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Ready for a roasting: Transdniestria's Foreign Minister Valeri Litskai is not the right man for the job, many here now say

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - An influential Moldovan pro-independence politician in Transdniestria says the unrecognized country's Foreign Minister is not up to task. Grigore Mărăcuţă, the former Speaker of Transdniestria's Parliament, believes that Foreign Minister Valeri Litskai is as good as useless and should be replaced.

During a Parliamentary debate in Tiraspol, Grigore Mărăcuţă strongly criticized Foreign Minister Valeri Litskai, who, in his opinion, fulfills his duties dishonestly and in bad faith recently.

Mărăcuţă, a Moldovan, made his statements public in Parliament on Tuesday, thereby adding his voice to a series of recent domestic critics who are disappointed by the PMR Foreign Ministry's failure to make its position heard internationally in the wake of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence last month.

Disappointment over lack of recognition

During recent hearings on unrecognized states on 13 March 2008 at Russia's Duma, Transdniestria didn't receive the favorable treatment it had hoped for. Instead of the 'de facto' country obtaining recognition as a 'de jure' sovereign state, Russia was indecisive.

Grigore Mărăcuţă (shown) is an ethnic Moldovan who is PMR's former Speaker of Parliament. He thinks that Foreign Minister Valeri Litskai is not up to the job.

" - This is due to the fault of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and personally Foreign Minister Valeri Litskai, who did nothing."

" - At the hearings, we saw that with regards to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, legal procedures were started which will lead to their recognition. But where Pridnestrovie is concerned, we were advised to continue negotiations with Moldova," lamented Grigore Mărăcuţă.

Instead of granting formal recognition to Transdniestria's 'de facto' reality, Russia suggested that the unrecognized country should negotiate some more with Moldova on the issue of the territorial dispute between the two. This advice came in spite of nearly two decades of fruitless on-and-off talks where the sides have continually failed to see eye to eye on their territorial dispute over who gets to rule Transdniestria's territory. The population of Transdniestria has shown itself to be overwhelmingly in favor of their freedom, democracy and independence.

" - Our Foreign Ministry has lost to the Moldovan diplomacy point-blank", believes Mărăcuţă who also stressed that Foreign Minister Valeri Litskai is not being received anywhere lately, which reflects negatively on the international image of the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica, PMR.

Moldovan in favor of independence

Grigore Mărăcuţă, 65, is an ethnic Moldovan who fully supports independence. He was born in Transdniestria when the country was still part of the Soviet Union, and he was one of the leading politicians in its struggle for independence.

Today Grigore Mărăcuţă (alternate spelling: Grigory Marakutsa) is aligned with most of the Moldovans from Transdniestria who prefer freedom and sovereign statehood and refuse to be absorbed by Moldova. Mărăcuţă was Speaker of Transdniestria Parliament until 2005, when opposition party Renewal won a majority of seats and took over the leadership of the legislature.

As PMR's current Parliamentary Envoy and special representative for inter-parliamentary relations, Grigore Mărăcuţă is today also the Secretary General of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the international organization "For democracy and the rights of peoples," which besides Transdniestria (Pridnestrovie) also consists of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. At this point in time, the rotating chairmanship of the organization is held by Valeri Litskai.

See also:
» PMR Parliament to take Foreign Minister to task for diplomatic failures [1]
» New face set to replace Transnistria's Foreign Minister [2]
» Undiplomatic relations: Pridnestrovie clashes with Bulgaria, Romania [3]

Opinion and commentary:
» Bumps in the road for Pridnestrovie's foreign policy [4]

On the web:
» For democracy and the rights of peoples (official website) [5]