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When the president of Moldova sat down with the leader of the
separatist Transdnestr region, many hoped for a breakthrough in one of
the former Soviet Union's seemingly endless "frozen conflicts".
The March 11 meeting was, after all, their first since 2001.
Both sides say the talks, in a town on the edge of Transdnestr, a sliver of land abutting Ukraine, went well.
Reality
has since taken hold in Moldova, Europe's poorest country according to
statistics. Entrenched positions 16 years after Russian troops ended a
war suggest progress will be slow.
Some things have, however, clearly changed.
Moldova
has improved its poor relations with Moscow, which has long backed the
separatists. And Russia appears to be pressing for a solution —
officials say it was a call from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
that kick-started the talks.
Moldovan President Vladimir
Voronin, the only Communist leader in an ex-Soviet state, offers "the
broadest possible autonomy" to Russian-speaking Transdnestr — which
enjoys no international recognition.
Igor Smirnov, self-styled
president of Transdnestr, says he will settle only for independence.
Other officials say Moldova should become a federation to put the
region on a footing like Canada's province of Quebec or Spain's
Catalonia.
"If Moldova were like Switzerland, we would join it
tomorrow as a canton. But we have next to us a communist regime that
does not want change," Valery Litskay, Transdnestr's flamboyant
"foreign minister," said in his wood-paneled office.
"Having the
broadest possible autonomy is akin to being the world's biggest frog,
which cannot be equal to an elephant. Even a one-ton frog is still no
elephant."
Moldovan Reintegration Minister Vasilii Sova, Litskay's more staid counterpart in the talks, sounded more hopeful in public.
"Whatever
you may feel, there is reality," he said. "We believe that building on
the achievements of the past two years will produce a rapprochement and
allow for a settlement."
Reporters grasping at any suggestion of
progress saw Litskay chatting with Sova during a stroll in a Chisinau
park last week. Officials said a meeting of a group of officials also
went well.
Transdnestr's Slavs declared independence in 1990
because of fears that Moldova's majority Romanian-speakers might make
Moldova part of Romania, as before World War II.
That never
happened. But since the war, Transdnestr has acted as an independent
state with 1,200 Russian troops staying to uphold the peace and guard
20,000 tons of munitions.
In referendums, over 90 percent of
Transdnestr's population has voted in favor of independence and,
however improbably, in favor of joining faraway Russia one day. The
West rejects the votes as irrelevant and undemocratic.
The
dispute — in the heart of Central Europe — has proven as intractable as
post-Soviet "frozen conflicts" between Georgia and Russian-backed
separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
But a Western
diplomat said Russia had altered its tactics in Transdnestr for
strategic reasons. A diplomatic success in Moldova, with participants
urged on by Russia, would contrast sharply with an impasse in attempts
at a settlement in Serbia's Kosovo province, whose independence was
supported by the West.
Tiraspol, Transdnestr's regional
"capital," sports crumbling Soviet-era apartment buildings, dotted with
small shops and the odd modern restaurant or bank.
Poverty and
disillusion are widespread. Young people clamor for passports issued by
relatively affluent Russia or Ukraine and many dream of leaving for
better pay and prospects.
Denis Lukin, 23, earns the equivalent
of $150 each month in a store — rent takes up 80 percent of his income
and the rest is spent on food.
"It is unrealistic to consider
any sort of life here," Lukin, 23, said in the main square by a statue
of Alexander Suvorov, Russia's military genius who founded Tiraspol in
1792.
"The only thing to do is go far, far away."
Crossing the border into Transdnestr requires patience, with nervous officials consulting security bodies for clearance.
Making a telephone call to the region from Chisinau is all but impossible. Freight trains stopped running long ago.
Mediation
by the 56-nation Organization For Security and Cooperation in Europe,
along with Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States,
has made little progress over the years.
Separatist leaders say they have no idea who will take power when Voronin steps down next year after two terms.
Breaching differences may prove difficult despite changes.
"We have witnessed destruction for five years. We haven't stood still like two bottles of beer in a fridge," Litskay said.
"We've
grown apart. Our economy, communications, transport, education,
culture. And the process is continuing. Attempts to bring us together
will be more difficult than in 2003."
By Ron Popeski / Reuters
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