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(ANSA-AFP) - REYKJAVIK, MAY 18 - Moldova wants EU membership
"as soon as possible" as protection against a threat from Russia
and hopes for a decision to start negotiations "in the next
months," President Maia Sandu told AFP in an interview. The
small nation of 2.6 million people, nestled between EU neighbour
Romania and war-ravaged Ukraine, will on June 1 hold its first
major summit of wider Europe. That gathering of the European
Political Community -- a forum created last year that brings
together leaders of all 27 EU countries with 20 neighbours of
the bloc -- will be an occasion for Moldova to burnish its
candidate credentials. For Sandu, EU membership is the only
guarantee against becoming Russia's next target. Her country, a
former Soviet republic, already has a breakaway region,
Transnistria, where Russia has stationed a small number of
troops. (ANSA-AFP).
