Dispute over Tuzla changes Ukraine's stance toward Russia (11/02/03)

Dispute over Tuzla changes Ukraine's stance toward Russia

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma signaled on October 27 that the dispute over the construction of a dike to link Russian territory with a Ukrainian-owned island in the Kerch Strait could turn Ukraine onto a more direct path towards Europe. Mr. Kuchma noted his surprise and displeasure with the re-emergence of Russian imperialistic ambition in Moscow's attitude toward Kyiv during the crisis.

"The recent events will force us to reconsider our foreign policy once again," explained President Kuchma in an interview with the Moscow-based Izvestia newspaper, and added that "it will not make the Russian great power happy."

Mr. Kuchma gave his interview on October 23, three days after he aborted a state visit to Brazil and returned to Kyiv to oversee the escalating crisis over the construction of a dike in the Kerch Strait, which Russia had begun from its Taman Peninsula without informing Ukraine.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin ordered construction halted the same day Mr. Kuchma flew back to Kyiv, after he spoke with the Ukrainian president via telephone. Upon his return Mr. Kuchma immediately left for Tuzla, the five-mile-long strip of an island at the center of the diplomatic storm, which Ukraine believes Russia is trying to reclaim in order to give itself an advantage in negotiations over delimitation of the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov.

At a press conference on the island the Ukrainian president asserted that Tuzla belonged to Ukraine and would not be the subject of negotiations, slamming his fist to the table to lend emphasis to his declaration, according to the Novyi Kanal television channel.

During his interview with Izvestia three days later, Mr. Kuchma was just as indignant and emotional. He compared Russia's attempt to take Tuzla to the foreign policy of the Chinese Middle Empire.

"Everything was declared in their master's ownership," noted Mr. Kuchma in explaining the foreign policy of China's Middle Empire. "A similar attitude is typical of some Russians with respect to the CIS member-countries. We believe the construction of the [dike] is a manifestation of that [type of thinking]."

President Kuchma said Ukraine would abandon the Single Economic Space agreement should the Russian dike cross the Ukrainian border.

The construction of the sand-and-stone wall to Tuzla, which was halted just 100 meters short of Ukrainian territory, began on September 29 4.5 kilometers away, on Russia's southwesternmost point, the tip of the Taman Peninsula. It went on for nearly two weeks before Moscow finally responded to two official diplomatic notes from Kyiv requesting an explanation. When the reply finally came, its contents were quite unexpected: Russia demanded that diplomats in Kyiv present proof the island belonged to Ukraine.

Ukraine responded forcefully to the belligerent request from Moscow by sending armed border troops to the island and conducting live-fire military exercises less than 50 miles from the disputed building project.

Even with construction of the dike now halted, the possibility of armed conflict receding and official acknowledgment by the two governments that the issue of ownership of the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov at long last needs to be resolved, the two sides continued to bicker.

A day after Ukraine's Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych met with his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Kasyanov, in Moscow on October 24 to negotiate a way out of the dispute, the two governments were at it again, this time disagreeing over whether the terms they hammered out in Moscow included the removal of Ukrainian border troops from the island.

Hours after Mr. Yanukovych had flown home, Mr. Kasyanov told journalists that the essence of their agreement was based on a quid pro quo: Russia would stop construction of the dike; in return, Ukraine would remove border troops from Tuzla. He also emphasized that the two sides had decided that no border exists between the two countries in the Kerch Strait.

"Everything that is done under the presumption that such a border exists is wrong and must be halted," said Mr. Kasyanov, according to various press reports.

The press service of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers denied on October 24 that Ukraine had agreed to a compromise as Mr. Kasyanov suggested.

Upon his return to Kyiv, Mr. Yanukovych did not respond directly to the Russian prime minister's remarks, but noted that Ukraine would not agree to anything that is in conflict with its Constitution, including any agreement that would mark water borders at the bottom of bodies of water, as the Russian prime minister insisted should be done - which would make the waterways themselves commonly held territory.

Also that day, according to Interfax-Ukraine National Deputy Borys Andresiuk, a member of the ad hoc committee on Tuzla, who was with Mr. Kuchma during his visit to the island, told journalists the president had ordered a permanent deportment of 50 troops to be stationed on Tuzla and for an appropriate post to be constructed.

Three days later, the issue over the removal of border troops on Tuzla had yet to receive diplomatic resolution. While Mr. Kasyanov repeated his demand that Ukraine remove troops from Tuzla as part of the agreement between the two governments on October 28, Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Markian Lubkivskyi noted during a regular press briefing that, "this request is being considered."

At the same press briefing, Leonid Osvaliuk, a senior Foreign Affairs Ministry official who is involved in resolving the Tuzla dispute, gave a slide presentation of Soviet- era and post-Soviet-era documents, which the Ukrainian side presented as overwhelming proof of the country's claim of sovereignty over the island.

"There is already a sufficient legal base and enough bilateral agreements to confirm the existing state border between Russia and Ukraine in the Kerch Strait and Ukraine's ownership of Tuzla Island," explained Mr. Osvaliuk.

The Ukrainian diplomat also noted that for all the posturing, Russia had yet to present documented proof of its claim of common ownership of the island and the Kerch Strait.

"To this day, the Russian side has not shown us a single document that proves there are no borders. I don't think such documents exist in nature," added Mr. Osvaliuk.

Ukraine's Foreign Affairs Ministry also said ecology experts were studying Russian claims that construction of the dike was ecologically necessary. Local Russian officials of Krasnodar Krai had said from the onset of the dispute that the dike was intended to replace a natural spit that had existed until storms in 1925 leveled it. The Russian side said the dike was necessary to redirect water currents that had eroded the shores of the Taman Peninsula causing damage to buildings and agricultural lands.

Ukraine's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Serhii Poliakov told Interfax-Ukraine on October 25 that initial indications showed that the new dike would have far more serious consequences.

"The Southern Seas Institute has already drawn the preliminary conclusion that it would negatively influence biodiversity and the water currents in the area," explained Mr. Poliakov.

The week before, ex-Minister of Defense and current National Deputy Oleksander Kuzmuk had told reporters that by establishing a dike even close to Tuzla, Russia could sufficiently shift water currents to cause considerable erosion to the island, and even threaten its very existence.

Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov arrived in Kyiv on October 30 to further discuss the Tuzla crisis and to begin talks on delimitation of Russia-Ukraine waters. He underscored that, "Russia respects and will continue to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity," but added, "the world does not consider that any sort of violation of Ukraine's territorial integrity has occurred in the Azov-Kerch aquifer."

Mr. Ivanov said that a whole series of issues needed to be resolved between Ukraine and Russia regarding the delimitation of territorial waters and the division of property inherited from the defunct Soviet Union.

President Kuchma, who was on a visit to Khmelnytskyi that day, told journalists: "Ukraine will consider its national interests first and foremost in resolving the border dispute," reported Ukrainian Television.

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