President Kwasniewski says visas are the answer to Kaliningrad question

During yesterday's meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and Polish president Aleksander Kwasniewski one of the main topics of discussion was the issue of the Kaliningrad corridor. The meeting in Moscow follows a European Union-Russia summit, during which Putin suggested that after accession to the European Union (EU), Lithuania and Poland would make special corridors available through which travel would be possible between Kaliningrad and other parts of Russia without visas. "In Poland discussion about a corridor for Kaliningrad reminds one of the 1930s with German demands for an extra-territorial corridor," argued Kwasniewski yesterday. The introduction of visas is an EU accession obligation and according to the Polish government, Russian, Belorussian and Ukrainian citizens will be obliged to have them when entering Poland, starting from July 2003. Ac cording to Kwasniewski cheap multiple-entry visas would be a better so lution. President Putin, however, emphasized that it seems difficult to imagine that there would be different visa requirements for people living in Kaliningrad as compared to the rest of Russian Federation. (Zycie, p. 4) M.T.K.