Russia, Ukraine failed to reach solution on island dispute

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, October 31, 2003

Russia, Ukraine failed to reach solution on island dispute

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Senior negotiators of Russia and Ukraine failed to reach concrete decisions Thursday during a meeting on how to settle the territorial standoff over an island that guards a key strait connecting the Azov Sea and Black Sea.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who arrived in Kiev Thursday morning to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart Konstantyn Hryshchenko, said that the talks was not aimed at making decisions on the disputed Tuzla Island.

"We wanted to examine the development of negotiations on this subject and agreed to regulate their schedule," Ivanov was quoted by Interfax as saying.

The two foreign ministers approved to set up working groups to manage the issue and delegations from the two countries are set to meet next week to discuss the problem.

Ivanov pointed out that the two sides would take into account and respect the mutual interests in the process of searching for a solution to the issue.

The territorial tensions flared up in late September when Russia started to build a dam stretching from its Krasnodar region toward the Tuzla Island near the frontier with Ukraine on the Kerch strait in the Azov Sea.

Russia alleged that the aim of the dike was to protect the seaside ecological environment but Ukraine viewed the project as encroachment on its sovereignty and immediately assigned border guards to the island.

Russian Prime Minster Mikhail Kasyanov said he had reached an agreement with his Ukrainian counterpart Viktor Yanukovych in a Friday meeting in Moscow. Under the accord, Ukraine agreed to remove troops from the Tuzla Island in the Sea of Azov if Russia halts the dike project.

Russia suspended the construction of the dike last Thursday after Ukraine's president took a trip to the island to inspect the troops, pressing Ukraine to fulfil its promise made in the Friday accord.

But Ukraine disavowed the agreement on the retreat of its border guards from the island, saying that Kiev was just considering the issue.

It has been widely anticipated that the Thursday meeting between Ivanov and Hryshchenko would produce solution to defuse the escalating crisis but the fruitless result only create an indefinite prospect for the final settlement.

Ivanov confirmed that the construction of a dike should not be viewed as an attempt to violate the territorial integrity of Ukraine and "there will be no such attempts" from Russia.

Ivanov said the current presence of Ukrainian border patrols onTuzla Island is unexplainable especially after the two meetings between governmental officials of both sides.

He said the so-called dispute between Ukraine and Russia over the status of Tuzla Island was "a misunderstanding", which will be resolved.

Ukraine insisted that the island was its territory but some Russian officials still questioned its legal status.

Concerning the ownership of the island, Ivanov noted that "there is different documentation, which can be interpreted in a different way, and this is a question to be negotiated."

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