Russia and China reached a compromise on their disputed border, agreeing to divide three islands in half, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday, citing a high-ranking Russian diplomat. During President Vladimir Putin's visit to China earlier this month, the two sides signed an agreement fixing the 4,300-kilometer-long (2,700-mile-long) Russian-Chinese border for the first time. Beijing and Moscow had reached agreements on individual border sections as relations warmed over the past decade, but a stretch of river and islands had remained in dispute. Interfax quoted the unnamed diplomat as saying that the agreements envisage dividing in half the Bolshoi Ussuriisky and Tarabaray Islands in the Amur River, near the Far Eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk, and the Bolshoi Island in the Argun River. The Russian Foreign Ministry declined to comment immediately on the report.
