The Transnistrian administration makes impudent statements about the situation in the Security Zone, but Chisinau reacts diplomatically to them and focuses on the substance of the conflict, not the circumstances, said expert of the Foreign Policy Association (APE) Radu Vrabie.
Contacted by IPN, Radu Vrabie said the Transnistrian side refused to discuss the Security Zone incidents in the Odessa round of talks of May 23-24 because it tries to gain weight. “On the other hand, there is the position of the Russian Federation, which wants the security problems and the presence of the Russian troops in the Transnistrian region to be discussed not at international level, but at bilateral one, where Russia is more powerful than Moldova,” said the APE expert.
He considers the assertion of Tiraspol’s political representative Nina Shtanski that the relocation of their ‘supreme soviet’ to Bender is an internal matter and should not be discussed in Chisinau is impertinent. “Chisinau wants to keep certain diplomatic limits. Given that somebody invokes an internal matter, Chisinau can say that the region is not recognized and it should not take part in the negotiations. Chisinau acts correctly when it does not react harshly to these statements,” stated Radu Vrabie.
According to him, the intensification of the incidents in the Security Zone is determined not only by the unstable political situation in Chisinau, but this is also a factor for the Transnistrian administration. “When there is instability in Chisinau, they believe that the official reaction will be less convincing. The probability of more incidents is rather high as there are forces in the region that want this,” said the expert.
Initially, the Transnistrian administration banned the Moldovan police officers from moving via Bender in uniform. Then it set up two additional checkpoints between Bender and Varnita, but removed them shortly afterward following the reaction of the population and the negotiation partners. In the round that took place in Odessa, it was agreed to hold a meeting in the 1+1 format in Chisinau this week to discuss the incidents in the Security Zone.
