China, Russia sign border agreement

China and Russia today sealed an agreement that finally settled the demarcation of their 4,300 km-long border, ending the decades-long territorial dispute in the latest sign of warming ties between once-bitter communist rivals.     

An additional protocol with a map affiliated on the eastern part of the borders both countries share was signed by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his visiting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, the state media said.     

No specific details were given about the pact signed today, but the state-run China Daily said Russia would soon return 174 sq km of territory on the northeast border to China, ending more than four decades of negotiations.     

Russia will return Yinlong Island (known as Tarabarov Island in Russian) and half of Heixiazi Island (Bolshoi Ussuriysky) to China, the daily reported.     

"This will end the boundary demarcation work, for which the two countries have been negotiating for more than 40 years," Russian Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying by the daily.     

Relations between China and the erstwhile Soviet Union have swung between hot and cold for some five decades, marked by border skirmishes in 1960s and 1970s at the height of strained Sino-Soviet relations during the cold war era.     

But, in recent years, relations between the two countries have been warming up dictated by economic and strategic interests, partly to counter US influence, and both as veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council have been acting in union on many international issues.