Russia will withdraw its military presence from Transdniestria when Chisinau and Tiraspol trust each
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Friday, 09 December 2005
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Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Moldova Nicolai Reabov states Russia will pull out its military presence from Transdniestria only when Chisinau and Tiraspol have confidence into each other. He added that the enlargement of the peacekeeping mission on the Dniester will not be possible as long as one of the sides requires the maintenance of the present formula of the peacekeeping mission.
The Russian Ambassador told Tuesday in an interview for the PRO TV Chisinau TV
program “In Depth” that “the Russian military who have been
present for 12 years in the Security Zone are not a foreign army, on the contrary
they are successfully leading a peacekeeping mission”. Reabov said the Russian
military from the left bank of the Dniester include about 1300 militaries and
civilians and do not possess war technique, with the exception of some armored
cars deployed at some military posts.
The Russian official said Moscow will accept the enlargement of the peacekeeping
format only in the final stage of the political settlement of the Transdniestrian
conflict, when both sides will plead for this. “As long as one of the
sides requests the maintenance of the present peacekeeping formula we cannot
allow for it to become international, or else it will lose some guarantees,”
Reabov stated.
Moldova calls the deployment of Russian troops on the territory of the country
as illegal and seeks from the Russian Federation to withdraw its military presence
from the left bank of the Dniester in line with its commitments from Istanbul.
Chisinau finds inefficient the present peacekeeping mechanism and opts for making
it international under OSCE mandate.
At the same time Russia insists on maintaining the present peacekeeping mechanism
and opposes ardently to making it international.
Yesterday, the OSCE Ministerial Council ended for the third consecutive time
without adopting of a final resolution because of Russia’s refusal to
sign a document which contained references to the withdrawal of its military
presence from Moldova and Georgia.
Reporter.MD
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