| Moscow is ready to sign an agreement with Riga without politics Russia will agree with Latvia's proposal to sign an intergovernmental agreement on economic cooperation and create an intergovernmental commission that will deal with issues not related to politics. Russian Ambassador to Riga Viktor Kalyuzhny announced this to the Latvian news agency BNS on Friday.
“The proposal made by the Latvian executive branch does not at all contradict our vision,” said Mr. Kalyuzhny. According to him, the first step of the Russian-Latvian intergovernmental commission could be an agreement to sign an agreement on social protection. Latvian Minister of Transport Ainar Slesers, who is the co-chairman of the intergovernmental commission on the Latvian side, told Vremya Novostei that he could only welcome Russia’s decision: “Now we need to find out who will be the co-chairman on the Russian side and agree on the start of work as quickly as possible.”
On July 7, Riga invited Moscow to sign agreements on economic cooperation and the creation of an intergovernmental commission. Before this, relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply when the signing of a border treaty fell through in May. Russia refused to sign it because Latvia attached an explanatory declaration to it, which Moscow interpreted as a claim to the territory of the Pytalovsky district of the Pskov region. Ambassador Kalyuzhny said: “We need to rely on economic programs that give people the opportunity to live normally, to be positive, to peaceful cooperation, and then we can build political relations.”
However, not all economic initiatives benefit the development of cooperation between Russia and Latvia. The other day in Riga, the head of the government commission to calculate the damage from the “Soviet occupation,” Edmunds Stankevics, spoke. He said: “Two methods will be used in parallel - statistical and direct calculation of losses.” In the near future, his commission plans to visit Estonia and Lithuania to exchange experiences, where they are also calculating “losses from the occupation.”
Russia's permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, attributed these actions to the realm of “entertaining arithmetic that has no practical meaning.” In his opinion, having taken this path, Russia may also demand compensation from Latvia for the construction of a number of enterprises and infrastructure facilities in the post-war period. And even “to assess the historical damage caused by the Latvian Red Rifles.” Danuta DEMBOVSKAYA, Riga |
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