Ukraine proposes renewing the Big Treaty with Russia, the country`s foreign minister said Monday, according to RIA Novosti.
Russia and Ukraine signed an agreement on friendship, cooperation and partnership, or the Big Treaty, in 1997 for a ten year period which came into effect in 1999, with the exchange of ratification documents.
"The plan of action that will be signed by the Ukrainian and Russian presidents envisions short-term and prompt targets, but we should first of all discuss strategic issues. The Big Treaty signed in 1997 is among them," Arseniy Yatsenyuk told a RIA Novosti news conference.
He said Russian investment in Ukraine was not in danger despite the ongoing standoff between the president and parliament in Kiev, which he said was just provisional political turbulence.
"The Ukrainian economy is open to Russian capital in whatever currency, we offer guarantees," Yatsenyuk said.
The minister also said Ukraine was interested in a common economic space with Russia and called for wider cooperation on energy issues, which are particularly important for the country transited by Russian pipelines.
He said if reached, energy agreements under the project would ensure relevance of the common economic space.
The two former Soviet neighbors were embroiled in an energy dispute in January 2006, when Russia accused Ukraine of siphoning off Europe-bound natural gas after Moscow cut off deliveries for Ukraine over the latter`s reluctance to pay higher tariffs.
