MOSCOW OFFERS TO SOLVE TRANSDNESTR DISPUTE
Moscow Times
Nov 17 2008
Russia
CHISINAU, Moldova — First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said
Friday that Russia wanted to help solve Moldova’s conflict with
its separatist Transdnestr region, part of a drive to prove that
despite its war with Georgia it can still act as an honest broker
among its neighbors.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin
to discuss the conflict during a CIS summit in the Moldovan capital.
Shuvalov told reporters on the sidelines of the summit that Russia
wanted to revive a Russian peace plan rejected by Moldova in 2003. "We
really do believe that the peace plan that was proposed back then
was effective and could have been implemented," Shuvalov said. "We
will now try to reach new agreements, taking as our starting point
the territorial integrity of Moldova."
In the early 1990s, Transdnestr, which has a majority Russian-speaking
population, broke away from Moldova, which has ethnic and cultural
ties to neighboring Romania. Russia sent troops to intervene in the
conflict, and some have stayed in the region as a peacekeeping force,
though Moldova accuses them of siding with the separatists.
The plan previously proposed by Moscow involved a federal state in
which Transdnestr would have a large degree of autonomy and Russian
forces would remain in the region to oversee the agreement.
In a separate effort to prove Russia’s peacekeeping credentials after
the war with Georgia, President Dmitry Medvedev convened a meeting
of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss the disputed
Nagorno-Karabakh territory.
Also Friday, Putin met Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. He
said cooperation between Kiev and Moscow was needed now "more than
ever" due to the global financial turmoil.