MOSCOW, May 5 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is determined to help unblock the situation around Moldova's breakaway Transdnestr region, the Foreign Ministry said Friday following a meeting between a Russian and Moldovan officials in Moscow.
Tensions flared after Moldova introduced new customs regulations on March 3, requiring that all goods bound for Ukraine from Transdnestr have an official Moldovan stamp. Transdnestr has said the regulations amount to an economic blockade of the region.
"Russia has said it will help lead the situation out of the current dead-end and search for approaches that could allow the [conflicting] sides to work out a compromise and restore mutual trust for the sake of stability in the region," the ministry press service quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Lavrov met with Transdnestr President Igor Smirnov in Moscow on Friday.
The ministry said Moscow was in favor of resuming negotiations on Transdnestr to establish a guaranteed status for the self-proclaimed republic within a united Moldova.
The sides discussed the socioeconomic situation in the region in the wake of the new customs regime introduced by Moldova and Ukraine on the Transdnestr section of the Ukrainian-Moldovan border.
Russia sent humanitarian aid to Transdnestr after local authorities there said the region was facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Transdnestr said its losses since the new regulations were introduced were more than $50 million.
Relations between Moldova and Transdnestr have been tense since March 1992 when Moldova declared independence from the Soviet Union and Transdnestr in turn proclaimed itself a republic. Russia intervened in the armed conflict at the Moldovan president's request, and the Russian and Moldovan presidents signed a ceasefire agreement in the presence of the leader of Transdnestr in July 1992.
