The six-foot high "Bronze Soldier" and other Soviet-era memorials have in recent years become rallying points for ethnic Russians, and clashes with Estonian nationalists near the bronze monument prompted the Estonian authorities to press for monuments "dividing society" to be removed.
The ex-Soviet Baltic state passed a law, allowing the reburial of WW II soldiers from "unsuitable places" or "in the public interest" January 10. Under the law, Defense Minister Jurgen Ligi is to make a final decision on the exhumation and the relocation of soldiers' remains following the commission's recommendations.
The Defense Ministry did not say when Ligi would respond to the recommendation.
If the 13 tombs to Soviet soldiers are relocated, the "Bronze Soldier" will be dismantled and removed as well.
A separate law permitting the relocation of the monument was approved by parliament but vetoed by the president in late February after it sparked off sharp criticism in Russia, which has accused Tallinn of encouraging Nazism and discrimination against ethnic Russians, and even prompted debate on possible sanctions against Estonia.
But Prime Minister Andrus Ansip's Reform Party, which won March 4 parliamentary elections, is widely expected to return to the dispute.
Some 50,000 Soviet troops perished in Estonia in 1944 when Russia liberated it from Nazi Germans regaining control of the republic, which many Estonians call Soviet occupation. The bodies are buried in 450 cemeteries and memorials across the country.
