President: Transnistria to have a special status within Moldova
Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria will have a special status within the Republic of Moldova, says the Moldovan President Nicolae Timofti.
“The Transnistrian region will benefit from a special status within the Republic of Moldova, which will give them a high level of autonomy,” Nicolae Timofti said in an interview for Foreign Policy Association and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
The President highlighted the country’s steady position related to the Transnistrian conflict resolution which should be based on a compromise that respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country.
“We count on the OSCE, Russian Federation, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States that will join the efforts to identify a final solution to the conflict and Moldova’s reintegration,” Nicolae Timofti added.
Moldovan Ambassador to NATO Mihai Gribincea said in the same interview he is hopeful that the neutrality of the Republic of Moldova will contribute to a rapid conflict settlement.
“It is known that, in Transnistria, NATO and the West is viewed differently than the right bank of the River Nistru. So, obviously neutrality can play a positive role in the Transnistrian resolution,” the Moldovan Ambassador to NATO said. “Neutrality can have positive effects for the Republic of Moldova, but it is important that neutrality decision to be taken by the Republic of Moldova, by the Moldovan people.”
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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