Moscow-Tallinn differences may be settled at meetings only - Estonian Foreign Minister
TALLINN. Sept 19 (Interfax) - The attitude of Russia toward Estonia has not changed much, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told the Delfi portal on Tuesday.
"A visit of a delegation of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee due this fall has been postponed indefinitely, which shows the Russian attitude has not changed much. Yet Estonia remains open to contacts with all neighbors," he said.
State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Alexei Pushkov told Interfax earlier that the trip to Tallinn had been delayed. He said the visit would be made when the sides reached an understanding on the border treaty.
The Estonian minister doubted that was the real cause of the postponement of the visit. "It is very hard to comment on the genuine reason for the cancellation of the visit of the State Duma delegation, but it is a fact that the states have disagreements. [The disagreements] may be settled only at meetings and discussions of possible ways out," the minister said.
"Yet today's report shows that Russia does not change. There is no change in the attitude, which would have made regular communication possible," he said.
The minister admitted, "the intensity of communication is much smaller than it could have been normally."
"The Russian foreign minister, let alone the president, has never visited Estonia in the past 20 years, although invitations have been made regularly," he said.
A delegation of the Estonian Parliament Foreign Affairs Commission met with members of the Federation Council Foreign Affairs Committee in 2006 and with members of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee in 2005. High-level parliamentary contacts stopped in 2007 when the Bronze Soldier monument was relocated in Estonia.