Moscow and Kiev agree to set up working groups for simplifying procedures for crossing Russian-Ukrainian border

Moscow and Kiev have agreed to set up working groups for simplifying the procedures for crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border by the citizens of the two countries.

As RIA Novosti was told at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia on Monday, the working groups will tackle both the questions of crossing the Russian-Ukrainian border and the questions of simplifying the procedure for crossing it by the inhabitants of border regions, as well as of interaction in combating illegal migration and illegal fishing.

Such an accord was registered in the protocol on the results of a meeting of the subcommission on border issues of the Mixed Russian-Ukrainian Commission on Cooperation, which was signed in Moscow late last week.

The Russian Foreign Ministry officials said that the subcommission had pointed to the successful work to delimit the land section of the Russian-Ukrainian state border. The sides declared the need for intensifying the negotiating process on the status of the Sea of Azov and of the Kerch Strait, and for boosting cooperation in this water area.

Higher effectiveness of the interaction between the frontier services and improvement of the legal base of cooperation were also discussed at the meeting. Moscow and Kiev hold the view that in their work they must be guided by the striving to ensure such a situation when "the border would not separate our peoples and states but would help deepen many-sided cooperation between them," the Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out.

The meeting of the subcommission on border issues of the Mixed Russian-Ukrainian Commission on Cooperation was co-chaired by First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Vyacheslav Trubnikov and by State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Yuri Sergeyev.