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Transnistrian Conflict on April 12–25, 2004
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e-journal #29 |
Transnistrian settlement talks
The OSCE Mission in Chisinau has announced the resumption of talks on the Transnistria settlement on Monday, 26 April, when representatives of the mediators from Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE are to meet. These will draft the agenda for a five-sided meeting including Moldovan and Transnistrian representatives that will take place on the next day in Chisinau. This will be the first meeting in the five-sided format after the interruption of talks five months ago following the failure of the Russian proposal on the future federal state also known as the Kozak Memorandum.
At the same time, during the period covered here we learned that the Russian Ambassador with Special Missions, Alecsandr Novojilov, who for many years led the Russian delegation within the negotiations, has been replaced by another Russian diplomat, Valeri Nesteruskin. The information has been only confirmed unofficially by the OSCE Mission and the Russian Embassy. The Russian Foreign Ministry has not given any explanation for this replacement.
It seems that due to this change of staff the negotiations did not resume on 21 April, as previously announced by the Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov. The latter, while on a visit to Moscow a week ago, had announced that the Transnistrian side was to present to the meeting its proposals on the political plan drafted by the mediators under the OSCE aegis last autumn. According to Smirnov, those proposals drew largely on the Kozak Memorandum.
During the same visit to Moscow, Smirnov attended a closed meeting of the Parliamentary Group “Rodina” in the Russian State Duma, to which he made a presentation on the political and economic situation in Transnistria. Also in Moscow, unofficial sources have reported, Smirnov was given the award “Slava Rosiyi”, a Russian Federation civic award acknowledging outstanding achievements in the business, scientific research, civic, etc. fields. Although the fact that Smirnov got the award was not officially confirmed either by the Russians or by the Transnistrians, the event has irritated the Moldovan authorities, mostly due to the fact that reportedly the award was handed in to Smirnov by the Russian President Advisor Serghei Samoilov.
Local observers have noted that the visit of Igor Smirnov to Moscow just before the resumption of the political negotiations denotes Moscow’s tacit support for the break away regime, but also Moscow’s intention to further promote the Kozak Memorandum as the basis for future political talks between Chisinau and Tiraspol.
American diplomat specifies the US position on the Transnistria settlement
Stephen Pifer, Deputy Assistant to the US State Secretary, reaffirmed during a press conference held at the end of his visit to Moldova on 22–23 April that the US supports the current format of talks on Transnistria as the optimal one, but that at the same time the US and its partners from the EU are looking for ways to bolster the work of the format.
In reference to the Kozak Memorandum Pifer reminded that the US, as well as other OSCE Member States uphold their objections to the plan, in particular with regard to its provisions on the division of power between the central authorities and the federal subjects. Pifer appreciated Moscow’s efforts at speeding up the resolution of the Transnistria conflict but said the US will make sure that all such efforts are being channelled through the OSCE.
Privatisation in Transnistria
Despite the fact that the Moldovan authorities do not recognise the privatisation process in Transnistria, the Tiraspol administration has announced that another 40 economic units will be added to the list of companies put up for privatisation this year, given the great interest that foreign companies have expressed in buying these.
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