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TO DELINEATE FRONTIERS AT SEA ONE OF RUSSIA'S PRIORITIES: FOREIGN MINISTER

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MOSCOW, May 25 (RIA Novosti) - To delineate maritime borders with the neighboring countries is among Russia's priorities, Sergei Lavrov, Foreign Minister, said in a contribution to the journal, "Vneshneekonomicheskie svyazi" (Foreign Economic Contacts).

When the delineation is over, Russia will be able to determine the geographic limits of its sovereignty, jurisdiction and sovereign rights along its coasts, he stressed.

As the result, littoral areas will receive explicit juridical arrangements to guarantee security and economic interests of Russia and its private and corporate persons, the minister went on.

Russian-Norwegian negotiations have been on for several decades now to delineate the Barents Sea. The issue concerns a sea area of 175,000 square kilometers or so, which abounds in mineral resources and fish.

There is a Russo-US agreement of 1990 on Bering Sea delineation, but it is active only as a provisional instrument for now. If Russo-US negotiations for a new fishing agreement, concerning the area, come to final success, Russia will pose the question of ratifying the agreement, said the Foreign Minister.

As for sea delineation with Japan, it will stay impossible until a treaty formalizes the frontier, he emphasized.

Russia and Ukraine must bring to an end bilateral negotiations on the water areas of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the Kerch Strait, which connects the two.

As the minister sees it, the two countries obtained necessary prerequisites for the negotiations as they concluded a state frontier treaty and a treaty on cooperation in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait-both in 2003. The latter instrument confirms the status of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait as either country's inland waters.

Russo-Georgian negotiations to delineate Black Sea areas, in fact, have not yet started.

Russo-Estonian sea delineation will come to its juridical conclusion after a treaty on continental shelf and economic zone delineation is signed, and enters into force.

Last but not least comes the determination of a new legal status of the Caspian. Though, strictly speaking, it concerns a lake not sea, the matter is prominent on the agenda.

"Formally, we may be referring to delineation with the neighboring countries. Despite that, not division is our goal but coming at explicit legal conditions for mutually beneficial partnership with our closest neighbors," concluded the Foreign Minister.

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