Arrangements for Voronin-Smirnov meeting discussed in Moscow

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin could meet the leader of the breakaway province of Transnistria Igor Smirnov in the near future in Tiraspol, following a recent meeting in Moscow between Transnistria’s ad-interim foreign minister Vladimir Yastrebchak and Russian deputy Foreign Minister Grigori Karasin, Info-Prim Neo learned from the press department of the Russian MFA. No particular date for the meeting has been named so far. Yastrebchak told a news conference in Moscow that the meeting agenda would include the issue of nonaggression, as well as ways of avoiding political, economic and other kinds of pressure which could tense up the situation. He also said that they were considering allowing media representatives to attend, because “we want the event to be as transparent as possible”. Earlier, Vladimir Voronin told reporters in Chisinau that the next step in settling the Transnistrian conflict would be a three-sided meeting, including Smirnov and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. If the meeting is successful, the next step will be the resumption of the talks in the five-plus-two setting. On several earlier occasions, negotiations on a potential meeting between Voronin and Smirnov have failed, because the parties were unable to reach an agreement on the place and the date of the meeting.