The Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) considers the presidential elections organized on Sunday by the separatist regime in the Trans-Dniester region of Moldova are illegal and irrelevant from both the political and juridical standpoint, a MAE press release said on Monday.

"We consider one-sided actions do nothing else but complicate the situation and delay the moment when the issue of Trans- Dniester will be fully settled. Overcoming the current state of affairs requires joint and relentless efforts from all parties interested in finding a sustainable and fair political solution to the Trans-Dniester conflict," read the release.

Tiraspol leader Igor Smirnov, who has been at the rule since 1990, was elected for the fourth time "president" of the breakaway republic of Trans-Ddniester with 82.4 percent of the votes cast on Sunday, according to the Trans-Dniester Electoral Commission. The participation to the poll was 65 percent of some 400,000 voters of the self-proclaimed republic of Trans-Dniester.

The Foreign Minister of Moldova slammed the Trans-Dniester poll, saying it cannot be a democratic election as long as it is organized by a separatist regime. Some 1,400 Russian soldiers are still deployed to the left side of the Dniester, in the region that self-proclaimed independence in 1990, after the former USSR dismembered.

On Sept. 17, the regime in Tiraspol organized a referendum where the population voted for Trans-Dniester's leaving Moldova and joining Russia. The international community did not acknowledge the referendum.

Source: Xinhua