It took the Russian Foreign Ministry a lot of time and effort to settle all these issues, Putin noted. It should be mentioned for justice's sake that its experts worked in line with good-neighborliness principles, peeking into the future and heeding the Russian side's regional interests, as well as those of the Chinese side, the Russian head of state added. Putin made these statements in his interview to Chinese mass-media bodies on the eve of his October 14-16 Chinese visit.
The Russian leader voiced hope to the effect that these talks and such work will be completed in line with Chinese and Russian interests. I hope this can take place in the near future, Putin noted, while replying to a question on whether some option making it possible to completely settle the Russian-Chinese border issue will be examined during his visit.
The first-ever Soviet-Chinese border-demarcation consultations were held in 1964, what with both sides agreeing that the Soviet-Chinese border must pass along the main waterway of the Amur and Ussuri rivers. The concerned parties mostly debated the "disputed areas" concept throughout the 1969-1978 period.
Soviet-Chinese border-demarcation talks were resumed in 1987.
The Soviet-Chinese agreement on demarcating more than 98 percent of the Soviet-Chinese border's eastern sector (about 4,200 km between Mongolia and North Korea) was signed in 1991. This border sector was demarcated through joint efforts by 1998. At that time, it was decided to maintain a status quo during subsequent talks on demarcating the two remaining areas, i.e. an Amur-river island near Khabarovsk and Bolshoi island in the upper reaches of the Argun river.
A joint Russian-Kazakh-Kirghiz-Tajik delegation negotiated with China in 1992; these post-Soviet republics also border on China.
The Russian-Chinese agreement on demarcating the 54-km western-border sector (between Mongolia and Kazakhstan) was signed in 1994. For their own part, Kazakhstan and Kirghizia, which completely solved their border-line problems with China over the 1998-1999 period, are still members of the joint delegation.
The Russian-Chinese protocol dealing with navigation between the Amur and Ussuri rivers (and vice versa) near Khabarovsk was signed in 1994 for the sake of implementing the 1991 border-demarcation agreement. According to its provisions, Chinese ships, warships included, have the right to navigate inland Russian waters along a waterway in circumvention of islands being claimed by the Chinese side.
The Russian-Chinese agreement on jointly developing those specific islands, which shall be controlled by either party (as a result of the border-demarcation process), was signed in 1997, with both countries moving to implement its provisions in 2000.
The sides started negotiating military confidence-building measures in 1989; such talks aimed to facilitate border-demarcation talks, as well as the relaxation of tensions in adjacent areas. A joint Russian-Kazakh-Kirghiz-Tajik delegation and China signed agreements on military confidence-building measures and on mutual troop cuts 100 km away from their respective borders over the 1996-1997 period. A joint controlling group, which is called on to monitor compliance with both agreements, got down to business in 1999.
