KIEV, April 17 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine wants to make a treaty on the presence of Russian naval bases on its territory more transparent by signing an additional agreement, a senior official said Monday.
Anatoliy Kinakh, the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said that to ease tensions in the long-running dispute over Russian Black Sea Fleet bases, the sides should first conduct a comprehensive inventory inspection of facilities and land on their territory.
"Ukraine is ready to sign an additional agreement establishing mechanisms of control over fulfillment of obligations [under the treaty] both on the part of Ukraine and Russia," Kinakh said. "We need ... to establish transparent relations based on equal rights, fulfilling our obligations under the treaty in accordance with Ukrainian legislation and international law."
The Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday that the next session of the commission on Russia's Black Sea Fleet will take place in early May in Moscow.
"Until now, meetings have been held in all working groups," the ministry said in a statement posted on its web site. "The parties have discussed implementation of the basic agreements on the presence of Russian Black Sea Fleet units in Ukraine and ways of resolving outstanding problems on the basis of reciprocity and good-neighborliness."
The commission will analyze the results of working-group meetings and "propose new lines of negotiations on Fleet-related subjects," the statement said.
Russia's Black Sea Fleet currently uses a range of naval facilities in the Crimea under a 1997 agreement that divided up the Soviet Black Sea Fleet but allowed Russia to continue its presence on Ukrainian soil for rent of $93 million per year.
Apparently in response to a bitter row over natural-gas supplies earlier this year, Ukrainian officials said in February that the Russian fleet should be paying at least $1.8 billion a year to meet current standards and considering the size of the rented area. Officials said a preliminary inventory showed many rented facilities were not included in the 1997 agreements.
But Russian officials said the country would make no concessions over rent or the withdrawal of the fleet from Ukraine, which is scheduled for 2017.
