After parliamentary elections, Chisinau has nothing to offer Tiraspol, Igor Botan

The events that happened after the parliamentary elections in Moldova did not contribute to the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict, but had rather the opposite effect, considers Igor Botan, the executive director of the Association for Participative Democracy ADEPT. “For a long period of time, Chisinau will have nothing to offer Tiraspol to convince it to return to dialogue. The democracy level in Moldova is now very low,” Botan has told Info-Prim Neo. In a recent interview, Transnistria’s security minister Vladimir Antiufeev said that after the legislative elections in Moldova, both the Communists and the representatives of other political parties that he calls ‘unionists’ want to reduce Russia’s presence in the south-western zone, where the Moldovan Transnistrian Republic is also situated, to zero. Igor Botan believes that the Transnistrians make such statements for propagandistic reasons. “The Transnistrian authorities say that after the April 5 events they convinced themselves again that only an independent Transnistria can guarantee the security of its citizens.” The vicious circle became stronger on March 18, when Vladimir Voronin agreed to allow the Russian troops in Transnistria until the conflict is settled, to be exact endlessly, Botan said. The analyst considers that things had worsened before the Communist Party came to power in 2001. “At least, Petru Lucinschi (Moldova’s second president) bequeathed Voronin the document of the Istanbul OSCE Summit of November1999, which says that Russia is to pull out its troops from Transnistria. Now, the value of this document is nil. We can expect nothing good. Moldova is doomed to remain in such a situation of uncertainty for a long period of time owing to the level of its democracy,” Igor Botan said. Speaking about the Eastern Partnership, which covers Moldova as well, Igor Botan said that the European officials regard it as joint cooperation with the Russian Federation in stabilizing the situation in the zone between the EU and Russia. The expert considers that Russia wants to strengthen its influence in this zone, but is now concerned about its internal problems, especially the economic crisis. “Russia is probably satisfied with its status-quo, but we are not because we are in a deep economic and political crisis and are at loggerheads with all the neighbors.” In this connection, Botan said that Moldova enters a period when the EU and the U.S., for which we are possibly not at all interesting, as well as Russia, which would be interested in maintaining Transnistria by providing money to it and in freezing the situation, will forget about it.