You're reading: Romanian Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi: Statements made by Ukrainian mass media are ungrounded

Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Baconschi on Thursday described as ungrounded the statements made recently by the Ukrainian mass media referring to the fact that Ukraine might lose part of its territory as Romania had territorial claims on the Maican Island.

“The statements made by the mass media in Ukraine, according to which Romania is said to have territorial claims on this country, are totally ungrounded.

At this moment there is a joint technical commission at experts’ level, which is made up of representatives of the Ministry of the Interior, the General Inspectorate of the Border Police, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Transports, the Environment and Forestry and the National Land Survey Agency. This commission studies the new border documents that will come into force for the Romanian-Ukrainian border,” explained Minister Baconschi.

He made it clear that experts observed the provisions of the treaty between Romania and Ukraine on the state border regime, which was ratified in 2003.
In keeping with this treaty, in the case of non-navigable watercourses, the border is in the middle of the water table, and in the case of the navigable ones, it is in the very middle of these watercourses.

“Drawing the new borderline on water must be made in keeping with the present position of the main navigable channel as it will result from the hydrographic checks and measurements made by experts. The position of the islands existing in the border waters to the main navigable channel and to the middle of the water table can make one decide where these islands belong to, from case to case,” also explained Baconschi.

According to the Minister, a possible change of where an island belongs is expressly allowed by the Romanian-Ukrainian bilateral treaty, but by no means can it be assimilated to some territorial claims made by Romania.

“The 2003 treaty in its very first article stipulates that the drawing up of the new border documents is no revision of the border between Romania and Ukraine. These new border documents will only come into force after the governments of both countries have approved them.

There is no direct connection between the aspects that have been mentioned and the problem of the Bystroe navigation canal,” concluded the Foreign Minister.
On Monday, April 12, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed, according to Interfax, that Ukraine had no plan to change its borderline with Romania along the Danube.

As for the situation that appeared in connection with the Maican Island on the Danube, the Ukrainian side works in keeping with the principle of not violating the 2003 agreement between Ukraine and Romania, which stipulates the inviolability of the state border, said head of the department for informational policy with the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oleg Voloshin.

“This is why the Ukrainian side does not intend to change the borderline in this area and all the debatable questions that appeared because of the wish of the Romanian side to make important changes will be discussed by the border services as well as during the talks scheduled for April 27 between Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kostiantin Yeliseyev and Romania’s Secretary of State for European Affairs Bogdan Mazuru,” said Voloshin. He added that Ukraine worked according to the principle that no part of its territory can be confiscated by another state.