MOSCOW. (Alexei Makarkin, for RIA Novosti.) The breakaway Moldovan region of Transdnestr has urged Ukraine to send a peacekeeping force to the region.
On July 19, Igor Smirnov, the republic's president, said at a press conference after his visit to Kiev and consultations with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko: "I have asked [Ukraine] to consider sending a peacekeeping force to the Transdnestr Moldovan republic, and received a positive answer."
Smirnov claimed that Ukraine's full-scale involvement in a peacekeeping mission stemmed from the Odessa agreements of 1998.
"It's not up to me to decide on the numbers of troops. This decision rests with Viktor [Yushchenko]," he specified.
Today the united peacekeeping force includes troops from Russia, Moldova, and Transdnestr. Ukraine is represented by a group of ten military observers.
Kiev is getting ready to send its peacekeepers into Transdnestr, in parallel with efforts to implement its plan to settle the Transdnestr conflict. The Russian and Ukrainian plans, knows as the Kozak and Yushchenko plans, are presented as all but identical documents. There is some difference, but it is ostensibly insignificant.
It would be a mistake to interpret the two plans as replicas of each other, because even though many clauses seem alike, the geopolitical goals are poles apart.
The plan drawn up by Dmitry Kozak ( now presidential representative to the Southern Federal District( asserts a Russian military presence in the region, whereas the Yushchenko plan aims at curtailing it. Kozak favored turning Moldova into a federal republic, whereas Yushchenko merely suggested a status of autonomy for Transdnestr. Unlike Yushchenko, Kozak envisaged the use of Russian in government offices throughout the country. Incidentally, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who works closely with Kiev, agrees to give Russian official status only in Transdnestr.
The similarities between the two plans are only natural, because any peacemaking plan is a kind of compromise that to a certain extent considers the interests of all parties to the conflict.
As a result, Russia has found itself in a predicament. To begin with, the Yushchenko plan conforms to the standards of European democracy, and cannot be ignored for that reason. If Russian diplomats reject the Ukrainian plan, they could be accused of trying to continue a Russian military presence in the region instead of trying to settle the conflict.
For the same reason, Russia can hardly object to the plan to introduce democracy to Transdnestr. Therefore, Russia expressed reserved approval of the Ukrainian proposals, while saying that they are not specific enough.
Secondly, not only are Moscow-Chisinau relations obviously at freezing point, but the situation in the Transdnestrian capital of Tiraspol is also far from simple. The Transdnestr establishment is not uniform. It is clear that officials like influential State Security Minister Vladimir Antyufeyev (the former supervisor of the Riga OMON special police force during fierce political confrontation in Latvia in 1990-1991), are very unlikely to adapt to a democratic Transdnestr.
But many other representatives of the local elite are sick and tired of living in the unrecognized republic, and would welcome a compromise that would determine the region's political identity and economic status. Nor would they like to have a conflict with Ukraine, which is already toughening its customs rules at the border. This situation prompted Smirnov, who cannot ignore public opinion, to meet Viktor Yushchenko last Friday and to formally accept his plan. Apparently, this is exactly why he invited Ukrainian peacekeepers to his unrecognized republic. Smirnov wanted to demonstrate his readiness to compromise with Kiev.
At the same time, Smirnov is emphatically against the introduction of OSCE troops into the region, which would mean a revision of the Odessa agreements in favor of the West. There is a limit to the Transdnestr leader's willingness to compromise: He is ready to deal with his "Slavic brethren," but not with Westerners.
The geopolitical struggle for Transdnestr is entering a decisive phase. Russia is trying to diversify its position by combining reserved approval of Yushchenko's plan with sharp criticism of Chisinau's attempts to provoke a split among the Transdnestr leaders (Voronin pursued this aim when he suggested abolishing the position of president of Transdnestr, and giving more powers to the Supreme Council).
Major decisions will have to be made in the near future. They are likely to stem from the main provisions of the Yushchenko plan, and will probably contain some amendments in favor of Russia. For Russia, preserving a substantial (rather than nominal) military-political presence in the region will be a formidable task. But it will do its level best to implement it.
Alexei Makarkin is deputy director general of the Center for Political Technologies
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and may not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti
