FORMER DEPORTEE ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF MOLDOVA’S PARLIAMENT.

The Moldovan Parliament yesterday elected Dumitru Diacov as its Chairman. Diacov was born in 1952 in Siberia where his family had been deported from Moldova. Educated later as a journalist, Diacov worked as a correspondent for Komsomolskaya pravda in Moscow during the perestroika years. He was vice-chairman of the Moldovan Parliament and its chief representative at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe from 1995 to 1997. Last year, Diacov founded the Bloc for a Democratic and Prosperous Moldova (BDPM), which supports the program of President Petru Lucinschi.

The two vice-chairmen–Iurie Rosca and Valeriu Matei–whom the Parliament elected yesterday are leaders of parties that have traditionally opposed Lucinschi. However, they have committed themselves to cooperating with the President and the BDMP in a reformist coalition. (Flux, April 24; and see Monitor, April 23).

OSKANIAN RULES OUT OSCE PROPOSALS ON KARABAKH SETTLEMENT.