Moldova govt to resume telephone communication with Dniester
Direct telephone communication between the Dniester region and Moldova was disrupted back in 2003, when the "war of sanctions" broke out between the two banks of the Dniester. To this day telephone calls across the Dniester are connected either through operators in third countries or through the Internet.
Moldovan Premier Vlad Filat and president of the unrecognized Dniester republic Igor Smirnov reached arrangement in principle to re-launch telephone communication when they watched a football game in Tiraspol in September. Experts in Moldova came to describe these meetings as "football diplomacy." At their first such meeting in August 2010 Filat and Smirnov agreed to simplify the procedure of the export of Dniester products and to restore railway services via the Dniester region. As a result the Chisinau-Odessa train service via Tiraspol was re-started after a break of four years.
The official talks on the settlement of the Dniester conflict were disrupted in February 2006. The dialog between Chisinau and Tiraspol was resumed with Russia's assistance two years since. The first meeting between former Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin and Smirnov was held, after a break of seven years, in April 2008. Then this process stalled because of the political situation in Moldova where a president cannot be elected for a year.