Presidents of Ukraine and Romania sign 10-year treaty on land borders (06/29/03)

Presidents of Ukraine and Romania sign 10-year treaty on land borders

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine and Romania finally finished a process of border delimitation that had lasted more than six years, when Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma and Romanian President Ion Iliescu signed a border treaty on June 17 in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.

The agreement established a border regime between the two countries, as well as a policy of cooperation and mutual aid.

The treaty, which is valid for 10 years, including an option for another five years, establishes the land border between the two countries according to a line agreed upon between Romania and the USSR in 1961, when Ukraine was still under Moscow's rule.

That agreement put a part of the Bukovyna region, known in Romania as Bessarabia, under Bucharest's rule; it has stirred disputes among people in the border region ever since.

Romania, in particular, needed the treaty to secure its eastern border as a requirement for entering the European Union, something the country hopes to do in 2007.

"We have finally managed to solve the painful problem that had been hampering development of relations between our countries," said President Kuchma during the signing ceremony, according to a news report filed by Interfax-Ukraine.

The two country leaders noted that work on delimiting the continental shelf of the Black Sea, which both countries abut, would soon take place. President Iliescu said he believed the maritime issues would be more easily resolved because the signed documents included "certain principles" already agreed upon for divvying up the continental shelf and exclusive economic zones they currently share.

The economic zones have been a particularly troublesome area of negotiations between Romania and Ukraine, especially the Zmiinyi Island, which the two sides agreed last year would belong to Ukraine. The document signed in Chernivtsi supported the earlier agreement.

Yet, already the island is a central part of future negotiations because Romania believes it should not be part of the demarcation process as Bucharest considers it an uninhabitable rock, while Kyiv works with the understanding that it is an inhabitable island and, therefore, must have border control.

The two sides have been haggling over the details of the border agreement after agreeing on July 2, 1997, on the inviolability of the existing border. That document supported a 1990 document of demarcation that supported the line drawn between the two countries in 1961.

The Parliaments of both countries need to verify the border agreement before it becomes enforceable.

Markian Lubkivsky, spokesman for Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the final rounds of talks between Romania and Ukraine would begin in September in Bucharest.

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