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News Articles
On Russian Demands
In March 1977 Russian
government officials started demanding a revision of the Maritime
Boundary
Agreement (executive agreement) to give the Russians the rights for 300 million
more
pounds of fish to be
taken from the American side. According to the story in the Fairbanks
Daily News-Miner, "State Department
sources, speaking on the condition that they not be
quoted by name, said the
Clinton administration is working furiously to rescue the agreement.
But
they acknowledged that the dispute poses a serious diplomatic difficulty that
can be resolved
only through concessions to the Russians." The State
Department has conducted a series of
discussions with Russian officials,
including briefings to the U. S. North Pacific Fishery
Management Council at the
American Embassy in Moscow in 2002.
In July 2002,
according to the official Russian Information Agency Novosti's news article,
"The Federation Council, Russian parliament's upper chamber, intends to promote Evgeny
Nadratenko's initiative to revise the Russian-US agreement on Bering
Strait division at an
international level.... On Friday, chairman of the State
Fishery Committee Evgeny Nazdratenko
called the division of the Bering Strait
'absolutely illegal' and the 8,253 square km of water
surface given to the USA
'a huge loss' for Russia. Nazdratenko called on Russian MPs to
discuss
with US Congress the return to Russia of territory the USA received after the
Bering
Strait division under the Baker-Shevardnadze agreement of 1990."
