Vladimir Voronin gives up wish to have Moldovan neutrality internationally recognized

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has given up his bucking to have Moldova's neutrality recognized by the world community. He told a news conference on Wednesday that, following consultations with Western and CIS experts, he reached the conclusion that “declaring the neutrality is the inner problem of each state and is not related to international institutions,” Info-Prim Neo reports. “We'll not discuss the issue of the international recognition of the neutrality. First, because it is senseless. Second, because everything depends on us: will our country be neuter or not?” the President said. According to Vladimir Voronin, Moldova will not oppose if some state would like to recognize its neutrality. “We'll do so with our partners in the bilateral relations,” the head of the state said. Earlier, the President used to state that the international recognition of Moldova's permanent neutrality might have been materialized by Russia, Ukraine, OSCE, USA, EU and Moldova in signing a declaration. That one would have been included into the package of documents to be discussed in the 5+2 talks, when those resume. The package would include the Law on Transnistria's Status, the Law on the basic principles of the status of the districts on the Nistru's left bank and a scheduling of realizing the settlement. At the news conference on July 23, Vladimir Voronin said, actually, all the negotiating sides had a positive attitude towards the docs package, but only the United States confirmed it in written form. At the meeting on July 22 with the mediators and observers in the talks, the EU representative to Moldova, Kalman Mizsei, said the EU supported the docs package. The Russian envoy Valery Nesterushkin avoided to make statements on the matter and on resuming the talks, the President said. According to him, the mediators were to have meetings in Tiraspol on the same day, which would have preceded the resumption of the talks. However, the meeting in Tiraspol failed because the leader Igor Smirnov was resting in Crimea, as the Tiraspol authorities don't have a foreign minister as yet. Vladimir Voronin does not rule out that the meeting would have been sabotaged “following a scenario.” Vladimir Voronin has reiterated there are all prerequisites to settle the Transnistrian conflict till the year-end and has said the 2009 state budget will have a country-reintegration fund to be filled in by international donors.