Russia is going to sign a key agreement with its communist neighbour China for handing over the control of the two disputed islands the coming week. For this Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, will fly down to China on July 21- July 22 to sign the necessary documents and let go the control over the long disputed border in the eastern sector between the two nations. A high-ranked Russian officer had hinted earlier this month that Moscow would give up the hold over the Tarabarov Island and about half of the Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island in August to Japan under the 2004 bilateral agreement.

Though Russia and China signed agreements in 1991 and 1994 delineating the eastern and western sectors of their common borders, disagreements over various small pockets, however, remained unsolved. The Tarabarov Island and the Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island collectively referred to as Heixiazi in Chinese was the cause of various skirmishes between China and Russia in the 1960s. The 2004 agreement on the eastern sector of the 4,300-km border was inked after China conceded to end claiming islands near the Russian city of Khabarovsk as its own.