Ukrainian
Foreign Minister Petro Poroshenko is expected
to visit Belarus
on October 19. He is
scheduled to meet with his Belarusian counterpart and First Deputy Prime
Minister Uladzimir Syamashka.
The foreign
ministers are expected to exchange instruments on the ratification of a consular
convention by Belarus and Ukraine.
The coming
visit will focus on an interstate agreement on the shared border that the
Belarusian National Assembly has not ratified, said Ukraine’s newspaper Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (Mirror Weekly) with
reference to a source in the government, according to BelaPAN.
According to
the report, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko identified three priorities
of Minister Petro Poroshenko’s October 19 visit to Minsk. “Among issues topping the Ukrainian
foreign minister’s agenda is the organization of a meeting with the Belarusian
foreigner minister to settle all issues concerning the Ukrainian-Belarusian
agreement on the state border,” the newspaper writes.
Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka signed the agreement in May 1997. Ukraine’s
Verkhovna Rada (parliament) passed the ratification bill for the accord later
that year, but the Belarusian national legislature never followed suit over a
debt dispute with the neighboring country.
