Estonian foreign minister against idea to set up visa-free area on border with Russia
TALLINN. Feb 18 (Interfax) - An initiative to lift visa requirements for Russian and Estonian citizens living near the two countries' border is unacceptable, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet said.
"My preferences still lie with the goal of fulfilling all the preliminary conditions needed to secure visa-free travel as such. Estonia does not have that much territory to create another dividing area inside it. As far as I am concerned, this proposal does not appear to be acceptable," Paet told Interfax ahead of his visit to Moscow, due to begin on Tuesday.
"I believe that both the EU and Russia should work to fulfill these preliminary conditions for visa-free travel," he said.
"Russia is a very large state, and it thinks that it would be totally acceptable to establish areas with different visa rules near the border. As far as Russia is concerned, it is reasonable, but as for Estonia, I do not think that it would be absolutely right to draw one more line across our small territory," the minister said.
In a recent media statement, Estonian Parliament Culture Committee Chairman Urmas Klaas, who is a member of the ruling Reform Party, which also includes Paet, proposed discussing the establishment of a 30-50 kilometer visa-free area for Russian and Estonian citizens living near the two countries' border, similar to the area that exists on the Russian-Norwegian border, after Estonian-Russian border treaties are signed in Moscow on February 18.