NATO insists on Russia withdrawing its troops from Moldova

At the end of Thursday’s meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Brussels, the NATO foreign ministers made a categorical appeal to Russia to resume and end in the shortest time the withdrawal of its military presence from Moldova. The document signed by all 26 NATO members reminds Russia that the fulfillment of the commitments it assumed in Istanbul in 1999 as regards Georgia and Moldova creates conditions for the NATO member states and the other signatories of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty to ratify this revised agreement. “We welcome the important progresses made by Russia and Georgia as regards the withdrawal of the Russian troops, mentioned in their common statement dated 30 May 2005, and we are waiting for the settlement of the unsolved issues. But we regretfully notice the lack of progress in the process of pulling out Russian forces from Moldova and we make an appeal to the Russian Federation to resume and end the withdrawal of its troops as soon as possible,” the communiqué made public at the end of the meeting reads. NATO’s reaction comes several days after Russia blocked the adoption of the final resolution of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Ljubljana, which also included Russia’s fulfillment of its Istanbul commitments. In the speech delivered at the meeting of the foreign ministers of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Stratan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, sought NATO’s support in solving Moldova’s major issues – Transdniestrian conflict and the withdrawal of Russian military presence from the territory of the country. Romania’s Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu drew NATO officials’ attention to the situation in Transdniestria specifying that in order to resume the dialogue the sides must prove honesty and political maturity, which would unveil Tiraspol’s underground economic relations with other states involved in the settlement of the Transdniestrian conflict, in order to avoid behind curtains affairs between the sides concerned. 2005// Reporter.MD
http://politicom.moldova.org/stiri/eng/7277/