TALLINN, February 19. /TASS/. The incumbent Estonian government is not planning to submit the bill on ratification of the border treaty with Russia to the Riigikogu (parliament), Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said Wednesday delivering a speech in the parliament.
"The border is determined by the Treaty of Tartu and other international treaties. The previous treaty is still in force, naturally, until other bilateral or other kinds of treaties come into force," the minister noted. "The current government has not accepted any other positions and in the near future it is not planning to submit the law on border to the parliament," Reinsalu added.
The Russian-Estonian border was agreed in 2005 after almost 11 years of negotiations. The border treaty was also signed then and it was submitted for ratification but Estonian MPs included a mention of the 1920 Tartu Peace Treaty in its preamble which could spell potential territorial demands to Russia in the future. Amid these developments, Moscow recalled its signature and the process was left legally unfinished.
The talks resumed in late 2012. The treaty was inked in February 2014 by foreign ministers of Russia and Estonia but to enter into force it has to be ratified by both national parliaments.
The Treaty of Tartu was signed by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (part of the Soviet Union) and Estonia on February 2, 1920. Its conditions stipulated that Ivangorod and a part of the Pechory District belonged to Estonia. After Estonia joined the Soviet Union in 1940, these territories were ceded to Russia.