MOSCOW - The Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday voiced its dissatisfaction with the preamble added to the Estonian-Russian border treaties by Estonia's Parliament, saying this was making it impossible to submit the treaties to the Russian Federal Assembly for ratification.
"In the light of the position that the Estonian parliament has assumed, submitting the said treaties to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation for ratification has become impossible," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a press release.
As the Russian Foreign Ministry said, the text of the ratification law passed by the Estonian MPs contains "unacceptable clauses tying the ratification of the said treaties to Estonia's internal documents, which do not correspond to objective reality, create a false context for interpreting and implementing the provisions of these treaties and thus make the lengthy work preceding their signature pointless."
The Estonian parliament at its extraordinary session on Monday ratified the treaties on the land border and sea border with Russia signed in Moscow on May 18. Acting on a proposal from five parliamentary factions, lawmakers added to the bill a preamble saying that Parliament ratifies the border treaties proceeding from legal continuity of the Republic of Estonia proclaimed on Feb. 24, 1918 as stated in the Constitution, the Aug. 20, 1991 resolution of the Supreme Council on Estonia's independent statehood and the Oct. 7, 1992 declaration of the parliament on the restoration of constitutional order.