Foreign Minister Lang favours taking part in Moscow celebrations in May

Foreign Minister Lang favours taking part in Moscow celebrations in May. Russia has promised Estonia that the treaty between the countries, which has long been on ice, will be signed at the foreign minister level this spring. Estonia’s new Minister for Foreign Affairs, Rein Lang, said that it would be best for Estonia if the signing could take place in Tallinn already before the controversial planned celebrations of the end of the Second World War, which are to be held in Moscow on the May 9th. "The 9th of May could be a difficult day. Then it would be linked with the celebrations, and naturally, that would not be sensible in any way from the point of view of foreign policy", said Lang in an interview during a brief visit to Finland - his first foreign visit after taking office last week. The Estonian Foreign Ministry plans to publish a report on the content of the border treaty on its web site, possibly already this week. The move would be aimed at calming public debate in Estonia. "In domestic political debate - we have local elections in October - it has been said that the Estonian government has somehow given in to Russian pressure, and ceded certain areas", Lang says. The suspicions have even led to demonstrations. The border treaty does include some small exchanges of territory, but the government wants to underscore that Estonia has not buckled under pressure. The text of the border treaty, which was made necessary by the re-establishment of Estonian independence in 1991, has been drafted by officials, and has been ready for signing for years now. Latvia has a similar situation, but on the political level, the process in that country seems to be going more slowly. Russia and Lithuania signed a border treaty already in 1997. The presidents of Estonia and Lithuania have not yet said if they will take part in the Moscow celebrations in May. There have been fears expressed in the Baltic States that the celebrations would obscure the fact that the end of the war was not a liberation for the three countries, but rather the resumption of the Soviet occupation.