In Transdniester, previous plans for union with Moldova now formally cancelled

Tiraspol, the capital city of Pridnestrovie, whose parliament says no to common state with Moldova (Photo: Ekaterina Semenyuk)

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Pridnestrovie has given up for good on all plans to build a common state with Moldova.

On Thursday, an earlier resolution by the Parliament of the new and emerging country was published and officially came into force, annulling previous documents envisioning a confederation or a federative state with Moldova.

Two documents got the axe: First, a 6 January 1993 resolution by Pridnestrovie's parliament on establishing a confederation between Moldova and Pridnestrovie. Second, a 9 April 2003 resolution on how to develop a the draft Constitution of a federative state composed of the two.

The first document was adopted at the start of status settlement negotiations, which began after the end of the independence war of 1992 between Moldova and Pridnestrovie. These negotiations had been mediated by Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The second document was adopted ten years later, as Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin in 2003 brought forward an initiative proposing to transform Moldova into a federative state. However, talks on building a federation stopped that same year after Moldova refused to sign the so called "Kozak memorandum," an international plan for building a joint state. The memorandum had initially been accepted by Pridnestrovie's Tiraspol based government.

In September 2006, Pridnestrovie - which is alternately also known as Transnistria or Transdnestr - held a referendum on independence. The referendum, which was deemed free and fair by international observers and journalists, showed that more than 90 percent of Pridnestrovie's population supports independence from Moldova.

Sovereign state in all but name

Located to the east of the Republic of Moldova, between the Dniester River and Ukraine, the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica (its official name) covers a fixed territory of 4,163 sq km with a total of 816 km of defined, demarcated borders and 555,000 inhabitants.

Although 'de facto' independent since 1990, Pridnestrovie, or PMR as it is known for short, is generally considered a 'de jure' part of Moldova. This incongruity between actual fact and legal fiction has given rise to some uncertainty in several areas, leading to what most people in the unrecognized country see as being an economic blockade imposed on it from March 2006 at the instigation of Moldova.

Formerly a part of M.S.S.R., in the breakup of the Soviet Union, Pridnestrovie formally declared independence in 1990; a year earlier than its two neighbors, Moldova and Ukraine. Moldova – seen as the successor state to M.S.S.R. – failed in an attempt to take control of Pridnestrovie in a 1992 armed conflict, but never formally ceded its claim to the territory.

Pridnestrovie meets the requirements for statehood under international law, but has not been recognized as a state sovereign and is today classified as a ‘de facto’ state by most legal scholars.

Since 1997, settlement negotiations have been held under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) based on the premise that better relations between Moldova and Pridnestrovie are desirable, and that the restrictions on communications, movement of people, and trade flows must be removed, as stated in that year’s Primakov Memorandum, a document signed by former Danish foreign minister Niels Helveg Petersen for the OSCE, as well as by Moldova and Pridnestrovie, the sides in the conflict, and by Russia and Ukraine as guarantor states overseeing the adherence of the parties to the terms of the agreement. (With information from Itar-Tass)

See also:
» Transnistria's parliament nixes common state with Moldova