Russia and EU reach agreement over Kaliningrad

Russia and the European Union reached agreement yesterday on travel rights for residents of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, but the EU failed to get President Vladimir Putin to soften his hard line on Chechnya. Kaliningrad, a Baltic outpost of about a million people, will be surrounded by EU territory once its neighbors, Poland and Lithuania, join the wealthy bloc, probably in 2004. Defusing a long-running row, Putin and EU leaders headed by Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen endorsed a plan to allow Russians to travel between Kaliningrad and Russia proper with special transit documents rather than visas. But despite the deal, hailed by Putin and the EU as a compromise protecting everyone's interests, Russia's military campaign in Chechnya cast a deep shadow over the one-day summit, itself relocated to Brussels from Copenhagen after Moscow angrily denounced a Chechen conference in the Danish capital. Putin welcomed a joint statement on fighting terrorism that condemned last month's mass hostage seizure at a Moscow theatre by Chechen rebels. (Reuters)