MOSCOW'S GOAL IS TO CONCLUDE SPECIAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND EU ON KALININGRAD, SAYS IGOR IVANOV








KALININGRAD, March 8, 2001. /RIA Novosti correspondent Anna Bobina/. Moscow's goal is to conclude a special agreement between Russia and the European Union on Kaliningrad offering solutions for the city's specific problems, Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Thursday, opening a conference with the Kaliningrad region administration, this correspondent reports.


	According to Ivanov, when the European Union is further enlarged, the region will find itself surrounded by EU territory and have a number of problems, which need to be solved now before the European Union gets larger. These are free transit between the region and the rest of Russia for all kinds of transport, including gas and oil pipelines, power transmission, telecommunications, a favourable regime for cross-border cooperation in anticipation of Poland and Lithuania going over to Shengen visa rules, and interests of the region's fishermen when Baltic and Polish fishing waters are included in overall EU fishing quotas.


	Besides, Ivanov said, it is necessary to agree with the European Union on steady energy supplies to the region via the territory of neighbouring countries and also to keep all commercial contracts concluded by the region's economic operators with their partners from candidate countries to the EU before its enlargement.


	"I am sure that the prerequisites for mutually acceptable solutions to these problems exist," Ivanov said. In particular, he noted, a report on Kaliningrad by the Commission of the European Communities, submitted on January 17 of this year, contains useful ideas on energy, transport, customs border, ecology and fisheries.


	Definite positive signals, in Ivanov's view, are also to be found in bilateral relations with Poland and Lithuania, as evidenced by recent talks in Moscow with Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and by Russian-Lithuanian foreign ministry consultations.


	Ivanov noted that the consequences of EU enlargement for the Kaliningrad region and Russia as a whole will be discussed during his talks on Friday with the European Union trio in Stockholm.