BUCHAREST, Romania Foreign Minister Cristian Diaconescu says he assured EU officials that Romania has no plans to grant mass citizenship to Moldovans. Returning on Tuesday (April 28th) from a meeting of the EU’s General Affairs and External Relations Council in Luxembourg, Diaconescu said Bucharest has guaranteed a case-by-case assessment in …

MOSCOW Chairman of the State Duma committee on international affairs Konstantin Kosachev said on Wednesday PACE insistence to politicize the situation related to South Ossetia and Georgia in its resolution on humanitarian issues was erroneous. He also told Vesti TV channel PACE is taking no concrete action and is only …

MOSCOW Russia will help South Ossetia and Abkhazia to protect their borders against a feared new Georgian attack that Tbilisi may be heartened to launch after a NATO exercise next month. On Thursday Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his counterparts from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Eduard Kokoity and Sergei Bagapsh, …

CHISINAU Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin said on Thursday the European Union was raising an “iron curtain” against his citizens by allowing them to freely travel in Europe only with Romanian passports. 

Bulgarian PM Sergey Stanishev’s delayed meeting with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev took place late Tuesday in the Barbihka residence near Moscow. The half-hour meeting took place after the two delegations from Russia and Bulgaria had finished day long talks in Moscow. Medvedev informed Stanishev that he was aware of the …

Bulgaria’s President Georgi Parvanov said Wednesday the Belene Nuclear Power Plant could be build with loans from Russia, if necessary. “It is not very easy to find credits for such a large-scale project as our second nuclear power plant in times of global financial crisis. We should not exclude the …

The new US administration’s first one hundred day anniversary – coinciding with still unconfirmed news that Vice-President Joe Biden will visit the Balkans in May – has been greeted with mixed feelings and still great expectations among the countries in the region. “Biden’s visit will above all be a good …

Outgoing Macedonian President Branko Crvenkovski has warned that while a solution to his country’s long standing spat over its name with Greece may not be popular, a deal is essential and will bring long term positive results. Drawing a parallel with the Ohrid agreement of 2001 which ended the armed …

Albania’s government flatly rejected reports by local media on Wednesday that during a recent meeting between Prime Minister Sali Berisha and his Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis Albania ceded part of its territorial waters to Athens. The two leaders signed an agreement on Monday, which has not yet been made public. …

Kosovo will be included in European visa liberalisation if it meets the necessary conditions, the vice-president of the European Commission said on Tuesday. Jacques Barrot said Kosovo would be treated like other Balkan countries, during a press conference which closed a two-day conference called Building Migration Partnerships. “Kosovo, like the …