Federation Council taskforce to consider revision of Bering Strait division agreement

The first meeting of the Russian Federation Council taskforce for therevision of the 1990 Baker-Shevardnadze agreement about dividing the BeringStrait will be held today. The meeting will be held by taskforcecoordinator, Chairman of the Federation Council taskforce for the North ofRussia and small peoples, head of the taskforce Mikhail Margelov. Therepresentatives of the Russian government, the Foreign Ministry, the StateFishing Committee and the Association of the International Sea Law willalso participate in the meeting. As it was reported earlier, after theagreement 'On the Division of Sea Areas of the USA and the USSR in theBering Sea and the Sea of Chukotsk' was signed by Soviet Foreign MinisterEduard Shevardnadze and US State Secretary James Baker, the US obtained a200-mile zone of the USSR, whose productivity is estimated by the expertsof the State Fishing Committee at 200,000 tons of pollack a year. As aresult, Russia's annual loses are $200m..