You're reading: Kyiv, Moscow end talks on demarcation of maritime border and Kerch Strait

Ukraine and Russia have finished talks on the demarcation of their border in the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea, and the Kerch Strait.

This has been announced after the fifth meeting of the Ukraine-Russia
Interstate Commission at Livadia Palace in Yalta on Thursday, July 12, an
Interfax-Ukraine correspondent reported.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his Russian counterpart
Vladimir Putin also signed a declaration of strategic partnership
between their countries.

In the course of the talks, the Ukrainian side insisted that the
border in the Kerch Strait should repeat the Soviet-era administrative
border and voiced readiness to compromise on economic issues.

On behalf of the Ukrainian side, Foreign Minister of Ukraine
Kostyantyn Gryshchenko proposed the demarcation of the border in the
Kerch Strait in keeping with Soviet-era maps that determined the
administrative border between the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic
and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The Ukrainian side
also did not reject an idea of joint exploitation of the strait on a
parity basis.

This approach did not suit Russia. It in turn insisted that the
Soviet-era administrative border was pretty conventional and existed
only on maps and not in reality.

The sides also put forth proposals that the Kerch Strait should be split into so-called “areas of responsibility.”