Third political party demands Russian Army's pullback, pickets Russian embassy

Liberal Party (PL) members picket the Russian Embassy to Chisinau Thursday demanding the withdrawal of the Russian Army from the Moldovan territory. The move comes a day after two other political parties, the European Action Movement and the National-Liberal Party were responsible for a similar meeting, Info-Prim Neo reports. PL president Mihai Ghimpu says the action aims at determining the Chisinau authorities to put up a proposal at the CIS summit (November 13-14 in Chisinau) to adopt a declaration obliging Russia with withdraw its army from Moldova's soil. According to Mihai Ghimpu, the presence of the Russian army means poverty in Moldova. “It hampers us to settle the Transnistrian issue, neither allows Moldova to integrate into the EU,” the PL leader said. “The EU will receive no state with foreign army on its territory, and Russia shall allow Moldova to decide its fate by itself. The of empires is over and it's a pity Vladimir Putin does not realize this,” Ghimpu added. According to another Liberal leader Corina Fusu, the Community of Independent States is an obsolete organism not allowing Moldova to stay among the European countries. “If you want to achieve something, you go a single way and that's the EU,” Corina Fusu stated. “We want in Europe. I will go to the EU chief and will ask him to receive me there, while Voronin (Moldovan present president – e.n.) will come and ask me to stay by me,” a protester Ion Josan stated. Although the protest was projected to take place in front of the Republic's Palace, the PL leaders say a court interdicted them to do this. “We received a writ by the Appellate Court banning us from picketing the Republic's Palace on November 13-14,” the PL president said. He does not rule out to continue the protest on November 14. “We take into account the police's safety plans. We consider we're entitled to protest by law and we may ignore the court decisions made as the Communist rule wants,” Ghimpu says. Russia committed at the OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999 to pull out its armament and troops from Moldova till the end of 2002, but the commitment was not fully observed. According to some data, from 20,000 to 40,000 tonnes of armament and ammunition would stay in a store near Colbasna village, 2 km from the Ukrainian border.