Can Moldova become a federative state?

The problem of Transdniestria - the territory of the Left Bank of the Dniester with the mainly Russian-speaking population, which unilaterally declared its withdrawal from integral Moldavia at the beginning of the 1990s - has become a central theme at the Chisinau meetings of chairman of the Federation Council (the upper chamber of the Russian Federation's parliament) Sergei Mironov.

He arrived in Moldova on an official visit and will on Tuesday participate in the 10th session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.

Mironov stressed that Russia pins hopes "on the new initiative of the president of Moldova on a new variant of the Constitution and on creation of, in essence, federative state".

"Russia's principal stand in this issue is that it is necessary to proceed from the mandatory principle of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Moldova with due account for the special status of Transdniestria", the speaker of the Federation Council emphasized.