Transdniester peacekeepers continue with Russian participation

Peaceekeepers in Transdniestria will stay on the post. Tiraspol's local bishop blesses their role in maintaining the ceasefire

BENDER (Tiraspol Times) - Russia's participation in the Transdniester-based peacekeeping contingent is not going to be curtailed in the immediate future.

That is one of the results of the recently announced suspension of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, also known as CFE treaty, which was signed and ratified by Russia but which NATO so far failed to honor, and which none of the NATO member countries ever ratified.

With the risk of a troop pullout no longer imminent, locals living near the Bender-area buffer zone is breathing a sigh of relief because Transdniestria peacekeeping operations will continue with the guarantee of ongoing Russian participation.

In Russia’s announcement, it officially expressed displeasure with the failure of NATO countries to ratify the 1999 Istanbul agreements to the CFE treaty, and argued that NATO countries’ insistence that Russia pull its troops out of Georgia and Moldova before ratifying the Istanbul agreements is wrong.

Locals happy he is still here: The shoulder patch of a Russian peacekeeper

Troubled treaty

The 1990 CFE Treaty limits non-nuclear weapons and military deployments between the Atlantic and the Ural Mountains. It was negotiated between NATO and the now defunct Warsaw Pact, a bloc of countries which was melting away at the same time that the treaty itself was being negotiated.

CFE was updated in 1999 to reflect this changed map, but it was never signed by the United States or several European countries. They tied ratification to Russia’s withdrawal of peacekeepers from Transdniester (which Moldova claims is is terrority, but has no sovereignty over) and Abkhazia, next to Georgia.

Russia signed and ratified both the original and the revised 1999 treaty, but the United States and other NATO countries refused to do so until the peacekeepers left.

Analysts in Moscow consider this "an excuse which rings hollow", in the words of RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Romanov.

" - Russian troops have already pulled out of Georgia as stipulated by the Istanbul agreements and Transdniester only has the minimum force needed to keep peace in that area," explains Romanov.

Transdniester peacekeeping in multilateral format

Four sides currently supply peacekeeping troops to the multilateral force. Transdniestria and Moldova have the largest number of active troops, with 411 and 403 active troops respectively. Russian participation is less, with a maximum of 385 active troops at any given time. Ukraine also supplies peacekeepers, but in much smaller number. Finally, a fifth participant - the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe - also takes part in the peacekeeping activities. Although the 56-member country OSCE does not supply troops, it is a permanent member of the Joint Control Commission's peacekeeping process with participating military observers.

Russia’s suspension of its participation in a Treaty that the US never signed is not the end of the world - neither for Russia, the United States, or any of the smaller countries in the middle. It simply means that the US can no longer demand Russia to comply with something that the US itself never complied with in the first place.

Earlier, in May, Moscow imposed moratorium on the treaty until it is ratified by all NATO member-countries.

An official announcement from the Kremlin refers to NATO's demand for a peacekeeping pullout as one of "various unsubstantiated conditions":

NATO countries decided that ratification of the Adapted Treaty is contingent upon Russia’s complying with various unsubstantiated conditions. One such condition consists in implementing elements of bilateral agreements between the Russian Federation, Georgia and Moldova, bilateral agreements not linked to the CFE Treaty on withdrawing Russian troops from those countries’ territories. These agreements were concluded in Istanbul before signing the Adapted Treaty in November 1999 (Istanbul Agreements). While Russia is implementing all agreements relating to the CFE Treaty, Russia considers that linking these two matters is wrong.

Moldova sees things differently, with one Chisinau-based expert casting his country in the role of a victim.

" - Moldova is a victim of the decision to suspend the CFE Treaty," said Viorel Cibotaru, the Chisinau-based director of Moldova's European Institute for Political Studies.

According to him, Russia’s withdrawal from the CFE Treaty "is fixing the conflict situation in Europe regarding conventional armaments and, naturally, doesn't favor in any way the settlement of the Transdniester dispute" (in Moldova's favor, ed.)

" - Thus, the situation becomes unpleasant per se, and the Republic of Moldova becomes victim of the decision," the Info-Prim Neo news agency reported him as stating.

Transdniestria is currently seeking international recognition as a sovereign country under its official name is the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica (PMR). It has a permanent population equivalent to Montenegro's, the world's newest U.N. member. For nearly seventeen years, Transdniestria has had sovereign control of a territory which is larger than 10% of other countries in the world. It has its own flag, national anthem, coat of arms, postage stamps, passports, car plates, border control and police force. It also has a Supreme Court and a Central Bank which issues its own currency, the PMR Ruble. (With information from Regnum)

See also:
» Russia has complied with Istanbul agreements, its NATO official says
» Foreign Ministry rejects U.S. troops in Transdniestria
» Washington calls 5,500 U.S. troops "hardly any" but 1,200 Russians in PMR must go

On the web:
» Russia's official treaty information announcement