Russia, Estonia to discuss Estonian security police officer's detention
TALLINN. Sept 16 (Interfax) - Officials representing the Estonian and Russian border services are to meet at the Luhamaa border checkpoint on Tuesday to discuss the detention of Estonian security police officer Eston Kohver.
"The parties will continue to discuss the border incident of September 5," the press service of the Estonian Police and Border Department, has reported.
Estonia's security police said on September 5 that unidentified persons, who had crossed into Estonia from Russian territory, attacked a security police officer and forced him into Russia at gunpoint.
Before the abduction, the assailants jammed radio signals and used a smoke grenade. The Estonian cover group deployed nearby had too little time to react and aid their colleague, it said.
The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said, meanwhile, that it had detained Estonian security police officer Kohver on Russian territory.
A Taurus pistol with cartridges, 5,000 euros in cash, "special sound recording equipment, as well as materials with an intelligence assignment" were seized from the officer.
Moscow's Lefortovsky Court on September 6 ordered Kohver's arrest on charges of spying.
On September 5, representatives of the Russian and Estonian border services drew up an act documenting the border incident which, in accordance with an intergovernmental agreement, must be signed by border officials. Russia refused to sign the act on September 8. The meeting set for September 10 was cancelled at the request of the Russian side.