MOLDOVAN PRESIDENT TIGHTENS PERSONAL CONTROL OVER ARMED FORCES.

Moldovan parliamentary leaders said yesterday that President Mircea Snegur has issued an order barring the country’s defense minister, Lt. General Pavel Creanga, from meeting with foreign military delegations and from signing agreements in the name of the Moldovan Defense Ministry. Vice Chairman of Parliament Dumitru Diacov told a news conference that the president, circumventing last month’s Constitutional Court verdict, has reduced Creanga to a mere "honorific general" while running the army through direct presidential orders. Diacov, who led Moldova’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe session just held in Strasbourg, said that delegates at the session criticized Snegur’s assumption of "direct command" over the armed forces. A group of Council of Europe monitors will arrive in Moldova next month to look into Moldova’s compliance with CE commitments, including the Defense Ministry problem. (Basapress, May 2)

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