Chisinau reiterates necessity to internationalize present peacekeeping mechanism for withdrawing Russian troops from Transnistria

The democratization and demilitarization of the Transnistrian region could be gained by transforming the present peacekeeping mechanism, which no longer corresponds to initial requirements, into a multinational mission of military and civil observers with an international mandate, Speaker Marian Lupu told the international conference entitled “Regulation of the Transnistrian dispute in the context of Moldova’s Europeanization”, on Monday, March 26. Among the necessary actions, the Speaker has also mentioned the fulfilment of Russia’s commitments assumed in the final document of OSCE Summit in Istanbul, the launching of an OSCE mission to assess the situation of the democratic institutions and the inspecting of the military enterprises located in the Transnistrian region of Moldova, consolidation of the civil society and the support of the civic initiatives taken to democratize the region. At the same time, Lupu pointed out that while searching for solutions to the Transnistrian dispute there must be excluded any coercive scenario, which imposes the promotion of a political dialogue between the decision makers as a single solution. For his part, Minister of Reintegration Vasilii Sova stated that the negotiation format “5+2” is the most successful mechanism that may lead to the settlement of the Transnistrian dispute, while the contribution of the EU and the USA creates the possibility to move the negotiations forward. As he says, there are three possible scenarios to develop the situation. The first requires a model for the final regulation of the problem, as part of the negotiation process. The second scenario aims at resuming the negotiations within the aforementioned format, without any results, that is negotiations for the sake of negotiations, as it has had happened for many years. The third scenario would be intended to freeze the problem for several years until creating new conditions for resuming the negotiations. According to Sova, Chisinau does its best and is interested in making headway according to the first scenario, as there is political will and external preconditions to attain a significant progress this year. Dmitri Suslov, deputy director of the Russian Council of Foreign and Defence Policy, stated that Moscow will further show an increased interest in the Transnistrian dispute, as the problem concerns the status of a post-Soviet space, which is one of the Russian foreign policy priorities. The international conference “Regulation of the Transnistrian dispute in the context of Moldova’s Europeanization”, which will last two days, is organised by the Foreign Policy Association of Moldova with the financial support of the British Embassy and DFID. The conference’s main objective is to create an adequate framework for making an open exchange of opinions regarding the diverse aspects of the Transnistrian dispute and Moldova’s Europeanization.