Passed in Latvia's parliament May 17, the bill officially recognizes the post-Soviet borders with Russia, backtracking on Latvia's earlier territorial claims on a district in the neighboring Russian region of Pskov, which was part of the Baltic state before World War II.
Expected to come into force this fall, the treaty still needs to be approved by the State Duma, Russia's lower chamber of parliament, to be followed by the parties' exchanging verification certificates.
Talks on the accord, initialed in 1997, stalled in April 2005 with Riga adopting a unilateral declaration claiming the Pytalovsky District and demanding that Russia acknowledge the Soviet Union's wartime aggression.
Moscow dismissed both claims as unfounded, and refused to sign the treaty unless Latvia dropped the declaration, which Latvia eventually agreed to do.
