Lavrov on phone conversation with Liimets: Estonia should abandon its territorial demands

  • 2021-04-12
  • BNS/TBT Staff

TALLINN - Commenting on a telephone conversation with Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Eva-Maria Liimets, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov said that the Estonian government needs to abandon its territorial demands against Russia.

According to a press release by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov had a telephone conversation with Liimets, in which he highlighted a prerequisite for ratifying border treaties between Estonia and Russia. The Russian ministry said that the foreign ministers discussed the state of Russian-Estonian relations, exchanged views on the state of affairs at a domestic and international level, including the status of Estonia as an elected member of the UN Security Council in 2020-2021.

Lavrov said that Russia's position on the Estonian-Russian border has been expressed to Estonia.

"On the issue of border treaties between Russia and Estonia, the Russian position was confirmed that a prerequisite for their ratification in our country is the fulfillment by Tallinn of the agreements reached when signing the border treaties in 2014. That includes Tallinn unambiguously abandoning its territorial demands against Russia without any political 'appendages'," spokespeople for the Russian Foreign Ministry said. "Russia would like to see the readiness of its neighbors to form a normal, non-confrontational atmosphere of bilateral relations."

According to the ministry, Liimets's attention was drawn to the need to take concrete steps to solve problematic issues in Estonia related to continued mass statelessness, the discriminatory position of the Russian-speaking population, plans to squeeze the Russian language out of the information and educational space, politically motivated persecution of the Russian-speaking media and activists, as well as attempts to falsify history.