Mihai Ghimpu: Kosovo conflict was ethnic, while Transnistrian dispute is political

Acting President Mihai Ghimpu considers the ruling of the International Criminal Tribunal of the Hague on Kosovo’s independence will not affect Moldova’s reintegration, Info-Prim Neo reports. “Things stand differently in Kosovo and Transnistria. The Kosovo conflict was ethnic, while the Transnistrian dispute is political,” Mihai Ghimpu said. According to him, Transnistria’s population consists of 42% of Moldovan Romanians, 28% of Ukrainians, and 23% of Russians. Asked if Transnistria can ask for independence, Mihai Ghimpu said this region asked many things and could ask even more. But the situation in Kosovo is different from that in Transnistria. In Transnistria, there is a Moldovan-Russian conflict confirmed by the agreement signed by former Presidents Mircea Snegur and Boris Yeltsin and the ECHR’s decision on the Ilascu case, Ghimpu said. On July 22, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia on July 22 ruled that Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia did not violate international law. In the 1990s, the Yugoslav authorities massacred several thousands of Kosova Muslims. The former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic who was tried in the Hague for war crimes and genocide died in 2006 before the judgment is his case was pronounced.