President’s counselor gives first declarations regarding Voronin’s visit of to Moscow

The counselor of the president Vladimir Voronin, Marc Tcaciuc is optimistic regarding the future evolution of Moldovan-Russian relations, after the visit of the head of state to Moscow and the meeting with his Russian counterpart. In an interview offered on August 8 to the Russian news agency “Ria Novosti”, Marc Tcaciuc said that the orders given immediately after the two hour dialogue of the two head of states allows us to say that the process of “unfreezing” Moldovan-Russian relations was started. According to Marc Tcaciuc, president Voronin met with his Russian counterpart for several times, on different occasions, but the meeting organized on August 8 has a special character. Starting February 2003, Putin and Voronin had for the first time a tête-à-tête dialogue for almost two hours, which tackled a wide range of issues regarding the relations between the two countries. It is already clear that this meeting will make the Moldova-Russian relations look better. According to him, the dialogue between Voronin and Putin is important also because the mechanisms of settling the existent conflicts were discussed. In short time, discussions regarding the next economic and commercial relationship will be resumed. Moldova is interested in attracting Russian capital. We are optimist regarding resuming imports of wines by Russia, Tcaciuc said. As for the Transnistrian conflict, the cited source emphasized that Vladimir Putin considers it as the most serious in the region. The Counselor expressed his hope that the Transnistrian dispute will become unique, in the light of identifying a universal settlement model, which could be applied to other conflicts. The Moldovan side insists on solving the problem exclusively by means of political resources, without undertaking violent actions. The Moldovan-Russian intergovernmental commission, which does not work properly for already 2 years was another issue tackled within the meeting in Moscow. The decision on resuming the activity of the commission was made. One of the common directions will be the humanitarian relationship and the Moldovan side has initiatives in this respect. In the interview offered to “Ria Novosti”, Marc Tcaciuc referred also to the statute of the Russian language in Moldova. According to him, Voronin announced that his standpoint on this issue remains unchanged: de jure Russian is one of the republic’s interethnic communication language, de facto in Moldova all official documents are translated into Russian. There also are no limitations in obtaining higher education studies in Russian. Moldovan officials did not offer any declarations to the press from Chisinau regarding the visit of Vladimir Voronin to Moscow. According to some unconfirmed information, the head of state might meet with the press in the evening.