Voronin’s visit to St. Petersburg could dissipate rumours about Moldova-Russia secret deal

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin will pay a visit to Lithuania on Saturday, June 9, and on June 10 the president will participate in the Informal Summit of the CIS heads of the state that will take place in St. Petersburg. According to the Presidential Press Service, in Vilnius, Voronin is to meet Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus. His visit agenda in St. Petersburg includes participation to the works of the International Economic Forum and the informal meeting of the CIS heads of the state. Voronin will return to Chisinau on June 10, in the evening. International media has been lately reporting about increased concerns arousing in Chisinau, as well as Brussels and Washington, regarding a potential secret deal that Moldovan President Voronin might let himself talked into at the informal summit of CIS. According to the cited sources, the bilateral negotiations with Moscow outside the “5+2” format on the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict are potentially dangerous to Moldova. In his speech delivered at the CIS Parliamentary Meeting on May 30 in St. Petersburg, Voronin pointed out that Moldova doesn’t have to choose between CIS and EU, but to “try to harmonise the integration process both towards West and East, so as to bring those two directions closer”. On Wednesday, June 6, president Voronin had discussions with three high-ranking European and US officials - High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, Javier Solana; American Ambassador, Michael D. Kirby, and Cesare De Montis, head of the European Commission’s Delegation to Moldova. The President’s office failed to give any details about the discussions that Voronin had, but it is supposed that the dialogues focused on the deal between Chisinau and Moscow concerning the Transnistrian conflict.