KIEV/MOSCOW, October 23 (RIA Novosti) - Ukraine's recently appointed Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko will pay a visit to Moscow on Friday in an attempt to renew dialogue between Moscow and Kiev.
Ukraine had been without a top diplomat since former foreign minister Volodymyr Ohryzko, known for his anti-Russian stance, was dismissed on March 3. Petro Poroshenko, appointed to the post earlier this month, said improving ties with Russia would be one of his top priorities.
"The aim of the visit would be to intensify our dialog and to build up trust between our countries," Poroshenko told journalists ahead of the visit.
He said that boosting cooperation with Ukraine's immediate neighbors - Belarus, Moldova, the EU and Russia - was his country's top priority.
Poroshenko said that among other issues he is set to discuss with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov are the Russian Black Sea Fleet's presence in Ukraine, the delimitation of the Kerch Strait, economic cooperation and other key problems.
Russia's Black Sea Fleet uses a range of naval facilities in Ukraine's Crimea, including the main base in Sevastopol, as part of a 1997 agreement under which Ukraine agreed to lease the bases to Russia until 2017. Kiev insists that Russia withdraws its fleet from the Ukrainian territory.
As for the delimitation of the Kerch Strait, the two countries have been in a dispute over their maritime borders since the early 1990s.
In August, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev delayed sending a Russian ambassador to Ukraine over a worsening in relations between the neighbors.
In an August 11 letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Medvedev blamed Kiev for the deterioration in relations between the two former Soviet republics, strained in recent years by gas disputes, Ukraine's desire to join NATO, and interpretations of the Soviet-era famine in Ukraine. Russia has also accused Ukraine of supplying weapons to Georgia during last year's war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia.
