Latvia to sign border treaty with Russia

(RIGA) - Latvia will sign a long-awaited border treaty with Russia this week, the prime minister's office said Monday -- a decade after both sides first initialled the agreement.

Prime Minister Aigars Kalvitis is due to hold a signing ceremony in Moscow on Tuesday with his Russian counterpart Mikhail Fradkov, Kalvitis' spokesman Arno Pjatkins was quoted by LETA news agency as saying.

Kalvitis is also scheduled to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, capping a four-day visit to Moscow.

Latvia's border treaty with Russia has been in mothballs since it was initialled in 1997 following six years of talks.

Earlier this month, the Latvian government authorised Kalvitis to sign the accord, after formally withdrawing a declaration Riga had attached to the treaty two years ago, which Moscow had interpreted as a claim on the Pytalovo district of Russia.

The 1,294-square-kilometre (500-square-mile) district, known to Latvians as Abrene, was Latvian territory before World War II, but became part of the Soviet Union after Moscow annexed the Baltic states in the 1940s.

Latvia and its neighbours, Estonia and Lithuania, regained their independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed. But Pytalovo remained Russian because it had been made an official part of the Russian Federation during Soviet rule.

Latvia's 276-kilometre-long (164-mile) border with Russia has become one of the easternmost frontiers of the European Union since the Baltic state joined the bloc in 2004.