#15
Voronin: Talks with separatists to resume
ODESSA, Ukraine, March 17 (UPI) -- Moldova is ready to grant the separatists in the province of Trans-Dniester "the broadest (autonomous) status," Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin told reporters Sunday after meeting with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts to discuss the situation in the troubled region.
Vladimir Putin, Leonid Kuchma and Voronin gathered Sunday in the Black Sea resort of Odessa for talks on a number of trilateral issues that were dominated by the problem of separatism in Europe's poorest country.
Voronin said that the unification of Moldova was the country's "most important problem today."
The Moldovan leader added that a wider autonomy promised by Chisinau would be guaranteed by amendments to the Constitution.
He also said he hoped that the talks with the separatist regime in the Trans-Dniester capital of Tiraspol would be resumed and praised Sunday's meeting which he said was important for "unblocking the negotiating process."
Trans-Dniester, inhabited predominantly by ethnic Russians and Ukrainians, broke away from Chisinau after months of armed clashes with Moldovan authorities in 1992.
The separatists maintained they were seceding out of fear that Chisinau authorities would merge Moldova with Romania, its bigger neighbor and a kin nation.
Trans-Dniester won de facto independence, refusing to recognize the regime in Chisinau and relying on the military presence of Russian troops stationed there.
Last spring, Moldova's communists swept to power in Chisinau and Voronin became president pledging to build stronger ties with Moscow.
The two countries soon signed a bilateral agreement aiming to revive stalled relations and Putin ordered Russian troops to pull out of Moldova.
Bolstered Russian-Moldovan ties irked Trans-Dniester leader Igor Smirnov who saw the Kremlin's once generous support for his regime subside as Putin pledged to Voronin that Moscow would invariably recognize Moldova's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
On Sunday, Ukraine and Russia, acting as guarantors of the peace process in Trans-Dniester, reiterated their intentions to pursue a peaceful solution to the conflict.
The absence of Smirnov in Odessa clearly indicated, though, that none of the three nations would tolerate separatism.
Voronin also revealed on Sunday that Moldova had applied two months ago for membership in the five-nation economic alliance of ex-Soviet states headed by Russia.
"We hope that we will be included in EvrAzEs at the May summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States," said Voronin.
Besides Russia, EvrAzEs includes Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
Ukraine's Kuchma said that Kiev was also contemplating a similar move as "the world is not treating us any better ... erecting new barriers to our goods, so we have to think how to survive."
The evident signs of rapprochement between Chisinau and Moscow annoyed Moldova's nationalists and anti-Russian opposition leaders who in recent months have staged rallies in the capital to protest the government's decision to introduce compulsory teaching of Russian in Moldova's schools and to put on the curriculum a new subject called "History of Moldova" instead of the "History of Romania," taught prior to that.
In February, the government revoked the problematic decrees, but the rallies continued as Voronin's opposition demanded a government ouster and early parliamentary elections.
On Friday, opposition leader Yuri Roshka told reporters that rallies would from now on be staged twice a week ahead of the Grand National Convention, scheduled for March 31.
Until Friday, the protests were held daily since Jan. 9, peaking in late February as nearly 100,000 people gathered to mark what they said was a year of "Bolshevik rule" in Moldova.
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