MOSCOW, July 25. /TASS/. The peacekeeping mission in the unrecognized Republic of Transnistria is a stable and well-designed mechanism that neither of the parties can dismantle, Transnistrian Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatyev said on Monday.
"The peacekeeping operation is a unique phenomenon that created conditions for resolving the conflict peacefully," he pointed out at a roundtable hosted by the Russian Civic Chamber, which was dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Russia’s peacekeeping mission in Transnistria.
"This mechanism was so well designed and set out that neither of the parties can dismantle it, no matter how hard they try. It is simply impossible because there is the principle of consensus, a united military command and a governing body, the Joint Control Commission. The mechanism is rather stable. We can see that the peacekeeping operation has been going on for 30 years despite Chisinau’s constant criticism of Russia’s peacekeeping activities," Ignatyev added.
"The peacekeeping mission is under constant political pressure. Russia is also facing challenges from Chisinau who claims that Russia is an aggressor. Moldova’s parliament has passed a statement that Russia occupied the country’s territory <...> which is absolutely untrue," he stressed.
According to Ignatyev, the peacekeeping operation will continue until the conflict is fully resolved. The Transnistrian top diplomat emphasized, however, that the Moldovan authorities had failed to implement their obligations. "The Moldovan leadership says that the peacekeeping mission should end but they aren’t doing anything to resolve the conflict as soon as possible," he noted.
"We believe that the peacekeeping mission should continue to operate and if the need arises, we will continue it at the bilateral level with Russia," Ignatyev added. According to him, Russia has every reason to maintain its peacekeeper presence in Transnistria despite the Moldovan authorities’ attempts to terminate the mission.
Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the conflict zone on July 29, 1992, in compliance with an agreement to peacefully settle the armed conflict in the Transnistrian region of Moldova that the presidents of Russia and Moldova signed in the presence of the Transnistrian leader on July 21, 1992. The Russian Operational Group, deployed to Transnistria, is mandated to assist the peacekeeping operation and protect ammunition depots near the community of Kolbasna, which store over 20,000 tonnes of munitions brought there following the Soviet Army’s withdrawal from European countries. Moldovan politicians demand that the operational group be replaced with military observers but the Transnistrian authorities oppose the initiative, saying that the presence of Russian peacekeepers is the only security guarantee.