Ukrainian President wants to launch trilateral Kiev-Chisinau-Bucharest dialog to solve Transnistrian conflict

The Kiev authorities show more and more interest for the Transnistrian conflict and plan a dialog with Bucharest and Chisinau in this respect. “Ukraine wants to start a regional trilateral dialog – Kiev-Chisinau-Bucharest,” says the deputy of the chief of the Ukrainian President's secretariat, Aleksandr Chalyi, quoted by Ukrainian media, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Chalyi, the scheduled visit of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko to Chisinau aims to solve all the issues in the bilateral relationships, most of which are related to the demarcation of the common border-line and to regulating ownership rights after the USSR's dismantlement. The two Presidents are also to discuss the realization of the settlement plan concerning the situation in Transnistria within the context of the so-called “Yushchenko's plan.”. The Kiev leader will start meetings of all the guarantor-states involved in settling the Transnistrian conflict, Aleksandr Chalyi said. Earlier, the leader of the Transnistrian area, Igor Smirnov, after meeting the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Volodymyr Ohryzko in Odessa, had said the Yushchenko plan remained timely. The Yushchencko Plan provides for organizing simultaneous elections in Transnistria and Moldova, forming new power bodies according to the poll's results, and starting talks on principles of integrating Transnistria into Moldova. Romanian media write that Ukraine's will to re-launch the dialog with Romania comes on a background of worsening bilateral relationships between Romania and Ukraine. Romania had its own version of settling the Transnistrian issue, which found no echo in Chisinau, neither in Kiev, nor in Moscow. The Romanian External Affairs Ministry's spokesman, Cosmin Boiangiu, told Romanian “Adevarul” that Ukraine has not yet made any concrete proposal to Bucharest. Boiangiu says Romania supports the 5+2 format of the talks concerning the Transnistrian settlement. Asked by Info-Prim Neo, the press units of the Presidencies in Chisinau and Kiev say an exact date of Yushchenko's visit to Chisinau has not been established. Most probably it will happen later in June.