Alwaght- Under a new legislation passed by Duma on Wednesday, Russia will terminate a Soviet-era agreement with Britain that allowed British fishermen to operate in the Barents Sea for nearly 7 decades, reported Russian broadcaster RT News.
The bill, revoking an agreement between the two signed in 1956, was passed in its first reading.
The so-called Fisheries Agreement had allowed British ships to fish in the Barents Sea, one of the world’s largest fisheries for cod and haddock, off the north coast of the Kola Peninsula. It was initially signed for a period of five years and automatically renewed every five years since neither party ever withdrew from the agreement, according to RT.
“The agreement was unfortunately one-sided giving the authority and right to fish only to our partners at the time,” Deputy Agriculture Minister Maksim Uvaidov said, clarifying the details of the treaty. He added that the agreement didn’t provide Soviet fishermen with similar rights.
Moscow says that ending the Soviet-era agreement “will not cause serious foreign policy or economic consequences” for the country given London's decision to strip Russia of ‘most favored nation’ status in 2022, which led to a 35% tariff hike on Russian goods.
Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said: "He [President Vladimir Putin] returned our fish to us, because the English, shameless, had been eating it for 68 years. They have imposed sanctions on us, while they themselves make up 40 percent of their diet, their fish menu, from our cod. Let them now lose some weight."
The Russian relations with the West have gone chilly since Russia started its "special military operation" in Ukraine earlier in 2022. Western countries collectively imposed unprecedented sanctions on Moscow in a bid to cripple its economy.
