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Russia and Estonia Agree in Outline
// A border treaty is signed
The friendship of nations
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Estonian counterpart Urmas Paet have signed key treaties on the land and marine borders thus closing a long territorial dispute that was the last obstacle to the development of the relations between Moscow and Tallinn. The accords that have formally fixed the EU’s Eastern frontier with Russia running in the territory of Estonia are to make for the simplification of the visa regime between them and fight illegal immigration. The treaties concluded with Estonia, there is only one Baltic state left that has not settled its frontier issue with Russia - Latvia.
Diplomatic Intrigue with Happy End
Yesterday’s signing of two “historic treaties” between Moscow and Tallinn on the Russian and Estonian state border and a treaty on the delimitation of marine territories in the Gulf of Narva and Gulf of Finland was preceded by an intense and tangled diplomatic intrigue of the past months. It was impossible to answer definitely the question when the end will be put to a long-drawn out territorial dispute of Russia with the Baltic states up to the last moment. Russia had earlier concluded a similar treaty with Lithuania, and aspired to close an unfinished discussion on key aspects of the 20th European history at the 60th anniversary of the Victory in the WWII and to conclude similar treaties with Estonia and Latvia. The Kremlin reckoned that May 9, when dozens of world’s leaders would gather together in Moscow to attend festivities dedicated to the Victory, would be the right time to sign these agreements.
However, we did not succeed to spectacularly part with the “demons of the past” in relations with the Baltic countries on May 9. Reasons were different with all the three countries. As for Latvia, in spite of the fact that Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga attended Moscow festivities, the signature of a border treaty turned out to be impossible because of the demarche that the Latvian part took late April adopting a declaration with territorial claims for Russia. As a result, even though Ms. Vaira Vike-Freiberga did come to Moscow (the only one leader of the three Baltic states who visited the Russian capital) it was not enough to conclude a treaty. Another sort of problems emerged in the case of Estonia. Unlike Riga, Tallinn would not put forward territorial demands. And yet, when the Russian party proposed Estonian president Arnold Ruutel to sign border treaties during his visit at the 60th anniversary of the VE-Day he declined to come. As a result, there was virtually no one to sign a treaty on the delimitation with.
Nevertheless, following the May 10 Russia-EU summit held in Moscow Russian president Vladimir Putin announced that in spite of Arnold Ruutel’s refusal to attend the festivities, he ordered the Russian Foreign Ministry to sign with Estonia border treaties that had already coordinated and did not arouse any disputes. It was decided to sign treaties during the visit of Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet who was to come to Moscow late May.
Appraising the content of the documents on the eve of the signing, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that as soon as the papers are signed, the frontier issue with Estonia “will be viewed as fully settled”. According to Mr. Lavrov, the texts were “thoroughly studied by Estonia and they comply with the Law on the State Border of the Russian Federation”. However, Moscow knew beforehand that the signing would go smooth. As Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Chizhov put it, Tallinnn “gave a signal of its readiness to sign documents without surprises”.
Ratification Is a Delicate Matter
Under the documents, the Russian state border with Estonia is being fixed in its present state, i. e. runing along the former administrative border between the Russian and Estonian Soviet Republics with a minor correction “on the conditions of an adequate territorial compensation”. In this connection Russian diplomats emphasize that these accords fully secure the territorial integrity of Russia. As far as a provision about “an adequate territorial compensation” is concerned, it means that the parties cede 128.6 hectares of land and 11.4 km. sq. of the surface of lakes to each other. Sergey Lavrov and Arnold Ruutel signed delimitation maps of the state borders of Russia and Estonia before the yesterday’s meeting.
The texts of the treaties on the land and marine borders between Russia and Estonia were agreed upon in November 1996. After inserting insignificant amendments they were ratified in March 1999. However, the signing of the documents was being postponed due to a variety of reasons and dragged on for six years as a result. All this time the border line between the two states was officially called “transient control line”.
At a certain point Moscow started setting back the signing in the view to hinder the Baltic countries to join the NATO which required the new-comers of the alliance to define its borders precisely. The unsolved frontier problem with Russia, however, did not impede the accession of the Baltic states to the NATO. After their accession to the alliance the postponement of the signing of the frontier treaties, fraught with much foreign-policy damage, no longer made any sense to Moscow.
Besides, as the Baltic states became members of the EU last year, the issue of the unsettled relations with Russian had become acute anew. The point is that being the EU-members the Baltic states are to join the process of the simplification of the visa regime carried out by the European Union and Russia and step up efforts to fight illegal immigration. But it is virtually impossible to advance in solving these problems without having frontier treaties concluded with Moscow.
We should note that one of the obstacles hindering for a long time the work on the treaty was the demand from several Estonian politicians that the border with Russia should run across the line indicated in the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty. In this case a part of the lands in Leningrad and Pskov Regions that were returned to Russian after the WWII would have passed to Estonia. Regardless of the fact that the Estonian party had to drop its claims, the border issues have remained a subject of vigorous debates in Estonia for many years not losing its acuteness even after yesterday’s signing of the documents.
Advocates of the territorial integrity of the pre-war Estonia claimed that the renunciation of the “originally Estonian lands” would become a threat to the Estonian state organization that stems from the Tartu Peace Treaty as the first act of the international recognition of the sovereign Estonian Republic. An opposition party Isamaaliit (the Union of the Fatherland) is an opponent of the treaty. Its leader Tõnis Lukas said the other day that the signing of the treaty legitimating the frontiers as they are now would allow Russia to consider the date of birth of the Estonian Republic the year of 1991 when Estonia broke away from the USSR, instead of 1918 when it was declared, or even 2005 when a new border treaty with Russia was signed. Furthermore, the Estonian opposition supposes that the border treaty would once and for all split the area of habitation of a minor nationality of setu. This is an ethnic community close to the Estonians by the language but practicing Orthodoxy, lives in the south of Estonia and the adjacent part of the Pechora district of Pskov Region, Russian. All these fact mean that the forthcoming ratification of the signed documents according to standard international procedures may bring about some unpleasant surprises.
The opponents of the frontier treaties with Russia at the Estonian Parliament may get plenty of occasions to carry on struggling. One of them is the unsettled issue of the restitution of cultural values. Asked a question whether Estonia has material claims from Russia, an Estonia minister gave an evasive answer saying that “I can’t answer this question either positively or negatively now”. According to him, this issue is on the agenda of the Russian-Estonia negotiations that are to be continued.
Latvian Thorn in the Side
After the treaty with Estonia is signed, Latvia is the only Baltic state left with the frontier question as-yet unresolved. Moscow signed two treaties with Lithuania too delimiting land and marine territories in 1997, and ratified them in 2003. As was mentioned above, the delay with Latvia was due to the document passed by the Saeima and endorsed by the Latvian government that Moscow now views as a manifestation of territorial claims for Russia. Alexander Yakovenko, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said yesterday that the state border treaty between Latvia and Russia would be signed only when Riga repudiated its April declaration. Mr. Yakovenko underscored that it was only after this that the date of the signing of the land border treaty could be discussed, the text of which, according to the Russian diplomats, had already been coordinated with Latvian counterparts. Commenting of the Latvian explanatory declaration that accompanies the text of the Russia-Latvian frontier treaty, Mr. Yakovenko said, “This declaration puts forwards a number of territorial claims for Russia”. “We consider this approach improper. This kind of claims are groundless. It is a matter of history, one should not use it for the sake of politics.”
The Latvian party, however, did not express the readiness to meet Moscow’s demands until yesterday. It means that the final settlement of the territorial disputes with the Baltic states is being put off for an indefinite period of time.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of May 19, 2005
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