Poland completes open skies mission over Kaliningrad region.

KALININGRAD, August 7 (Itar-Tass) - Poland's open skies mission on
Friday completed two-day surveillance flights over Russia's westernmost
Kaliningrad region, where main naval bases of the Baltic Fleet are
deployed, the spokesman for the Baltic Fleet commander, Captain Second
Rank Andrei Taraman told Itar-Tass.
The mission made aerosurvey from an An-30B plane of Ukraine's Air
Force.
"Poland's mission carried out surveillance flights over the
Kaliningrad region in compliance with the Treaty on Open Skies. The
mission made no comments, the Russian side fulfils its obligations," he
said.
"The main task of the open skies regime is to promote openness and
transparency, observance of the existing and future agreements on arms
control as well as to expand opportunities for preventing crises and
regulating crisis situations within the framework of the Conference on
Security and Cooperation in Europe and other international organizations,"
Taraman said.
In the future it is expected that such open skies flights will be used
for environmental protection.
Open skies missions have been conducting similar surveillance flights
over the Kaliningrad region since 2001. From the beginning of the year
such flights were carried out by Germany, Latvia and Norway.
Poland's mission already made such flights over Russia's westernmost
region last May.
The Treaty on Open Skies has been effective since 1992. Signatories to
the document are 25 countries, including Russia. The Bureau of
Verification, Compliance and Implementation was set up to coordinate
activities of the member-states.