| Topic: |
Science > Prophecies-Of-Nostradamus |
| User: |
"Definitely a sick minority..." |
| Date: |
28 Feb 2006 06:54:10 PM |
| Object: |
Ukraine, Russia: Kiev calls for changes in status of Sevastopol base |
Ukraine, Russia: Kiev calls for changes in status of Sevastopol base
Ukraine, Russia: Kiev calls for changes in status of Sevastopol base
Ukraine and Russia clashed anew last week as Kiev called for a rise in
the rent the Kremlin pays to station its Black Sea fleet in the Crimean
Peninsula and said Moscow would have to move the naval base when its
lease runs out in 2017.
"Today we are talking about a transition to market methods in our
relations", Volodymyr Ogryzko, Ukraine's first deputy prime
minister, said at the start of an intergovernmental meeting over the
fleet in Kiev.
"In our relations with Russia, say in the gas sphere, we agreed to
review contracts that were in force so that we could switch to a
European formula of determining the price", Ogryzko said in televised
comments.
"We think the same approach should be applied in other spheres,
including the calculations for the temporary basing of the Black Sea
fleet on Ukrainian territory".
He was referring to an acrimonious dispute early in the year, when
Russia said it was ending gas subsidies for Ukraine and demanded a
four-fold-plus increase in the gas price. The dispute ended in a deal
that saw the price of Kiev's gas imports nearly double.
The head of the Russian delegation, however, reiterated Moscow's
position that the rent for the Black Sea fleet's base at Sevastopol
was set in a 20-year lease agreement that the two nations signed in
1997.
"We came here with an absolutely clear mandate to confirm the
stability of the 1997 base agreement and to resolve practical problems
brought up by the Ukrainian side", said Russia's Deputy Foreign
Minister Grigory Karasin.
Russia currently pays just under 100 million dollars (83 million euros)
to lease land and property for the fleet headquarters in Crimea, where
the fleet has been based ever since its founding in the late 18th
century by the Empress Catherine II.
Kiev wants to raise the price to bring it in line with what other
governments pay to house military bases abroad.
National Security Council chief Anatoly Kinah recently estimated that a
new "market" price for the base -- located in the middle of the
country's leading tourist destination -- could be some 1.8 billion
dollars.
Meanwhile Ukraine's Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk said that Moscow
would have to move the fleet once the current lease runs out in 2017.
"Our position is well-known", he said in an interview with the
Interfax news agency. "We of course will abide by the agreement...
until 2017.
"But Ukraine's constitution forbids the presence of foreign
military bases on our territory. We call on the Russian Federation to
work consistently and systematically to gradually relocate the Black
Sea fleet from our nation's territory".
The row over the fleet is the latest dispute to further strain the
tense relations between Russia and Ukraine since the pro-Western
President Victor Yushchenko defeated a Moscow-backed candidate last
year in Ukraine's "orange revolution" election.
Since the beginning of the year, Kiev and Moscow have clashed over gas,
control of hydrography sites in the Crimea, meat and dairy imports, and
naval traffic in disputed waters.
The dispute over the fleet in the Crimea is a particularly sensitive
one. Crimea was part of the Russian Federation until 1954, when Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to
Ukraine -- a move that had no practical consequences during the Soviet
era but that laid the foundation for a continuing dispute after Ukraine
gained its independence following the Soviet breakup in 1991.
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