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In 2003, Transdniestria agreed to join with Moldova inside a joint federation under Moldova's dominance. But Moldova refused

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - On 25 November 2003, on the eve of the OSCE’s Maastricht conference, the Russian President Vladimir Putin scheduled a surprising visit to Moldova to witness the signing of a federalization document as the solution to the Transnistria / Moldova conflict.

This document (widely known as “Kozak memorandum”) was negotiated between the parties under the guidance of Dmitri Kozak, a special envoy of the Russian president. He brokered the compromises necessary to make both sides agree, and the memorandum was initialed page by page by both Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin and Transdniestria's President Igor Smirnov.

In the spring of 2003, Russian President Vladimir Putin had named Dmitri Kozak — at that time the deputy head of his presidential administration — as his special envoy to Moldova. Kozak had a clear mandate: to find a solution to the frozen conflict that had emerged in 1992 after a short war between Moldova and the historically non-Moldovan Transdniestria.

Thanks to compromises brokered by Russia's Kozak, Moldova and Transdniestria was one inch from the solution to their long dispute. The memorandum envisioned an asymmetric federal set-up in which Moldova would hold the dominant power, and Transdniestria would be given a certain level of autonomy on local matters. All peacekeepers, including Russians, would be gradually phased out over a period of time necessary to ensure both sides that the federalization agreement would be kept, that autonomy would be respected, and that there would be no further reversal of armed aggressions.

Chisinau, Moldova’s capital, was prepared for Russia’s president arrival: cargo planes with automobiles and security equipment, honorary guard, Moldovan girls and boys in national costumes, traditional bread and salt.

The visit was canceled by President Voronin’s last minute rejection. Moldova nixed the “Kozak plan” within hours of its planned signing as the result of pressure by hardliners in the West: The Moldovan President was informed by the then OSCE Dutch chairman Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the U.S. Ambassador to Moldova Heather Hodges and the EU Council Secretary General Javier Solana about opposition that Washington and Bruxelles had concerning the mutually agreed-upon settlement plan between the two sides. A key coordinating role in stopping the event was played by the OSCE Mission in Chisinau, headed by U.S. Ambassador William Hill, and the then U.S. Special Negotiator for Eurasian conflicts, Ambassador Rudolf Perina, former U.S. Ambassador to Moldova.

Foreign astroturf campaign helped kill the deal

An American-funded "astroturf" NGO, the previously unknown Committee to Defend Moldova’s Independence and Constitution, was set up at a hastily arranged emergency meeting on 24 November 2003. Its only task was to quickly organize a series of street protests and demonstrations over the next days, following the "color revolution" model of street demonstrations in Ukraine, Georgia and other post-Soviet countries where such pressure had been applied to successfully enforce policy changes.

The largest mass rally culminated on November 30 with approximately 50,000 protester lining up behind slogans against the federalization model and demanding the immediate withdrawal of the peacekeepers in a move which would, if implemented, have ended the terms of the ceasefire agreement between Transdniestria and Moldova.

Initially, however, the Memorandum was welcomed by the Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin as “a realistic project, a compromise for overcoming the territorial, political and economic disunity of our state”.

Others in the governing party said the same. The leader of Voronin's parliamentarian majority, Victor Stepaniuc, publically said that “the Russian proposal is a positive step…” because by proposing “an asymmetric federalization, Moscow has adopted the Chisinau stance.”

Nevertheless, after the quick but intense campaign of pressure led by so called "neo-con" hawks in the Western policy establishment, the Moldovan President abruptly rejected the Russian Plan. The combined efforts the OSCE, EU, and the U.S. prevented Moldova and Transdniestria from settling their conflict on the basis on a mutually-agreed upon model of federalization.

Details of the plan that PMR agreed to

The formal name of the Kozak Memorandum was the Draft Memorandum on the Basic Principles of the State Structure of a United State in Moldova of 17 November 2003. It re-launched a solution which was originally proposed by the OSCE of federalizing the Republic of Moldova within the 1990 Soviet Union borders of the now-dissolved Moldavian SSR.

The Basic Principles laid out in this document was about the unitary, democratic, demilitarized and neutral character of the state. The federal state had to have 2 sub-entities, PMR and the Gagauz autonomy, with their own recognized local government structures, anthems and flags.

The Moldovan language (basically, Romanian) was to become the “state language”, with Russian getting the status of an “official language,” too.

Transdniestria would have had the right of secession by referendum in the case of union between the federal Moldova and another state or if Moldova would have lost its status as subject of international law. This, too, harked back to an original OSCE proposal under which Transdniestria would be granted independence in case Moldova at any time in the future decided to re-unite with Romania.

In all federal institutions - the Presidency, the Parliament and the Constitutional Court - Moldova would hold the dominant power and Transdniestria would not have any veto power. The Parliament would have been bicameral, with a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives, both of them dominated by Moldova with a majority of the seats.

Best-ever chance for a joint state

The Kozak memorandum that resulted from the negotiations offered a real prospect for a peaceful solution by turning Moldova into a federation, with Transdniestria reconstituted as an autonomous republic within Moldova — and also by guaranteeing the official status of the Russian language as a second language, as a way to guarantee the language rights of the mostly Slavic- and Russian-speaking Transdniestria.

Transdniestria had agreed to the terms of the 2003 settlement, but nationalist Moldovan hardliners were scandalized by such a prospect - and so was the West, for reasons which have never been fully explained.

Under pressure from the American Embassy and from the American head of the OSCE Mission in Moldova, Vladimir Voronin was persuaded not to sign. This was as close as Transdniester and Moldova ever came to a common state. Since then, prospects for a union have deteriorated sharply, and local political experts on both sides of the Dniester now agree that there is little hope of ever coming to an agreement that doesn't involve the use of Moldovan aggression or military force - an big "no no" which has been ruled out in numerous treaties and agreements between the two sides since 1992.

Moldova today maintains its nearly two-decade old territorial claim to what it considers the Moldovan region of Transnistria, while Transdniestria in response says that this is not something that Moldova can decide. According to Transdniestria, the issue must first and foremost be decided by the more than 500,000 people who live in the disputed area.

The two sides are now as far apart as they have ever been, and there is no settlement in sight. Meanwhile, to simply go on living, Transdniestria behaves like a sovereign independent state under the name of PMR (Pridnestrovskaaia Moldavskaia Respublica), also known as Pridnestrovie for short.

With Moldova having rejected the only viable plan that both sides could conceivably agree on, Transdniestria now feels unwelcome inside Moldova. In September 2006 more than 9 out of 10 voters rejected a common union state with Moldova. It would take nothing short of a political miracle to reverse the will of over 90% of the Transdniestrian population.

See also:
» Transnistria's parliament nixes common state with Moldova [1]
» In Transdniester, previous plans for union with Moldova now formally cancelled [2]
» For Moldova and Transdniester civilized divorce best solution [3]

Opion and commentary:
» Is a shared state with Moldova still possible? [4]