CHISINAU, September 18. /TASS/. Russian peacekeepers should not be withdrawn from the unrecognized republic of Transnistria until the conflict is ultimately settled, Moldova President Igor Dodon said on Tuesday.
"I stand for keeping the current peacekeeping operation on the Dniester banks in place until a lasting and viable political solution to the Transnistrian problem is reached," he said in an interview with the Moldova-1 television channel.
"Peace in the region was restored thanks to this peacekeeping operation," he recalled and voiced criticism of those politicians "who come out with statements on the need to withdraw Russian peacekeepers in a bid to please certain people across the Atlantic."
Transnistria, a largely Russian-speaking region, broke away from Moldova following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its relations with Moldova’s central government in Chisinau have been highly mixed and extremely tense at times ever since then. In 1992 and 1993, tensions erupted into a bloody armed conflict that claimed the lives of hundreds of people on both sides.
The fratricidal war was stopped after a peace agreement was signed in Moscow in 1992 and Russian peacekeepers were brought into the conflict area. Negotiations on the conflict’s peace settlement known as the 5+2 format talks (involving Moldova and Transnistria as parties to the conflict, Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE as mediators and the United States and the European Union as observers) started after that.
For the moment, a joint peacekeeping force of Russian, Transnistrian and Moldovan servicemen is maintaining peace and stability in the buffer security zone of the Transnistrian conflict. Notably, no outbreaks of violence have been reported from that area after the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, which makes it possible for Chisinau and Tiraspol to continue peace settlement talks.
The Russian military are also tasked to ensure security of munitions depots near the village of Cobasna. According to various estimates, the depots are holding more than 20,000 tons of weapons and munitions that were put for storage there after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from European countries. Weapons and munitions withdrawal and disposal campaign started in 2001 but in 2004 the Transnistrian authorities cut it short following deterioration of relations with Moldova.
However Moldova’s government, which controlled by the ruling coalition of pro-European parties, suggests the peacekeeping force be replaced by a team of civil monitors with an international mandate. Transnistria is categorically against such a step.
In June 2018, the Moldovan government managed to have a resolution on the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeepers from Transnistria be passed by a majority of votes at the United Nations General Assembly.
The Russian side stressed that this initiative runs counter to the OSCE’s efforts towards the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict.