Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed Russia’s readiness to reinforce official communications with Estonia about the new treaty on Russian-Estonian border.
On May 18, 2005 the Treaty on State Border was signed by Russian and Estonian Parties represented by Sergey Lavrov, a Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, and Urmas Paet, a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, respectively.
In his recent speech addressed to Russian university students, Sergey Lavrov mentioned that the content of the treaty signed contained all the clear statements on inadmissibility of recurrent territorial claims of Estonia towards the Russian Federation which are equal to those which Estonia had under the Peace Treaty of Tartu in 1920s.
He said that Estonian Party had assured them that no such claims would ever occur and that this State Border Treaty would finalize this border issue completely. The statements of Estonian Party thus seemed to be non-binding for legislative body of Estonia.
Upon being submitted to the Estonian Parliament for ratification, amendments were made by Estonian Party: the Treaty of Tartu was stated in the introductory declaration of the law containing the references to the past legal continuity back to 1918 and to that border treaty with Russia as having no further affect on the rest of the Tartu Peace Treaty provisions except those agreed.
Lavrov suggested that the law, which enforced the State Border Treaty, had mentioned the Peace Treaty of Tartu in a context allowing further territorial claims of Estonia to the Russian Federation.
Under these conditions, Lavrov said, they couldn’t ratify that document and revoked their signature from it and were ready now to reinforce negotiations.
Meanwhile, this border problem remains unclear for some experts in international law as this ending-war Peace Treaty mentioned above had been signed and come into force since 1920s and had been the basis for further international relations between Russia and Estonia for years.
The Tartu Peace Treaty is considered to be the first ever document to recognize the independence of state of Estonia.
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Sources:
http://rus.err.ee/estonia/11fffb60-4cbd-485d-853a-84e7e3b7f5d0
http://www.juridicainternational.eu/index.php?id=12628
I remember gsnoalst.I also remember how we were taught in grade school how far advanced the Russians were and that we must study harder to surpass them.After gsnoalst I saw photos of the insides of Russian hospitals and how ancient and old-fashioned and out-of-date their equipment was and I remember thinking that we were very much ahead of Russia in medicine at least. And how that mattered more to me than their space program or military weapons.