CHISINAU, July 21. /TASS/. Moldova’s calls to deploy an international civilian mission instead of Russian peacekeepers are groundless, Transnistrian Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatyev said on Friday.
"There are no conditions for this. Amid the global instability and the Ukrainian crisis, the peacekeeping operation ensures additional stability in our Moldovan-Transnistrian regional space. And we hope that our neighbors, Moldova, will demonstrate responsibility and refrain from any action that could undermine the peacekeeping operation. I mean withdrawal from the agreement on the principles of the peace settlement of 1992," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.
Russian peacekeepers were deployed to the zone of combat operations in Transnistria in late July of 1992 under an agreement on peaceful settlement of the armed conflict in Moldova’s Transnistrian region. The move helped stop the confrontation between the Moldovan police and Transnistrian militias. Currently, peace in the region is being maintained by Russian, Moldovan, and Transnistrian peacekeepers, and a team of Ukrainian military observers.
Apart from that, the Russian military is tasked to ensure the security of depots in Cobasna that hold more than 20,000 tons of munitions that were put in storage there after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from European countries. A weapons and munitions withdrawal and disposal campaign started in 2001, but in 2004 the Transnistrian authorities cut it short following a deterioration in relations with Moldova.
Meanwhile, Chisinau insists on the withdrawal of the Russian group of forces and calls for replacing the peacekeepers with a civilian mission under an international mandate. However, Tiraspol recalls that back in 1992 such a mission had failed to prevent an armed conflict, as more than 1,000 lives were lost and tens of thousands were wounded.