From EurActiv.com:  Konstantin Kosachev, president of the foreign affairs committee in the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, warned Romania that a spiralling spy scandal could have political and economic repercussions, the press in Bucharest wrote yesterday (19 August). …

Kosachev said the Romanian diplomat caught red-handed in Moscow had been obtaining sensitive information to be passed on to NATO rather than Romania.

"Romania and Russia have enough unsolved problems, and this implies more delicacy. And the fact that Romania now works for others’ interests, which have nothing to do with its own interests, appears to us as astonishing, insulting and in no way conducive to improving our relations," Kosachev went on.

Kosachev said that until now, Romania had not made itself known in geopolitical games, as in his words the country had special interests only in Moldova.

"It is difficult to imagine that Romania would have special interests in Russia, even less in the field of covert operations," he insisted. …

In the meantime, the Russian daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta quoting unnamed official sources as saying that Romanian diplomat Gabriel Grecu had tried to obtain secret plans about the positioning of Russian forces in Transnistria.

Transnistria, a Moldovan region east of the Dniester river, has been considered a ‘frozen conflict’ area since the disintegration of the Soviet Union. It has a predominantly ethnic Russian and Ukrainian population. Although internationally Transnistria is part of Moldova, de facto its authorities do not exercise any power there (EurActiv 19/04/10).  (photo: Vitali Belousov/RIA Novosti)

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