WHILE WRITING TRANSDNESTR IS KARABAKH IMPLIED?

"Golos Armenii"
DeFacto Agency, Armenia
June 13 2006

The process of establishment and actual recognition of the so-called
unrecognized states on the CIS territory is being hastened. The report
titled "The State Sovereignty of the Transdnestr Moldavian Republic
(TMR) Pursuant to International Legislation" provides ample evidence
of the fact. The report has been prepared by a group of experts –
scientists from the Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, Cambridge Universities,
as well as the participants of the Dayton agreements on Yugoslavia’s
division.

According to the report’s resume, the TMR corresponds to all the
criteria submitted to the U.N. member countries, and yet the TMR
was formed in line with the international legislation. However,
it is noteworthy that all the postulates the report’s authors are
based upon almost fully correspond to the situation connected with
the declaration of the Nagorno Karabakh’s independence.

While reading the report one considers if "Nagorno Karabakh" is written
instead of "Transdnestr" the substitution will be difficult to notice.

Judge yourselves.

First, the report’s authors say "the territory Transdnestr is situated
on has never been a part of Moldova"; "historically Transdnestr has
never been within Moldova". The postulate is directly employed to
Nagorno Karabakh. The Armenian party has always stated and confirmed
by a legal folder that Nagorno Karabakh has never been a part of
Azerbaijan in history, just because Azerbaijan state did not exist
up to early XX century, when such a state formation was established
by the Soviet government.

The experts write: "Modern Republic of Moldova bases its emergence
and existence on the one-sided declaration of independence that
announced forced amalgamation of Moldova and Transdnestr implemented
by Stalin at the beginning of the World War II deprived of any "real
legal foundation", that is to say it was realized illegally…" The
difference between Transdnestr and Nagorno Karabakh is only that
Nagorno Karabakh was included as a curtailed autonomous region
within the Azerbaijani SSR illegally, having no legal basis not at
the beginning of the World War II, but in 1921 by a decision rendered
by a body called "RSDRP Caucasian Bureau".

Then experts underscore: "The juridical and actual analysis proves
that during the USSR’s collapse Moldavian SSR disintegrated to two
successor states – Moldova and Transdnestr – and that the present
border between them totally corresponds to the traditional historical
border separating them since the early medieval period…" As it
is known, during the USSR’s disintegration the Azerbaijani SSR also
actually broke up to two state formations: Nagorno Karabakh and the
Azerbaijani Republic, yet the latter declared itself to be cessionary
of the Republic of Azerbaijan of 1918, while Nagorno Karabakh was not
within Azerbaijan then. The boundaries of the Azerbaijani SSR and
former Nagorno Karabakh autonomous region were drawn artificially:
certain territories were cut down from the Nagorno Karabakh autonomy.

However, as a result of a war imposed by Azerbaijan on NKR and won
by the latter the borders have become more logical and at present
they reflect the objective historical realities much closer.

The American experts write: "When Moldova withdrew from the Moldavian
SSR Transdnestr had already separated and governed its territory
regardless of Kishinev", which totally corresponds to the history of
the NKR’s formation as well.

The experts sum up: "Many years of the international practice
reflected in charters enable us to mention the criteria applied to
define statehood: constant population, certain territory, government,
capacity to establish relations with other states. Nowadays Transdnestr
corresponds to all the requirements. It has its own democratically
elected President and a legislative organ being controlled by the
opposition party now. Its government is in command of armed forces
and holds discussions with other states. In case of TMR the state’s
viability is established, as well as legitimacy of the process of
the state’s formation.

Over half a million people living in Transdnestr occupying the
territory of 4,163 cube meters successfully conform with all the
indications of statehood along the lines of the international law.

Transdnestr has well-functioning government with its own organs,
Constitution, currency, levy, law and population surpassing the amount
of inhabitants of a lot of member states of the U.N.". It all is also
applicable to Nagorno Karabakh, has been repeatedly mentioned by the
international experts, n part, the observers at the elections of the
NKR power bodies. NKR concedes to TMR only in the size of population,
however, the difference is not principal, as there are a lot of states
conceding to the NKR by the size of population in the U. N.

Ruben MARGARYAN P.S. To note, the American experts’ report does not
refer to the fact that, if Russians have already "self-determined"
in Russia, Transdnestr does not have the right to self-determination
…For Ilham Aliyev’s information.