CHISINAU, May 29. /TASS/. Transnistria’s President Vadim Krasnoselsky has noted the importance of continuing the peacekeeping operation under Russia’s aegis on the Dniester River.
"The peacekeeping operation on the banks of the Dniester has become one of the most successful in history and has proved that there are no alternatives to a peace settlement of relations," he said in a message of congratulations on the occasion of the International Day of UN Peacekeepers.
"I am convinced that this peacekeeping operation should be continued," Krasnoselsky’s press service quotes him as saying.
Russian peacekeepers were introduced into the war zone on July 29, 1992, in accordance with the agreement on the principles of a peace settlement of the armed conflict in the Transnistrian region of the Republic of Moldova, signed on July 21, 1992, by the presidents of Russia and Moldova in the presence of the Transnistrian leader. They currently maintain peace in the buffer zone along the Dniester river together with Blue Helmets from Moldova and Transdniestria. Chisinau has repeatedly called for replacing the peacekeepers with a civilian mission under an international mandate. Tiraspol argues that such a mission failed to prevent the 1992 armed conflict, in which more than a thousand people died and tens of thousands were wounded.