By Claudia Ciobanu
SOFIA, Mar 27 2008 (IPS)

Moldova and its separatist region Transdniester, engaged for 16 years in a conflict over the latter’s independence, each had reasons to believe the spring of 2008 would bring a settlement favourable to their side. But Moscow, crucial to any resolution, has already signalled it is not in a hurry to reach a resolution.

Transdniester, a self-proclaimed republic in the southeast of Moldova, inhabited by 700,000 people, has been trying to assert its independence since the fall of the Soviet Union. Moldova, a small nation of 4.3 million people between Ukraine and Romania, has not offered more than extended autonomy. A brief civil war between the two sides took place in 1992, and since then, Russian “peacekeeping troops” have been present in the region.

“Transdniester has even more reasons than Kosovo to have its independence recognised,” says Valeri Litskai, minister for foreign affairs of Trasndniester (Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica), soon after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia Feb. 17.

On Mar. 13, the State Duma Council (leadership of the Russian lower house of parliament) announced that it is unlikely that Moscow would, in the near future, recognise the independence of Transdniester and of the two separatist regions in Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

“Kosovo has been seen as a precedent,” Sergei Markov, Duma member, and director of the Institute of Political Research in Moscow, told reporters that day. “But the precedent of Kosovo is not only that they have declared their independence and not only that the United States, Germany, and France have recognised them. The Kosovo precedent is also that it will not become a normal, widely recognised, independent state in the near future.”

On Mar. 17, at the end of a meeting with Russian minister for foreign affairs Serghei Lavrov, president of Transdniester Igor Smirnov declared he is ready to start negotiations with Moldova again, albeit only “on equal footing”, a clear sign that the Russians had said they would not recognise independence of Transdniester at this point.

Negotiating on equal positions with Transdniester has always been deemed unacceptable in Moldovan capital Chisinau because it would constitute a definitive step towards a co-federative solution.

The most generous package of proposals from Chisinau, stopping short of a confederation, was presented to Moscow at the end of the summer of 2006. Although negotiations on Transdniester should take place in a “5+2” format (including Russia, Ukraine, the United States, the European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin ignored both Transdniester and the international actors, considering that only Russia is crucial for a settlement.

Voronin offered neutrality of Moldova – renouncing the perspective of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), proportional participation in the central government and parliament to representatives of Trasndniester, as well as recognition of Russian property of assets in Transdniester (amounting to 80 percent of the region’s industrial capacity), in exchange for Moscow’s recognition of Moldova’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” and the withdrawal of Russian troops from the area.

In an interview to Russian publication Kommersant Mar. 11, a very optimistic Voronin announced that Russia was ready to guarantee the reunification of Moldova in exchange for the country’s neutrality. “Under the constitution our country is neutral,” Voronin told Kommersant. “Now it is desirable to fix this status additionally in a declaration saying that everyone acknowledges our neutrality.”

Andrei Popov, executive director of the Foreign Policy Association of Moldova, told IPS that, according to Voronin’s strategy, the public announcement of elements of the 2006 proposal – in spite of receiving no response from Moscow since – is supposed to act as a catalyst on the settlement process. In spite of Voronin’s claims, Popov added, a deal is not probable, because “any settlement acceptable to Chisinau – and Voronin is more open to compromise than most of the political class in Moldova – clashes with the strict foreign policy line adopted by Moscow.”

The timing of the Kommersant interview shows that Voronin is trying to push for a settlement before Vladimir Putin, with whom he had numerous bilateral meetings over the last two years, officially leaves the presidential position in May.

The Moldovan President was also counting on recent Russian anger with Transdniester. At the beginning of 2007, Moscow had cut financial aid to Transdniester. To make up for the resulting budget deficit, Transdniester started taking “unrequested credits” from Russia, by postponing payments for gas delivered by Gazprom. “Smirnov has been falling out of grace with Moscow because of massive thefts committed by him and his people from Russian aid and Gazprom gas,” Igor Botan, political analyst with the Association for Participative Democracy in Chisinau, told IPS.

While the conflict between Tiraspol and Chisinau is depicted as an ethnic one, with a pro-Russian Transdniester trying to separate from Moldova where ethnic Romanians represent the majority of the population, many voices are saying the dispute is more about resources and interests than anything else.

“Independence would give international legitimacy to all the business taking place in Transdniester,” says Sorin Ozon from the Centre for Investigative Journalism in Bucharest, who has been writing about the shady dealings of the regime in Tiraspol. And legitimacy is all they need, Ozon told IPS, since “they have already gathered enough capital to invest in any type of venture, anywhere in the world.”

Referring to how Russia made different use of the Kosovo precedent in the cases of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Trasndniester, Valery Kunadze, senior fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow, said: “Isn’t Russia’s lifting of economic sanctions a form of encouragement for Abkhazia’s separatist policies and a means of pressuring Georgia? The question is fitting, for, by a strange turn of circumstances, Russia’s sympathy for Transdniester was dampened as soon as relations with Moldova improved.” Thus, Kunadze concluded, “it remains unclear whether principles or interests are more important.”

But Duma deputy Sergei Markov made it clear that Russia is using the three separatist regions for its own purposes. “We will decide the status of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniester only when that issue is really pressing. It is not out of the question that it could be provoked by other events. It is the opinion of many Russian politicians, for example, that if Georgia wants to join NATO, then they can do so without Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Many support this position.”

As long as Russia has enough gas for Transdniester and it can keep its army in the region, there is no pressing need to settle this particular frozen conflict.

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