TALLINN, May 23 (Itar-Tass) - Estonia’s Cabinet of Ministers on Thursday approved of a draft border treaty with Russia, the government’s press-service has said.
In contrast to the previous, abortive treaty of 2005, the document confirms there are no reciprocal territorial claims. The line of the state border between Estonia and Russia will remain the same as the one the two countries agreed on after eleven years of talks in 2005.
That border treaty was signed, but when it was submitted to the Estonian parliament for ratification, the legislators complemented the preamble with a mention of the Tartu treaty of 1920 in a context that left room for potential territorial claims against Russia. Moscow then revoked its signature to the treaty and the process remained legally incomplete.
Consultations on the issue resumed at the end of 2012 and, according to diplomats’ forecasts, they may be completed by the end of June.