MINELREL-L Archive (12042001-18:03:14-18557)

RFE/RL: Ukrainian-Romanian Breakthrough on border and minority issues


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Subject: RFE/RL: Ukrainian-Romanian Breakthrough on border and minority issues


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RFE/RL: Ukrainian-Romanian Breakthrough on border and
minority issues 


RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
________________________________________________________
RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report
Vol. 3, No. 46, 4 December 2001

A Survey of Developments in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine by
the Regional Specialists of RFE/RL's Newsline Team

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..............

UKRAINE

UKRAINIAN-ROMANIAN BREAKTHROUGH? On 27 November in Kyiv, Romanian
Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana discussed border and minority issues as
well as economic and trade relations with his Ukrainian counterpart
Anatoliy Zlenko, Ukrainian media reported. "I am delighted to say
today that we are ready for constructive work aimed at finding an
appropriate legal form of solving border issues," Ukrainian Television
quoted Zlenko as saying. In turn, Geoana said both countries are today
witnessing an "impressive breakthrough" in bilateral relations. No
further details have been made known. Neither side has signed any
official documents on Geoana's trip.

However, meeting with deputy parliamentary speaker Viktor Medvedchuk
later the same day, Geoana suggested some difficulties in bilateral
relations. The Romanian visitor advised Kyiv to "avoid the confusion
about the definition of the ethnicity of the Romanians who say that
they are Moldovans" during the Ukrainian census scheduled for 5-14
December, UNIAN reported. Geoana said, "Stalin's theory about the
existence of a Moldovan language and a Moldovan nation is [still]
being implemented," adding that this theory is "fiction that formally
hampers the development of relations" between Ukraine and Romania.

Speaking to journalists in Kyiv following the conclusion of the talks,
Geoana said that "a low level of cooperation" between both countries
in the past several years has hindered the resolution of many problems
of the Romanian minority in Ukraine and the Ukrainian minority in
Romania. Geoana said Romania has reached European standards - and is
some cases even exceeded them - in the sphere of ensuring minority
rights on its territory.

Geoana said some 10,000 children of ethnic Ukrainian origin in Romania
are currently taught the Ukrainian language in 89 schools, while 149
teachers instruct their pupils in Ukrainian. Geoana added that there
is a "department of Ukrainian language, culture, and literature" at
Bucharest University, adding that two similar departments have
recently been inaugurated in two other Romanian universities. "We
would like to see such a picture in Ukraine [as regards the Romanian
minority]," Interfax quoted Geoana as saying.

An unidentified interlocutor from Ukraine's "diplomatic circles" told
the agency, however, that there are problems with publishing
Ukrainian-language books and textbooks for schoolchildren in Romania.
Also, there are no Ukrainian-language libraries or theaters in
Romania, while Ukrainian-language programs on Romanian radio and
television are broadcast irregularly and "on an insignificant scale."
In addition, there is only one Ukrainian-language upper school in
Romania, the Taras Shevchenko Lyceum in Sighetul Marmatiei, which was
reopened in 1997.

The same interlocutor recalled that, on the other hand, there are more
than 20 Romanian-language newspapers, journals, and radio and
television programs in Ukraine. Several Ukrainian higher educational
institutions enlist students for groups with Romanian as the
instruction language, while Romanian and Moldovan children can be
instructed in their native languages in schools and kindergartens in
nearly every area where Romanians and Moldovans are densely populated
in Ukraine.

But minority issues are not the only item on a list of
Ukrainian-Romanian bilateral problems. Both countries have long been
at loggerheads over Serpents Island (Zmiinyy ostrov) in the Black Sea,
a rocky slab of 600 by 300 meters, and over how to divide the oil- and
gas-bearing continental shelf around the islet.

Serpents Island, as well as what was once known as Romanian
Bessarabia, was occupied by the USSR in 1940. In 1947, the island was
ceded to the Ukrainian SSR. Independent Ukraine "inherited" Serpents
Island after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1997, Ukraine and
Romania signed a basic treaty, in which both sides recognized the
inviolability of their existing borders, but the problem of Serpents
Island was singled out in an appendix that provided for additional
negotiations on what to do about the controversial island and the
delimitation of the border in its vicinity. A joint Ukrainian-Romanian
intergovernmental commission has already held 10 sessions, but no
resolution of the border dispute is in sight.

Fuel was added to the fire this past July when Ukrainian prospectors
announced the discovery of a "commercial amount" of oil and gas near
Serpents Island. It has not been ruled out that the dispute may end up
in the international tribunal in The Hague in line with the
delimitation treaty's provisions, which mention this international
forum as a possible last instance in the event that bilateral
negotiations fail. According to ukraina.ru, Kyiv has recently made
some attempts at "populating" the islet with the expectation that,
according to international maritime legislation, it will be given the
right to an exclusive economic zone around it if international
arbitration enters its dispute with Bucharest.

(Compiled by Jan Maksymiuk)
*********************************************************
Copyright (c) 2001. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved.

"RFE/RL Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Report" is prepared by Jan
Maksymiuk on the basis of a variety of sources including reporting by
"RFE/RL Newsline" and RFE/RL's broadcast services. It is distributed
every Tuesday.

Direct comments to Jan Maksymiuk at [email protected].
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