Euro-reporters.com, Belgium
June 3 2005

Ukraine to seal Transnistria?
Written by David Ferguson in Brussels

Friday, 03 June 2005

“If the border is securely sealed the illegitimate authority in
Transnistria will soon lose the economic foundation of its existence,”
said Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Boris Tarasiuk. In an interview to
national news agency Ukrinform, Tarasiuk said there is a greater
chance, following the regime change in Kyiv, for a ‘breakthrough’
in the Transnistria conflict. The separatist regime along Moldova’s
frontier with the Ukraine led by Viktor Smirnoff in Tiraspol, and
backed by Moscow, has held out against central authorities in Moldova
since the early 1990s.

“The previous authority [in Kyiv] ignored the Moldovan leadership’s
messages and used Transnistria as a springboard for contraband of
goods because the money chiefly flowed to Kyiv,” Tarasiuk is quoted
by Ukrinform as saying. “The situation has changed now. Ukraine is
not interested in the existence of a ‘black hole’ on its frontier,
neither is Ukraine interested in capitalizing on the conflict in this
neighbouring state.” Tarasiuk sees tightened control of Ukraine’s
frontier along the Transnistrian segment of Moldova as a means of
“reducing the economic attractiveness” of the breakaway regime and
promoting a general resolution of the conflict.

Speaking last month in Warsaw at the Council of Europe’s Summit,
Moldovan president Vladimir Voronin warned fellow European leaders
of the threat to stability posed by the separatist region. “The most
recent example is the disappearance of missiles from former 14th Army
depots. Their explosive force is identical to a nuclear missile, except
for radioactive contamination. The problem is getting even worse as
the Russian Federation authorities cannot give any explanations on
how the above-mentioned missiles could disappear without trace.”

Voronin made a plea for greater European and international involvement
in solving the 13-year old conflict with the separatist Transnistrian
region. “The Transnistrian region is a real black hole starting
with the absence of democratic processes to illegal trafficking
humans and weapons, money laundering and more,” Moldova’s president
said. Voronin’s plea for help in bringing the separatist regime
under control has fallen on favorable ears in Kyiv. Yesterday, at the
Yaski border post near Odessa, Voronin met with Ukraine’s President
Viktor Yushchenko in order to hammer out the nitty-gritty of the two
countries new relations.

In Warsaw, Voronin told fellow European leaders that new peace
mediators are needed in the Transnistrian conflict: “It is so important
to have new participants, such as the USA and European Union, in peace
settlements for the Transnistrian conflict. That is why the proposal of
the President of the Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko to settle the conflict
by means of democratization of the region is so interesting for us.”

Ukraine’s changed position on Moldova, and other conflict areas in
the former Soviet Union, does not please Moscow that also supports
breakaway regions in Georgia. Moscow is also accused of supporting
the Armenian-controlled region of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

“Ukraine is vitally interested in regulating the conflicts in the
former Union nations primarily for reasons of its own security and
stability,” Tarasiuk told Ukrinform. “There can be no security and
stability in a nation if there is no security and stability at home.”