MINSK, 18 July (BelTA) – The final protocol as part of the campaign to check the passage of the Belarusian-Polish state border across bodies of water and jointly examine border markers was signed in Grodno on 18 July, representatives of the State Border Committee of Belarus told BelTA.
The ceremony took place in New Grodno Castle on 18 July. The document was signed by Chief of the State Border Delimitation and Demarcation Office of the State Border Committee of Belarus Vladimir Kovalenko and Chief of the Border Cooperation Department of the Border Office of the Central Command of the Border Guard of Poland Dariusz Gurecki. Members and experts of the joint Belarusian-Polish commission, Ambassador at Large of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Igor Milidovich, and Vice Consul of Poland in Grodno Andrzej Raczkowski also took part in the event.
The joint commission was established in line with the agreement signed by the governments of the USSR and Poland in Moscow on 15 February 1961. The commission started working on 12 October 2011.
Vladimir Kovalenko said: “We started working in 2011. We have summed up Belarusian-Polish efforts to inspect the passage of the border by signing the final protocol today. The inspection demonstrates that the border hasn't changed. We've prepared a number of new demarcation documents using modern information technologies. New demarcation maps have been prepared. Protocols of border markers and descriptions of state border passage have been prepared. All of them represent the resulting documents of our work. It is the first inspection of the border between Belarus and Poland. Our republic has done only delimitation and demarcation until now. The signed document can be described as a passport of the border.”
Dariusz Gurecki stressed: “A huge amount of work has been done. All the problems we've had to deal with were purely technical and were promptly resolved. Now both countries have their own documents. It is very important for relations between Poland and Belarus.”
The Belarusian-Polish border is about 428km long, with 186km on the ground and 242km on bodies of water. The demarcation of the Belarusian-Polish border took place in 1946-1947. After that the passage of the USSR-Poland border across rivers, springs, and canals was inspected in 1962 and in 1978-1979.
