Time for ratification in Moscow
President Medvedev sends the Barents Sea border deal to State Duma and says Treaty with Norway creates positive political and legal conditions for joint petroleum exploitation.
Dmitri Medvedev sends the Treaty to the State Duma just two days after the Norwegian Parliament ratified the Barents Sea border deal.
The presidential package of documents pertaining to the Maritime Delimitation in the Barents Sea and Arctic Oceans was Thursday sent over to the Russian Parliament.
President Medvedev writes in the documents that the Treaty with Norway creates positive political and legal conditions for deepening cooperation in sectors as fishing and joint exploitation of transboundary petroleum deposits.
The words from the Russian President are similar to the words from the Norwegian parliamentarians debating the deal last Tuesday, underlining the need to speed up the mapping of petroleum resources in the Barents Sea.
The Norwegian Parliament voted unanimously in favour of the maritime delimitation line with Russia.
With the recommendations from President Medvedev, and earlier strong support from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, it is believed that the State Duma will ratify the Treaty sometime soon.
The date for debate is not yet announced, but President Medvedev writes in his notes to the State Duma that the ratification of the Treaty should in the accordance with arrangements reached at the highest level be synchronised in both countries parliaments.
Norway and Russia had negotiated over the 175,000 square kilometer big area in the Barents Sea since the 1970s. The breakthrough deal, which was announced during President Dmitry Medvedev’s state visit to Norway in April 2010, splits the waters into two equally big parts.
