Ukraine may consider withdrawing border troops pending ecological study
intense dispute between the two ex-Soviet republics over a small Crimean island that controls access to resource-rich waters.
The dispute had sparked heated statements from both sides, and spiraled to the point where Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma cut short a Latin American visit to return home. The dispute centered on construction of a dike from the Russian mainland to Tuzla Island in the Kerch Strait that connects the Black and Azov Seas. Ukraine claims the island and charged the dike was a Russian encroachment attempt; Russia said the dike’s purpose was to halt erosion.
Russia Oct. 24 said it would suspend the dike’s construction while negotiations take place. Ukraine said it would consider withdrawing its border troops from the island after experts complete an ecological study of the effects of the breakwater.
But Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and his Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yanukovych, failed Oct. 24 to make progress on the disputed status of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, saying the talks will continue. Yanukovych told reporters after the talks that Ukraine believes that Tuzla Island is “an inalienable part” of its territory, but Kasyanov stressed that Russia considers its status “disputable.” Both emphasized the need to refrain from unilateral action, and Kasyanov said part of the blame for the crisis lies with the authorities of Russia’s Krasnodar region, who ordered building the dike without asking his Cabinet’s permission. At the same time, Kasyanov voiced concern about Ukraine’s military buildup in the area and emotional statements from Ukrainian politicians. “We have been somewhat disappointed and distressed by the latest developments,” he told Yanukovych at the start of their meeting. Kasyanov said that Russia would submit the dike project to Ukraine’s environmental authorities.
Many Ukrainian politicians have maintained that the dike is a Russian attempt to appropriate Ukrainian land by connecting Tuzla to Russia’s Krasnodar region and thus seize control of a key shipping channel between Tuzla and Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.
Russian officials insist the project’s goal is to reduce erosion; Tuzla was once the end of a spit stretching from Russia’s mainland, but a 1925 storm sheared it off, forming a new channel.
Crimea was given to Ukraine in 1954 when it was part of the Soviet Union. Some Russian officials now question whether Tuzla Island was included in that action.
Since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a dispute over the Azov Sea, which Russian President Vladimir Putin last month called an area of “special geopolitical importance and … a zone of strategic interest for Russia.”
The Azov Sea has busy shipping routes and rich fishing Resources, and some experts say there are potentially rich oil fields on the sea bed.
Kuchma agreed to Moscow’s request to declare the waters common property, but insisted its borders be demarcated on the surface, not the sea floor, as Moscow wants.
