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The Oleg Naidenov trawler may be released on January 7

MOSCOW, January 07, 1:25 /ITAR-TASS/. The Oleg Naidenov fishing trawler may be released on Tuesday after a meeting between Russian representatives and the Senegalese authorities.

“We hope that the incident will be settled after a meeting with the president of Senegal. The trawler is going to return to the fishing area today or tomorrow,” Alexander Savelyev, the head of the public relations center of the Russian fisheries agency (Rosrybolovstvo), said, adding that Russian diplomats and representatives of the Russian fisheries agency would be a present at the meeting with Senegalese officials.

The Oleg Naidenov fishing trawler has been under arrest at the Dakar military port since Sunday.

Alexander Biryukov, a federal fisheries agency representative in Senegal, said on Monday that the problem could be resolved on Tuesday after a meeting between a Russian delegation and Senegalese President Macky Sall. Biryukov believed that the relations between Russia and Senegal would not be affected if the Oleg Naidenov trawler was arrested.

“The Senegalese president hopes to expand cooperation with Russia and restore the economic and political relations between the two countries to a level which used to exist in the times of the former USSR,” Biryukov emphasized.

The Oleg Naidenov suspected of illegal fishing within Senegalese waters was seized 46 miles of Guinea-Bissau on Saturday with 82 crew onboard, including 62 Russians and 20 citizens of Guinea-Bissau, and convoyed to the port of Dakar on Sunday.

Senegalese Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Minister Haidar El-Ali said on Sunday Senegal would seize the trawler and impose a maximum fine of nearly 305,000 euros for the offence. But because the Oleg Naidenov is a repeat offender, it “will be fined twice as much, up to 610,000 euros,” he said. The vessel’s cargo is estimated at approximately 540,000 U.S. dollars.

The Oleg Naidenov is owned by private company Fenix, registered in Murmansk, the extreme northwest part of Russia. It is a big fishing boat of Moonzund type, 120 meters long, built in Germany in 1989.