SELEZNEV IN CHISINAU PRESSES FOR MILITARY PACT.

Senior Moldovan officials told the Monitor today that Russian Duma chairman Gennady Seleznev, who completed an extensive visit to Moldova yesterday, had requested ratification of a Russian-Moldovan protocol on mutual military assistance as a condition for the Duma’s ratification of a Russian-Moldovan political treaty. That treaty, which recognizes Moldova’s territorial integrity, was signed in 1990 by Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Mircea Snegur, but, as a result of Moscow’s ties to Transdniester, has never been ratified by the Russian side. In 1995 Yeltsin and Snegur signed a "supplementary protocol" on mutual military assistance in the event of a regional conflict. The Moldovan government and parliament have since ignored that protocol. Russia’s Foreign Ministry, and many in the Duma, want the protocol ratified together with — and as a price for — the political treaty. (Monitor interviews, October 30)

Ukraine and Georgia Close Ranks.