23 October 2003 01:50
Russia and Ukraine in strait ownership dispute KIEV PROTEST:
Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma cut short a visit to Latin America
yesterday and flew home to deal with a dispute with Russia over control of
the Kerch strait, a shipping route between the Azov and Black seas.
Mr Kuchma and Viktor Yanukovich, the prime minister, who postponed his own
visit to the Baltics, plan to fly today to Tuzla island, a tiny Ukrainian
outpost nearer to Russia's side of the strait whose ownership has been
called into question.
Russian ships pay a fee to Ukraine to pass through the Kerch strait, which
Ukraine regards as its own since the navigable channel passes between Crimea
and Tuzla island.
In late September, Russia started building an earth bridge across the shallow
4km gap between its Taman peninsula and Tuzla island, drawing furious
protests from Ukrainian politicians, some of whom accuse Russia of planning
an "occupation".
Russia's move on Tuzla has taken many in Ukraine by surprise, coming
only weeks after Mr Kuchma and Russian president Vladimir Putin signed an
important economic union treaty together with the presidents of Belarus and
Kazakhstan. Mr Kuchma's allies in parliament, usually pro-Russian, are
now saying they may refuse to ratify the treaty.
On Monday, Mr Kuchma called an emergency session of his National Security
Council, which includes military chiefs, and ordered them not to allow the
bridge to come within 150 metres of the island, where Ukraine draws its sea
border. But construction stopped yesterday. Reports said the bridge had come
within 100 metres of the Ukraine border.
Ukraine's air force began holding ostensibly unrelated exercises in a
nearby area yesterday.
Igor Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister, said yesterday that local
authorities were building a "dam" for "ecological and economic
reasons" that "don't have any connection to negotiations over
the status of the Azov-Kerch water area".
On Monday, however, Mr Ivanov's ministry asked Ukraine for an
explanation supporting its claim to the island. Authorities building the
earth bridge say they do not recognise Ukraine's "unilateral"
sea border, and Russian media have been pointing out the island was connected
by land to Russia before a 1925 storm.
Kiev says Tuzla island's status as part of Crimea is well-documented and
Russia is bound by treaty to respect the territorial divisions that existed
between Ukraine and Russia within the USSR.
[FTI [The Financial Times]] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
