Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Tuesday he expects the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to soon provide the package of documents required to start scrapping the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty.
KIEV (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th August, 2018) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Tuesday he expects the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry to soon provide the package of documents required to start scrapping the Russian-Ukrainian Friendship Treaty.
"We approached the next step: the termination of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation ... Already in the near future I expect the Foreign Ministry to provide the required package of documents to start implementing the process," Poroshenko said at a meeting with diplomats.
Russia and Ukraine signed friendship, cooperation and partnership treaty in May 1997 after almost six years of negotiations. The treaty was subsequently ratified by the legislative bodies in Moscow and Kiev. Under the accord, the parties recognized territorial integrity and inviolability of borders of each other, reaffirmed their commitment to have stable and mutually beneficial economic ties and vowed to treat each other as equal negotiating partners, among other provisions.
In May 2017, the Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement released to mark the 20th anniversary of this landmark treaty, reiterated that Moscow was open for a constructive dialogue with Kiev, despite the fact that the 2014 coup "carried our relations far away from the spirit and letter" of the friendship treaty.
Earlier in August, Ivan Vinnyk, a member of the Bloc of Petro Poroshenko has called for cancellation of the Russia-Ukraine agreement on cooperation in the use of the Sea of Azov and the Strait of Kerch.
The relations between Russia and Ukraine have been tense since 2014 following the reattachment of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and Moscow's alleged involvement in the armed conflict in the Donbas Region in eastern Ukraine. Kiev refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the referendum held in Crimea and insists that the peninsula remains an integral part of Ukraine. Moscow repeatedly denied all accusations saying that the referendum was held in accordance with international law.
