Moldovan Leader Blasts Romanian 'Intervention'

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Moldovan Leader Blasts Romanian 'Intervention'

Vladimir Voronin, the president of Moldova, has accused neighboring
Romania of trying to undermine his country by demeaning its language and
culture and offering its citizenship to Moldovans en masse. In an
interview with Reuters, Voronin said Bucharest is pursuing a nationalist
and "unionist" policy. He said that "an intervention is under way against
Moldova's statehood, its people, history and language." Most of
present-day Moldova's territory was part of Romania before World War II
and some two-thirds of its population speak Romanian.

But Voronin said that the "Moldovan language is the mother of the Romanian
language. It is the mother. This is how it should be treated, and this is
what we teach our citizens about our language. Attempts to call it
Romanian, attempts to call it anything else, are attempts to cheat history
and deceive one's own mother." Since Romania joined the European Union in
January, hundreds of thousands of Moldovans have applied for Romanian
passports. The have been trying to take up a long-standing Romanian offer
of fast-track citizenship. Voronin also said that currently improved
relations with Russia means that prospects to resolve Moldova's
15-year-old dispute with its pro-Moscow separatist region of Transdniester
are better.

Transdniester broke away from Moldova in 1990. The two sides fought a
short war in 1992, which was curbed by Russian troops in the region. No
final agreement has been concluded between the two sides.

http://www.huliq.com/16308/moldovan-leader-blasts-romanian-intervention

***********************************************************************************

N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.

***********************************************************************************