Russian Foreign Ministry: Kerch Strait incident is outside UN arbitration’s jurisdiction

The Russian Foreign Ministry said that the incident surrounding the Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait lies outside the jurisdiction of international arbitration and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea cannot be applied while settling the dispute between Moscow and Kyiv concerning this incident.

“The statements made by both Russia and Ukraine while signing and ratifying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 rules out the possibility of involving the procedures envisaged by the Convention to settle the disputes concerning the incident near the Kerch Strait on November 25, 2018,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Saturday.

“The current stage does not deal with considering Ukraine’s complaints directly,” it said.

“During the subsequent arbitration we intend to consistently maintain our stance, including that the arbitration has the jurisdiction to consider this situation in light of the aforementioned events,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

“It would have been possible to avoid it if the requirements of the Russian legislation concerning the navigation in this area had been observed. We call on the Ukrainian side to do so in the future,” it said.

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