The information came from Alexander Motsik, Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, as he was summing up for the media an 18th round of Ukrainian-Russian consultations on the Azov-Kerch water area.
"We have agreed for a package arrangement, so it will be a complex of understandings," he said.
The package will include a treaty-or several treaties-on the state frontier in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, which links it with the Black Sea; and a number of agreements on navigation, fishing and environmental partnership.
The Parties have also agreed on delineating the Kerch Strait and Sea of Azov water areas. Thus, the frontier will make a vertical from the sea bottom up to divide water, subsoil and air.
Mr. Motsik described the negotiations of March 25-26 as "constructive and businesslike".
The delegations considered three draft documents concerning a state frontier to be established in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait, and demarcation of inland seas, the continental shelf, and the Black Sea exclusive economic zones.
The agreement for a package arrangement came as a stride forward, says Victor Kaluzhny, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who led the Russian delegation at the talks. He expects the available issues to be settled after the 21st negotiation round.
The two countries' experts intend to meet, April. Moscow will host the next round of the bilateral negotiations in May.
As they met in Kerch, December 24, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine signed a bilateral treaty on partnerly use of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. The document treats both as the two countries' inland water areas. A state frontier is to divide the Sea of Azov, while the use of the Kerch Strait is to be determined by an agreement between the Parties.
It is up to the two parliaments now to ratify the treaty the two Presidents have signed.
President Kuchma forwarded the treaty to Ukraine's parliament for the purpose, Saturday last.
