MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has no plans to accelerate the construction of naval base in the southern port of Novorossiisk that will eventually be home to Black Sea Fleet vessels currently based in Ukraine, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Friday.
The issue of Russia's naval presence on Ukrainian territory has become an increasingly hot political topic in Kiev. Russia and Ukraine have an agreement under which the Russian Black Sea Fleet will lease the base at Sevastopol until 2017. But Ukraine this year made moves suggesting that the Black Sea Fleet was not a welcome guest.
Ukrainian officials last week seized a Crimean lighthouse, to which Russia said its Black Sea Fleet's hydrographic service had the rights. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry claimed all hydrographic facilities on the country's Crimea coast belonged to Ukraine.
Ivanov said the move to create the base on Russian territory was stipulated in a federal program approved two years ago. He said at the time that the decision to set up a new base did not mean that the fleet would move its main base from Sevastopol to Novorossiisk.
