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Grodno hosts international seminar on demarcation and delimitation

On 1-3 March Grodno is playing host to the international seminar on demarcation and delimitation of the state border. The seminar is organized within the framework of the EU program TAIEX (Technical Assistance Information Exchange), BelTA has learnt.

Taking part in the seminar are representatives of the boundary, geodesic and cartographic agencies of Belarus, Great Britain, France, Finland, Germany, Slovakia and Lithuania. The specialists are discussing the issues related to demarcation of land and river borders in the 21st century.

Alexander Arkhipov, head of the state border delimitation and demarcation department of the Belarus State Border Committee, noted that the Belarusian border service is in need of the experience accumulated by its counterparts from France, Germany and Great Britain. “Belarus has its own experience of demarcation, the European countries – their own. For instance, France and Great Britain are the countries which demarcated one third borders all over the world. At the seminar we would like to share experience to understand that we operate within the framework of the international law in this work,” Alexander Arkhipov said.

In turn, representatives of the border services of the European countries – participants of the seminar noted the importance to get familiar with the Belarusian experience. “Belarus is a landlocked country. At the same time it borders on several countries and faces migration and transit problems daily as we do,” John Donaldson, a representative of the international boundaries research unit of Durham University (Great Britain), said.

The participants of the seminar will also discuss the phases of demarcation, borders management, the activity of the integrated boundary committees, the French-Italian experience of redemarcation, the problems related to inspection of international borders by the example of the Finnish-Russian border, other issues.

On March 3 the participants of the seminar will get familiar with the demarcation of the state borders of Lithuania and Germany, with the work of boundary committees. They are expected to visit border checkpoints in the Grodno Region.