The instrument concerns the easternmost frontier stretch. As President Putin has informed President Hu Jintao of China, the additional protocol was offered to the house for ratification, May 4, and the Kremlin hopes to see it ratified before June starts.
This deadline is of importance-the Foreign Ministers of Russia, India and China are gathering for session, early June, in Vladivostok, major Russian Pacific port. The conferees are expected to exchange ratification instruments.
The additional Russo-Chinese agreement on the eastern state frontier stretch was signed in Beijing, October 14, 2004. The federal President offered it to the State Duma for ratification, the Kremlin press service reported last week.
President Putin issued a decree to appoint Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, his official envoy to the two parliamentary houses as they debate ratification prospects.
The agreement settles two frontier stretches-in the vicinity of the Bolshoi island in the upper reaches of the Argun, Chita Region, and in the vicinity of the islands Tarabarov and Bolshoi Ussuriisky at the Amur and Ussuri confluence near Khabarovsk. The Russian-Chinese frontier is slightly more than 4,300 kilometers long, and the stretches in question account for less than 2 per cent of the total.
