OSCE expects solutions from Chisinau and Tiraspol for the Transnistrian conflict settlement
The OSCE Mission to Moldova is waiting for proposals from Chisinau and Tiraspol to solve the Transnistrian conflict. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jennifer Brush, the head of the OSCE Mission in Chisinau said that there are many ideas going around, but a specific solution has to come from the conflicting sides.
“OSCE can help. We have a certain experience in such features,” Ms. Brush said. She commented, as well, on the allegations that some foreign politicians would come up with a federalization plan for Moldova as a mean of Transnistrian conflict resolution.
“We have never discussed about federalization during our recent 5+2 talks,” the the head of OSCE Moldova emphasized.
However, Jennifer Brush said that no idea for the Transnistrian conflict resolution should be rejected. She sympathizes the federalist way of governing, but she will not put any pressure of Moldova to follow such a scenario.
“I cannot understand the strong opposition of the Moldovan society against federalization, but I respect the fact that there are many negative opinions regarding this issue,” the official added.
The Transnistrian conflict settlement is made within the “5+2” format. It includes representatives of the sides, mediators and observers in the negotiation process - Moldova, Transnistria, Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE (as mediators), and the US and the EU (as observers).
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.
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