CHISINAU, March 1. /TASS/. Moldova’s President Igor Dodon has initiated creation of a social platform on national reconciliation in an attempt to find a peaceful solution to the Transnistria crisis, he said in an address to the nation in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the conflict, commemorated on March 2.

The spring and summer of 1992 were marred with armed clashes on the Dniester River, when hundreds of people died and the lives of thousands more were ruined, Dodon said in the statement.

"The atmosphere of creativity and trust was destroyed in Moldovan society to be replaced with fear and mutual resentment," the president said. "As a result of those events, our country’s population has been thrown back in its development and the entire generation has grown up in a divided state and society," Dodon said.

The younger generation was forced to enter this social and political dispute, the president said with regret.

"It has become a deep shock for all of us and still has a negative impact on our lives. The young people opt for leaving the homeland," Dodon said. "Moldova keeps wasting time and losing opportunities for growth."

Lessons of the tragedy

"We must draw lessons from the Transnistrian tragedy. First, we should stop dividing people in our country on an ethnic criterion, dividing our citizens into ‘natives’ and ‘incomers.’ We need to stop imposing our values, our own vision of the country’s history and future and to agree that we can have different ethnic origins, different mother tongues, different national heroes and literary classics," the Moldovan president said.