RIA Novosti: Territorial integrity to be respected in Transdnestr settlement - Putin

22/ 09/ 2006


Russia's president called Friday for adhering to the principle of territorial integrity in the conflict resolution in Moldova's breakaway region but also urged to respect the opinion of common citizens. Vladimir Putin has arrived in France for a two-day official visit. He is set to meet with his French counterpart, Jacques Chirac, later this evening and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will join the two presidents for a trilateral meeting on Saturday.

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President Putin told a news conference that this issue was very complicated and could hardly be solved in a public discussion with the media. "I would want very much to resolve this issue in a discussion with you, but I think we will not manage to do it," Putin said in response to a journalist's question about Transdnestr.

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Regnum: Transdnestr burns OSCE flag

09/23/2006


“We voice a decisive protest against the statement of Mr. Louis O’Neill. According to this young American, on September 17, when referendum on the status of our state was held, Transdnestr residents were forced to come to ballot stations at the point of machine guns. We all know that observers from Russia, Ukraine, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Israel, countries of Western Europe, including Moldova, monitored the all-national vote. They all recognized that the voting process was democratic and legitimate. What machine guns he is speaking of? To this, we can only say: ‘Shame to the US-styled democracy!’”

In the end of the rally, young people chanting “Shame!” and “No to OSCE double standards!” burned an improvised flag of the OSCE mission. Then a three-fold “Let it be so!” followed.

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Interfax: Transdniestrian NGOs declare head of Moldovan OSCE Mission persona nongrata

Sep 26, 2006


"We will insist on preventing Mr. O'Neil from staying in Transdniestria," the organizations said. The NGOs said they were appalled by O'Neil's criticism of the Transdniestrian referendum on September 17. The referendum cannot be recognized and will have no legal consequences, because it was held unilaterally, O'Neil said.

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RIA Novosti: Transdnestr asks Russia, Ukraine to acknowledge its sovereignty

11/ 10/ 2006


Transdnestr's Supreme Council has asked Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly to acknowledge the unrecognized republic as a sovereign independent state.

"We ask the deputies of Russia's State Duma, Ukraine's Supreme Rada, Belarus' National Assembly and the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly to initiate the acknowledgement of the Transdnestr Moldovan Republic as a sovereign independent state," the address of the republic's parliament said.Moldovan authorities said they were willing to extend autonomy for the separatist region, which still has no international recognition, but brushed away the idea of granting it independence. The West has consistently refused to recognize Transdnestr's independence.

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Moldova Azi: Mediators persuading Chisinau and Tiraspol to resume talks

October 18 2006


The delegations of Moldova and Transnistria have today begun in Odessa (Ukraine) official consultations with the international mediators to the Transnistrian conflict settlement - the representatives of Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Their objective is to persuade Chisinau and Tiraspol to restart the frozen negotiation process.

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Moldpres News Agency: Transnistrian authorities oppose to resume negotiations on Transnistrian conflict settlement

Oct. 18, 2006


The mediators' and observers' separate consultations with Tiraspol and Chisinau focused on possibility to resume the negotiating process to settle the Transnistrian conflict have failed.

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Moldpres News Agency: NATO officials to consider Transnistrian issue in Chisinau

Oct. 18, 2006


The Transnistrian issue will be considered in Chisinau on 19-21 October, within an international seminar, Moldova and the Euro-Atlantic Institutions: Joining Efforts.

Former President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA), member of the French delegation to the NATO PA Loic Bouvard; a member of Luxemburg's delegation to the NATO PA, Marc Angel; European Union's (EU) Special Representative for Moldova Adriaan Jacobovits de Szeged; deputy head of the EU Border Assistance Mission for Moldova and Ukraine Joachim Haack; ambassadors Filip Teodorescu (Romania), Nikolay Ryabov (Russia), Petro Chaliy (Ukraine); Head of the OSCE Mission to Chisinau Louis F. O'Neill; members of the Moldovan government and Chisinau political analysts have announced their participation in the event.

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Regnum: Transdnestr representative in Control Commission: Moldova sabotages the peacekeeping operation

10/20/2006


During its Oct 19 meeting in Bendery the United Control Commission (UCC) failed to solve the problem of establishing a trilateral Russian-Moldavian-Transdnestr peacekeeping post at the dam of the Dubossary water power plant, reports REGNUM correspondent.

On Oct 19, the Moldavian side insisted that the post be established right at the dam. “We strongly object,” says the chairman of the Transdnestr delegation to the UCC Alexander Porozhan. “First of all, this is impossible purely technically. It will be a post in an open area where there is even no place for a toilet. Besides, the Dniestr WPP is a guarded facility, and the post will be situated in the territory watched by other non-commission guards. This is inadmissible.”

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RFE/RL: EU: For Brussels, Not All Frozen Conflicts Are Alike

October 25, 2006


At a European Parliament debate on South Ossetia and Transdniester today, EU officials had two distinct messages. First, that the bloc’s involvement in Moldova will remain strong. Second, that Georgia's requests for greater EU involvement are "unrealistic."

Ferrero-Waldner said Russian calls for some form of international recognition of Transdniester would “complicate” attempts to resolve the conflict: “While we’re happy that high-level talks between Russia and Moldova have recently resumed, we have been concerned about Russia’s support to the Transdnistrian leadership," she said. "In a recent statement, [Russian Foreign] Minister Lavrov called for ‘political recognition’ of the results of the referendum in Transdniester which neither the European Union nor the OSCE have recognized. I think this could complicate finding a solution to this conflict.” Ferrero-Waldner said the EU also rejects Russia’s insistence on a Transdniestrian-Moldovan "transit protocol." She said saying Moscow’s attempts to win Transdniester recognition as an independent international actor are the main stumbling block in peace talks.

Ferrero-Waldner also said the EU had been worried after Viktor Yanukovych’s election as prime minister that Ukraine might stop enforcing strict controls on its border with Transdniester. However, the commissioner said, Kyiv has since given the EU express assurances it will not drop its border controls.

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NATO, Russia Hold Tense Talks

October 26, 2006


NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian officials at the Kremlin today as part of a two-day Moscow visit. The talks appeared aimed at ironing out growing tension between Moscow and the Western military alliance.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry's Grushko, Putin also planned to express Moscow's irritation at the NATO's refusal to ratify an amended version of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. This agreement set limits on the number of troops and armament deployed across Europe. NATO member states say they will not ratify the new version of the treaty, which addresses changes since the Soviet collapse, until Russia withdraws all troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia. Grushko said that Russia could choose to pull out of the agreement should NATO continue to drag its feet.

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Itar-Tass: Russian Railways bans train from Chisinau to Moscow

31.10.2006


Train service Chisinau -Moscow has been cancelled on Tuesday because the JSC Russian Railways refused to admit the train, the state-run enterprise Moldovan Railways told journalists.

President of the JSC Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin warned a few days ago that regular train No. 47 Chisinau -Moscow would be cancelled unless an agreement on transit transportation across the Diester region was reached.

Train service across the Dniester territory was canceled after Ukraine had imposed a new Customs regime at Moldova’s request, that Tiraspol challenged as "an economic blockade."

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Moldpres News Agency: Moldova calls for sanctioning human rights' violation in frozen conflicts regions

Oct. 31, 2006


Moldova's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) in New York Alexei Tulbure has called on the international community to undertake political, economic or legal measures against perpetrators of human rights violations in frozen conflicts regions.

The Moldovan representative informed the international community about the flagrant violations of human rights in Moldova's breakaway Transnistrian region. He pointed up certain sectors in which the human rights have been always violated in the eastern districts of the country, and namely: the right to life, justice, assembly and expression, the right to education, the civil and political rights, etc

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Kyiv Post: Separatist leader to run for fourth term as Trans-Dniester president

Nov 03 2006


The leader of a pro-Russian separatist region in eastern Moldova has submitted his candidacy for a fourth term as Trans-Dniester president, officials said Friday. Igor Smirnov, who has run the province with an iron fist since 1991 when it declared independence from Moldova, said he "trusted in the people's will."

Smirnov, 65, is born in Russia and is a Russian citizen. He arrived in the former Soviet republic of Moldova in 1986 as director of a then-secret arms factory in Trans-Dniester's capital, Tiraspol. He was first elected as Trans-Dniester's president in 1991, and re-elected in 1996 and 2001.

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