaliningrad residents the ability to travel visa-free between the enclave and the rest of Russia.

He compared to the system devised in the 1970s for travel to West Berlin -- part of what was then West Germany, but isolated in the heart of East Germany behind the wall.

"Even then, at the peak of the Cold War, they did find solutions to these problems," said Putin, "Perhaps that's not the best solution possible, bringing us back to the time of a Cold War of sorts. But what we're hearing today is worse than the Cold War of the 1970s."

The President also called on the CBSS leaders to study the Kaliningrad personally and find a political solution to it.

"We hope our European partners will understand the unique position of this enclave, its special importance for Europe as a whole, and the need to look for optimal solutions."

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov sought to allay the fears of Kaliningrad's neighbors, which complain a visa-free corridor could promote unregulated emigration and organized crimes.

Finnish Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, whose country is to take the next chairmanship of the CBSS, said the Kaliningrad issue is a common problem for both Russia and the EU and would be further discussed at the EU summit in Seville, Spain,

"All diplomatic efforts will be made to prevent the interests of the residents of this region and the neighboring regions from being hurt," Lipponen told a press conference.

"In principle we should not go back to something that we had in the old times," he said. "We should rather be able to look ahead, for example with visa regimes."

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged the other countries to take into account Russia's concerns, but meanwhile turned down Putin's proposal for corridors, saying that although they might work for rail or air traffic, they wouldn't be feasible for cars. The Baltic council includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia and Sweden, andalso the European Commission.

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