MOSCOW, Jan 15: The Russian navy said on Sunday it had boosted security around Black Sea fleet installations and called for further talks with Ukraine to resolve a fresh dispute over a key lighthouse on the Crimean peninsula, a Ukrainian region where the Russian fleet is based.

“Security at Black Sea Fleet navigational facilities has been tightened,” naval spokesman Igor Dygalo told the Interfax news agency.

He said security levels around the facilities would be raised further as needed in response to any attempt by Ukraine to seize or enter them, and he reiterated Russia’s stand that control of the lighthouse at Yalta must immediately be returned to the Black Sea Fleet.

The dispute over the lighthouse began on Friday when an eight-member team from Ukraine’s ministry of transportation entered the facility and then barred access to Russian personnel, according to Dygalo.

Russia claims the lighthouse is a critical navigational tool for its Black Sea Fleet vessels based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol and as such is covered under the 1997 agreement between the two countries allowing the continued basing of the Russian fleet on the Ukrainian peninsula.

Ukraine has now rejected this assertion, saying Russia has no legal claim to possession of the Yalta lighthouse and some 35 other “hydrographic sites” used for shipping and located on the Crimean peninsula.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet has been based in Crimea since its founding under Catherine the Great in the late 18th century after Russia took Crimea from Turkey. Sevastopol is the Russian navy’s only warm-water port.

Crimea was also part of the Russian Federation until 1954, when it was “given” to Ukraine by the Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev, one of scores of administrative land jurisdiction transfers that took place within the Soviet Union under Stalin, Krushchev and other leaders.

The basing of the fleet was a hotly-disputed issue between Russia and Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union, but in 1997 the two newly-independent states signed an agreement to allow the fleet’s continued basing at Sevastopol.

Under that pact, Moscow pays Kiev just under 100 million dollars (83 million euros) annually to lease land and property for its Black Sea headquarters.

Talks between Russian and Ukrainian naval officials on Saturday to find a solution to the lighthouse standoff broke up with no result, Russian media said.

The same day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk said the Yalta lighthouse belonged to Ukraine.

“You can’t seize something that’s yours,” he told the Interfax news agency. “Russia has unlawfully held onto all hydrographic sites... There is no legal basis for Russia to insist that these sites are part of the Black Sea fleet.”

A top foreign ministry official later told reporters that Russia today “unlawfully” controls 35 out of the 100 hydrographic sites in Crimea.—AFP