Leader of self-proclaimed Transnistria denies allegations on creating a federation
Evgheny Shevchuk, the leader of Moldova’s separatist region of Transnistria denied the allegations regarding his talks with Prime Minister Vlad Filat on establishing a federative state, Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported.
“The discussion of political issues with Chisinau [the Moldovan capital] is premature,” Mr. Shevchuk said, adding that Moldovan media reports “are based on speculation and rumor.”
According to the agency, which quotes Mr. Shevchuk, Tiraspol and Chisinau are currently discussing “primarily socioeconomic cooperation.”
The rumors about any federalization plans appeared in the media few days prior an important trip of the two officials to a private conference in Germany.
Vladimir Socor, a political analyst at Jamestown Foundation previously said that any federalization attempts of the region are not desired. Russia’s envoy to Transnistria, Dmitry Rogozin stated very frankly that Moldova can keep Transnistria only if a federation or confederation will be established and Russia to politically administrate the region.
“I believe [such a step] is totally wrong and should be simply rejected. It is one more reason why I think that negotiating the political statute of Transnistria at the moment is premature,” Vladimir Socor said. He added that the benefits would be null, while the risks involved would be quite big.
“Any kind of federalization of Moldova means the dissolution of the state. It would transform the Republic of Moldova from a state in practically non-governed states, divided in small feudal principalities,” Mr. Socor said.
Transnistria is an internationally unrecognized entity proclaimed in Tiraspol on September 2, 1990, initially styled the Moldavian Transnistrian Soviet Socialist Republic. Currently known as the Moldavian Transnistrian Republic, this breakaway entity consists of a narrow strip of land (180 km by 32 km) nestled between the east bank of the Nistru River and the border of Moldova with Ukraine, on a small part of what used to be, between 1924 and 1940, the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
In 1992 escalated a conflict between Moldova and Russia over this territory. A cease-fire was signed the same year by president of Russia Boris Yeltsin and president of Moldova Mircea Snegur. An agreement to withdraw all Russian forces from the trans-Nistrian districts of the Republic of Moldova was signed by Moldovan Prime Minister Andrei Sangheli and Russian Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin in 1994. It stipulated that the 14th Army was to leave the Republic of Moldova within three years, but the agreement was never ratified by the Duma, Russia’s legislature.
Moldova.ORG
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