KIEV, March 25 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine and Russia will resume talks on completing the cleanup work after an oil spill in the Kerch Strait in November 2007, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko announced Tuesday.

    "I have had a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin and we have agreed that the negotiations will continue at the level of the two governments," Yushchenko told a news conference in Livadia, a scenic resort on the Crimea peninsula in southern Ukraine, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

    He pointed out that Ukraine and Russia had reached agreement that companies should be liable for the consequences of the environment disaster. He further said the two countries should formalize the end of the cleanup process.

    Yushchenko stressed more than 4,000 tons of oil and sand mixture was washed ashore, saying the reprocessing of the mixture would start within days.

    A storm wrecked eight Russian ships in the Kerch Strait on Nov.11, 2007. Thousands tons of fuel oil was spilled.

    Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov claimed late in December that all traces of November's disaster in the Kerch Strait had been eliminated, but Greenpeace said the consequences of fuel spill in the Kerch Strait could take up to a decade to be eliminated.