Ministers at Halfway Point, Negotiations to Follow

The Tuzla situation remains unchanged. Although the construction of the dam towards the Ukrainian border was stopped more than a week ago, questions still arise. Moscow is obviously disgruntled over the presence of border guards on Tuzla, while Ukraine is worried about Russia’s unwillingness to finally recognize Ukrainian jurisdiction over the island.

The visit of Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov seems to be neither a failure nor a success. The Russian foreign minister’s chief mission was to probe the situation on the spot. The results of this probe hardly came up to Moscow’s expectations — first of all, because Kyiv continues to assert a firm position on its sea border with Russia. Yet, this does not mean that Moscow will stop pressuring Kyiv into agreeing to solve the problem in Moscow’s favor. In addition, Ukrainian negotiators are still to demonstrate consistency on their own. When the two countries’ premiers conferred in Moscow, failure to dot the i’s and cross the t’s over Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov’s statement about the withdrawal of border guards from Tuzla resulted in the stirring up new passions. The Kyiv talks held last Thursday seem to have avoided this kind of pratfalls. This time Ukraine sounded more decisive and convincing about the presence of border guards on Tuzla in spite of Mr. Ivanov’s objections and bewilderment to this effect. “This decision must have been made when passions ran high... I do not know the reason why the border guards should stay behind there,” the Russian minister said. Kostiantyn Hryshchenko reacted to this in no ambiguous terms, “We consider this territory indisputable, and they (border guards — Author) are stationed there not so much to defend that land as to show what we believe in. We would like to rule out the involvement of non-governmental structures in addressing this problem.”

The main result of this meet is that both sides agreed to hold further talks. On November 5, Kyiv will host the next round of talks on the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait problem at the level of deputy foreign ministers Oleksandr Motsyk of Ukraine and Viktor Kaliuzhny of Russia. An important detail is that Russia in fact refuses to admit that Tuzla belongs to Ukraine. Mr. Ivanov simply evaded this question when asked. As he put it, “there are different documents that can be interpreted in more than one way. This is a question for negotiation.” The ministers reached a compromise that the two sides will address the Tuzla problem in conjunction with that of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait at Russian insistence The ministers also agreed to set up a number of task forces to continue the discussion of water area usage.

In addition, the foreign ministers clarified their current stands. “We consider Tuzla an inalienable part of the Ukrainian territory and presented historical, juridical and other arguments to this effect during the talks,” Mr. Hryshchenko emphasized. “We believe that the Tuzla problem should be addressed simultaneously with the settlement of the Azov-Kerch water area issue. It would therefore make no sense to foretell the solution today. At the same time, we have taken note of the Ukrainian side’s position in this question,” Mr. Ivanov said.

All the parties seem to have achieved is that passions over the dam are on the wane. This tendency is likely to be strengthened unless, of course, Russia chooses to continue laying the causeway toward the Ukrainian island. However, this will require some more fundamental excuses. Moscow also seems to have admitted the ineffectiveness of the “regional-administration technique” whereby all the blame should be put on the Krasnodar authorities. Russia is now betting on negotiations and diplomatic pressure, having a large enough arsenal of methods to do so. The Tuzla test continues.

COMMENTS

Anatoly HUTSAL, National Institute of International Security Problems:

“The negotiators have taken note of the current situation concerning Tuzla Island. The two sides have clarified their positions and agreed to hold new talks. Nobody expected any other results because the earlier meeting of premiers showed the two sides were so far taking rather different positions. The primary task of each side is to understand what the other wants as well as to draw up a tentative schedule of addressing the existing problem. I think we have no alternative but to make a deal. We cannot be with daggers drawn with Russia all the time. This problem must be solved. Otherwise, every crisis in the world and inside each of the two countries will also exacerbate the Tuzla problem. So, instead of tackling our numerous domestic issues, we will have to constantly draw the best diplomatic, government, and parliamentary forces into solving this problem. Now that the ministers talked, it is the experts’ turn. In principle, the question is not of Tuzla but of sharing the whole Azov water area. We must sign treaties on all the aspects, including the environment, economy, transport, and so on.”

Ihor HRYTSIAK, Ukrainian Academy of Public Administration under the President of Ukraine:

“Judging by what appears to be fragmentary media information, no progress has been achieved in resolving this conflict. But from now on, negotiations will be conducted by lower-level functionaries, such as deputy ministers, who will discuss in detail every aspect of the problem. So the result of this meeting is the continuation of work which may yield more concrete results in the future. The course of the talks and the statements made confirm in a way the guess of Ukrainian journalists that, when Ukraine’s Premier Viktor Yanukovych was visiting Moscow, our side made a promise or something of the kind to pull out border guards from Tuzla Island. The Russians said: we have stopped building the dam, but you have not removed your border guards. Another detail is that Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov’s visit occurred at the same time when Russian Presidential Chief of Staff Aleksandr Voloshin resigned. We know that Voloshin took a very aggressive anti-Ukrainian attitude — his comment on the Tuzla problem, quoted by the Ukrainian press, is just awful. Maybe Igor Ivanov finally saw during the Kyiv talks that Ukraine would not flinch, and President Putin fired Voloshin, thus opting for more moderate approaches and deciding not to let the dispute with Ukraine reach an impasse. And, although there are no outer signs of concessions, a deeper analysis suggests that the Russians have obviously cooled their ardor. They must have understood that the continuing arm-twisting policy will bring no dividends. I think one of Mr. Ivanov’s tasks was to probe again the positions of Ukrainian officials, see the extent to which they will stick to their position and the way they are likely to behave further on. Our functionaries seem to have passed this examination.”