JCC delegations fail to agree on Security Zone pullout

The delegations to the Joint Control Commission (JCC) have again failed to reach an understanding on the withdrawal of law enforcement posts from the Security Zone at their recent meeting on Friday, June 20, Moldova's Ministry of Defense said today in a press release, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. According to MoD, the draft on the pullout, formulated by the delegations representing Ukraine and the OSCE Mission, didn't find support with the Transnistrian delegation, which conditioned the withdrawal of the law enforcement posts on the removal of the police commissariat from Bender town. A compromise hasn't been reached, either, on the need to inspect the joint peace-keeping forces stationed in the Security Zone. Gen. Ion Solonenco, co-chairing JCC on behalf of Moldova, said: “the inspection of peace-keeping units in the Security Zone would remove further reciprocal accusations, like the existence of peace-keepers unauthorized by JCC”. Moldova's delegation explains the refusal of the Transnistrian party to cooperate in solving this problem by alleging the number of Transnistrian troops stationed in the Security Zone exceeds the limit set by JCC. It suggests the inspections should be performed by the Ukrainian and the OSCE delegations, which are neutral parties and could assess the situation in an objective manner. No consensus reached, the issue was postponed until the next meeting. The parties also disagreed on the necessity of checking the Transnistrian military troops in the Security Zone, which haven't been inspected by military observers for some while. According to the latest reports of the Joint Military Command on the state of affairs in the Security Zone, the situation is stable there.