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Russia Offers To Mediate Peace Deal For Moldova

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  • Russia Offers To Mediate Peace Deal For Moldova

    RUSSIA OFFERS TO MEDIATE PEACE DEAL FOR MOLDOVA

    Reuters AlertNet
    Nov 14 2008
    UK

    CHISINAU, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it wants to help
    solve a separatist conflict in ex-Soviet Moldova, part of a drive to
    prove that despite its war with Georgia it can still act as an honest
    broker among its neighbours.

    Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who served as president
    until May this year and retains much of his influence, met Moldovan
    President Vladimir Voronin to discuss the conflict with the breakaway
    Transdniestria region.

    Many of Russia's neighbours are wary of Russian influence after it
    sent troops into Georgia in August, but since then it has renewed
    efforts to broker peace deals in other "frozen conflicts" left over
    from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

    Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told reporters
    on the sidelines of a summit of ex-Soviet prime ministers in the
    Moldovan capital that Moscow wanted to revive a Russian peace plan
    that Moldova rejected in 2003.

    "We really do believe that the peace plan that was proposed back
    then was effective and could have been implemented," Shuvalov told
    reporters.

    "We will now try to reach new agreements, taking as our starting
    point the territorial integrity of Moldova."

    In the early 1990s Transdniestria, which has a majority
    Russian-speaking population, broke away from Moldova, which has ethnic
    and cultural ties to neighbouring Romania.

    Russia sent troops to intervene in the conflict and some have stayed
    in the region as a peacekeeping force, though many Moldovans accuse
    them of siding with the separatists.

    The plan previously proposed by Moscow involved a federal state in
    which Transdniestria would have a large degree of autonomy and Russian
    forces would remain in the region to oversee the agreement.

    In a separate effort to prove Russia's peacekeeping credentials after
    the war with Georgia, President Dmitry Medvedev convened a meeting
    of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss the disputed
    Nagorno-Karabakh territory.

    Observers say Moscow has reasonable prospects of brokering a deal over
    Transdniestria because both Moldova, one of Europe's poorest states,
    and the separatists rely on natural gas and other supplies from Russia
    for their economic survival.

    Russia's war with Georgia was focused on the breakaway South Ossetia
    region, scene of another of the "frozen conflicts" inherited from the
    Soviet Union. (Reporting by Denis Dyomkin; Writing by Christian Lowe;
    Editing by Richard Williams)
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