Discouraging words

[image source]

This article from Nezavisimaya (original is here, the translation below is courtesy of JRL) is not encouraging, particularly on the issue of peacekeepers.  However, I suspect Gamova - especially given her habit of spinning stories about these regions in what are supposed to be straight news pieces - is not quite accurately reflecting Moldovan elite opinion with respect to the Kozak Plan:

Nezavisimaya Gazeta
May 13, 2010
MEDVEDEV AND YANUKOVICH TO OPEN TRANS-DNIESTER REGION
Runaway Moldovan province pins a good deal of hopes on the new Ukrainian authorities
Author: Svetlana Gamova
THE EVE OF DMITRY MEDVEDEV'S VISIT TO UKRAINE: THE TRANS-DNIESTER REGION EXPECTS SUPPORT FROM KIEV NOW ALONG WITH THAT FROM MOSCOW

Presidents of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and Ukraine Victor Yanukovich will make a joint statement regarding the Trans-Dniester region during Medvedev's visit to Ukraine on May 17-18.

A source within the Foreign Ministry said that the statement in question would declare coordination of efforts in Trans-Dniester conflict resolution. (Both Russia and Ukraine are guarantors and intermediaries in the process.) Quite importantly, there are almost 150,000 Russians and 100,000 Ukrainians living in the self-proclaimed Trans-Dniester Moldovan Republic. Medvedev once promised Trans-Dniester leader Igor Smirnov that the locals with Russian passports could count on Russian protection. Smirnov called it the most important guarantee the self-proclaimed and non-recognized republic had.

Insiders say that the joint statement to be made by Russian and Ukrainian presidents will reiterate their stand on the matter of peacekeepers: they should be left where they are. It is going to be an answer to the idea regularly brought up by Kishinev to replace the existing peacekeeping contingent in the Trans-Dniester region comprising Russian, Moldovan, and local units with foreign policemen or observers.

The Trans-Dniester parliament (Supreme Council) in the meantime hopes that installation of the new regime in Ukraine will mean an end to the blockade. Aided by then President of Ukraine Victor Yuschenko, the Moldovan authorities were able to close the border for goods and produce from the Trans-Dniester region in 2006. EU observers have manned the Trans-Dniester part of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border ever since. Without Russian aid, the region would have never survived.

"That Yanukovich wants no EU experts or whoever on the border is common knowledge. I suspect that he will do everything now to prevent prolongation of the Europeans' mandate. The Ukrainian border with the Trans-Dniester region will open then," said Arkady Barbarosh, Director of the Center for Social Policy (Kishinev).

"The EU has never wielded any clout or possessed any leverage with the region in question. Its Eastern Partnership initiative does not even promote any such objectives," said Alexander Rahr of the German Foreign Policy Council. "Russia would like to return to the region, of course, but with Yuschenko in Kiev it was impossible. It is different now. Moscow will probably reanimate Kozak's Plan, and Yanukovich will raise no objections."

"Moldova is not going to accept Kozak's Plan because it stands for continued presence of the Russian military on the Moldovan territory," Barbarosh said.

Considering the attitude of the powers-that-be currently in Kishinev, there is no chance to reanimate the Kremlin's plans first designed in 2003. The parliamentary election in Moldova this autumn may change everything. The Moldovan political establishment is already castigating ex-President Vladimir Voronin for the dismissal of Kozak's Plan. Marian Lupu, leader of the Democratic Party which is part of the ruling alliance nowadays, said that official Kishinev had failed then to consider all implications and made a mistake. Were it not for this mistake, there would have been no wine embargo that crippled Moldovan economy, he said.