Heated debates in Joint Control Commission

The delegations to the Joint Control Commission (JCC) at the last meeting considered for about two hours whether to introduce or not the issue of cooperation enhancement in the Security Zone in the agenda. The Transnistrian delegation categorically refused to discuss the given subject, the Ministry of Defense says in a communiqué, quoted by Info-Prim Neo The Transnistrian delegation accused the Moldovan law enforcement bodies that work in the Security Zone of kidnapping and illegally detaining citizens that live in the Transnistrian region. The employees of the Police Commissariat in Tighina (Bender) and the administration of the Tiraspol penitentiary made an agreement under which a Transnistrian citizen was to be taken to court by police officers on July 14. Immediately after going out of Tiraspol together with that person, the policemen that accompanied him were stopped by Transnistrian security officers and accused of illegally detaining citizens of Transnistria, the Ministry of Defense says. Ion Solonenco, co-president of the JCC on behalf of Moldova, said that the created situation shows once again that problems of the kind can be solved at the level of ordinary employees, not yet at the level of administration. On July 17, the Transnistrian courts decided that the three police officers will be under arrest for two months. The relatives of the policemen, who are supported by Promo-Lex Association, staged a protest in front of the Russian Embassy in Chisinau. “The separatist authorities want to impose themselves by arresting not only civilians, but also Moldovan police officers in order to show that only they have authority in the region and can do what they want,” said Alexandru Postica, jurist at Promo-Lex. Another subject discussed at the July 16 meeting of the JCC was the checking of the numerical composition and possessions of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces. The United Military Command was given one month to prepare the examination plan. The United Military Command is to formulate the plan for celebrating 17 years of the creation of the peacekeeping mission in the Security Zone by July 23.