Multilateral summit in Kyiv discusses resolution to Transdniester issue (07/25/99)

Multilateral summit in Kyiv discusses resolution to Transdniester issue

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - A multilateral summit held in Kyiv on July 16 to resolve disagreements between Moldova and its runaway Transdniester region, came up short of expectation but moved the two sides closer to an agreement.

The summit, which brought Moldovan President Petru Lucinshu to the negotiating table with the leader of the Transdniester Republic, Igor Smirnov, in a meeting mediated by Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, did not find a final solution to the relationship between the self-styled republic and the country with which it broke in 1992, but did provide a framework by which the two sides have agreed to move towards a resolution of the region's status within Moldova.

Last year Russia and Ukraine agreed to act as "guarantors of the peace" and to mediate the conflict between the two parties.

The Transdniester region, with its heavily Ukrainian and Russian population, broke with Moldova in an armed uprising that many believed was spurred by Russia's 14th Army. The region had seen armed conflict through the mid-1990s, which eventually dissolved into a state of high tension that has existed in the area since.

In Kyiv on July 16 the two sides signed a joint declaration in which they agreed to work to reunite under a single state but could not agree on what form that reunion will take.

"There are differences of principle between us on the approach to the status [of the Transdniester region]," said Mr. Smirnov, according to Reuters.

The central remaining disagreement is whether the Transdniester region should be incorporated into Moldova as an autonomous republic, as Mr. Lucinshu would like, or whether it should become an equal partner in a confederation, as Mr. Smirnov envisions.

In their first effort towards reconciliation, to which Ukrainian and Russian mediators expect the two sides to move incrementally, Mr. Lucinshu and Mr. Smirnov reached agreement on the preservation of a common economic, political, legal and defense space.

They could not find common ground on the issue of Russian troops in the Transdniester region, however. Mr. Lucinshu demanded that Russian troop levels in the region be reduced, and stated that he was ready to move Moldovan soldiers away from the conflicted border.

Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who was present at the high-level talks along with Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and OSCE Chairman Kai Eide, agreed with Mr. Lucinshi's proposal and explained that his government had already submitted a withdrawal schedule to the parties.

But Mr. Smirnov, who has fiercely opposed any proposals that may suggest he is not the ultimate policy-maker in his republic, opposes an agreement between Moldova and Russia on a troop-withdrawal schedule. "It is a purely Russian-Transdniester problem," said Mr. Smirnov.

While major issues still need to be resolved, President Lucinshu said on July 19 in Chisinau, the Moldovan capital, that he believes an agreement on the status of Transdniester can be hammered out by the end of the current year. He gave much credit for that possibility to the work of the mediators.

"The constructive and principled stand of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin, who declared at the Kyiv meeting for the speediest settlement of the Transdniester conflict on condition of observance of Moldova's territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty, have made it possible to remove all other interpretations," said Mr. Lucinshu, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

The next round of talks is scheduled for Moscow in late August, at which time it is expected that summary papers will be drafted on the status of the Transdniester region.

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