The presidents of Russia and Latvia have agreed to set up a commission to guard against distortions of the two countries' shared past, following talks on Monday.
The commission "should more thoroughly analyze the historic events of the past and gain access to those archives that have not yet been opened in order to examine those events in greater detail," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said after talks with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers in Moscow.
Moscow-Riga ties have been strained for years over the Baltic republic's persecution of Russian-born World War II veterans. In the latest incident, Vasily Kononov (now 87) was convicted in 1998 of killing nine Latvians in 1944 and sentenced to imprisonment.
Several Nazi collaborators have been made national heroes in Latvia since the collapse of USSR in 1991.
MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti)
