KIEV, August 28. /TASS/. Ukraine’s President Pyotr Poroshenko has issued instructions to the Foreign Ministry to draw up a package of documents to soon begin the procedure of annulling the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, which Ukraine and Russia signed in 1997.
Poroshenko announced this move on Tuesday at a conference with members of the Ukrainian diplomatic corps.
"Eventually, after sufficient preparations and upon building up enough legal protection we’ve come to the next step, which is to dissolve the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation that has long become antiquated," he said.
"I expect a necessary package of documents from the Foreign Ministry on the launch of this process shortly," Poroshenko said.
He said in April that he would submit a bill on unilaterally severing some provisions of the treaty to the Verkhovna Rada, the country’s national parliament. The Ukrainian leader also admitted simultaneously that the treaty could not be fully invalidated but suspending some of its provisions was necessary.
The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and Russia was signed in May 1997 and took effect in April 1999 for a period of ten years. It contains a provision for an automatic ten-year extension if the parties do not have any objections.
The treaty stipulates the principle of strategic partnership and states the inviolability of existing borders, respect for territorial integrity, and a reciprocal obligation of the two countries to refrain from using their territories to the detriment of each other’s security.
October 2018 is the deadline by which the parties must state their intention to either prolong the treaty for the next ten years, or invalidate it.