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The two sides fought a brief war in 1992 after the collapse of communism and were separated by Russian troops.
Moldova's president has offered to create a joint army with separatists running the ex-Soviet republic's Transdniestria area in a new overture to end a 17-year split.
The offer, made in an interview published on Wednesday, was Vladimir Voronin's second such gesture in as many weeks to Slav separatists who proclaimed independence in 1990 when Moldova was still within the Soviet Union.
Igor Smirnov, Transdniestria's self-styled president, has already rejected Voronin's first initiative. Talks on settling the separatist rebellion have been stalled for 18 months.
"Chisinau is proposing to Tiraspol the creation of a united army," Voronin told Izvestiya v Moldove newspaper, referring to Moldova's capital and the main town in the separatist region.
"An army of a united Moldova with a purpose would make sense only as an army of peacekeepers, a force ready to respond to international organisations, to show solidarity with different countries and peoples," he said in the interview.
He said stockpiles of weaponry and ammunition controlled by the armies now massed by the two sides, each numbering 10,000, could be converted for civilian use.
"Melt it all down!" he told the newspaper.
Voronin last week offered to dismantle border and police posts separating the two sides. Smirnov dismissed that as window dressing and there was no suggestion he might back the latest offer.
The president's proposals may amount to an attempt to appear constructive after meeting this past week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Spain's foreign minister, current president of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which oversees efforts to resolve the conflict.
Transdniestria, dominated by Slavs, has received no international recognition since declaring independence on grounds that Moldova's Romanian-speaking majority might one day opt to join up with ethnic kin in Romania to the west.
The two sides fought a brief war in 1992 after the collapse of communism and were separated by Russian troops, who remain in the sliver of land bordering Ukraine, despite promises to leave.
Russia says its 1,200 troops are vital to keep a fragile peace in one of the former Soviet Union's "frozen conflicts".
The 56-nation OSCE says diplomats will meet at its Vienna headquarters on Thursday to discuss prospects for fresh discussions. Also participating in the talks are Russia, Ukraine, the United States and European Union.
The OSCE's annual ministerial summit in Madrid on Nov. 29-30 could examine the issue of Transdniestria, where residents last year elected Smirnov to a fourth term and voted by 97 percent in a referendum to uphold independence and eventually join Russia.
Separatists are watching efforts by Serbia's Kosovo province to win independence in order to press their bid for recognition.
Reuters
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