The international arbitral tribunal in The Hague agreed with Russia's arguments on how to settle the Moscow-Kiev row over last year's incident in the Kerch Strait, opening up the possibility of dividing the process into two stages, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th November, 2019) The international arbitral tribunal in The Hague agreed with Russia's arguments on how to settle the Moscow-Kiev row over last year's incident in the Kerch Strait, opening up the possibility of dividing the process into two stages, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday."Ukraine's demands regarding the rejection of the jurisdictional stage and reducing the length of the proceedings have been ignored. The tribunal agreed with Russia's arguments and provided for the possibility of dividing the process into two separate stages jurisdictional and substantive," the statement said.
The ministry noted that each side was given six months to prepare their memorandums Ukraine had insisted on two months.
According to the statement, the tribunal supported Russia's approach to nullify Kiev's "attempts to complicate Russia's procedural status as much as possible."
In November 2018, three Ukrainian ships breached the Russian border, entered the temporarily closed Russian maritime area on their way toward Kerch Strait and refused to comply with Russian authorities' demands to stop. The vessels and their crews were subsequently detained. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the incident a provocation.
The crews were sent back to Ukraine on September 7 as part of a bilateral agreement on the simultaneous release of detainees.
Earlier in November, Russia handed over the three vessels to Ukraine.
