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Fingerpointing: Nicholas Burns from the U.S. State Department lashes out against Pridnestrovie's right to exist (photo: IBB)

BRUSSELS (Tiraspol Times) - During a summit in Brussels, the U.S. State Department lashed out at Russia's involvements in its near abroad. At the summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE, State Department official Nicholas Burns had harsh words for Russia, while Russia responded that the OSCE, whose Moldova mission has been exclusively led by American diplomats since its founding in 1993, was exacerbating conflict in the region.

" - In Moldova and Georgia, protracted conflict and external threats impede the full economic and democratic development... creating insecure borders, undermining territorial integrity and hampering the process of regional integration," said American envoy Nicholas Burns from the US state department.

" - As long as these countries remain torn apart from within and as long as open support for separatist regimes continues from without, these two countries will find it harder to realize their potential."

His comments raised eyebrows in Tiraspol, the capital of Pridnestrovie, where it came as news to officials at several government ministries to hear that Moldova is "torn apart from within."

Pridnestrovie declared independence in 1990, but not from Moldova. At the time, no such thing as an independent Moldova existed. Pridnestrovie left the MSSR (Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic) in 1990, through a unilateral declaration of independence. One year later, in 1991, Moldova itself did the exact same thing: Left the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic through an unilateral declaration of independence. In Moldova's case, its declaration of independence also included a phrase declaring the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact to be "null and void ab initio." It was this pact which was used by Soviet dictator Stalin to unite Pridnestrovie and Moldova inside the Soviet Union, for the first time in history.

" - And strictly speaking, Pridnestrovie is not even separatist," says columnist Michael Garner. "It is a case of a Soviet administrative entity, the MSSR, which split in two upon the fall of the Soviet Union. The MSSR doesn't exist anymore, and Pridnestrovie has never been part of the Republic of Moldova or of any other independent Moldovan state at any time in history."

In the analysis of a human rights group from the United Kingdom, State's Nicholas Burns has made a career out of voicing America’s concern for regions remote from it and then justifying military interventions to solve their problems. He was President Clinton’s State Department spokesman on all the most sensitive issues in the Balkans in the 1990s. Where Mr Burns has sought to resolve conflict, the grass has rarely grown again.

Forced, one-sided solutions set back the clock

This time around, the United States also complained over "economic and financial pressure" on Georgia and Moldova, despite the fact that - in Moldova's case, at least - there is already agreement to lift wine sanctions and resume a brisk trade in exports to Russia.

In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the OSCE was skewed by "imbalances".

He accused the organization - formed during the Cold War to improve co-operation between the Soviet Union and the West - of trying to force through "one-sided" solutions to long-lasting disputes in the region.

" - Such action leads to exacerbation of tensions and mistrust, and sets back the clock on any possible solution," he said.

OSCE insiders, including high-ranking Americans, have often criticized the bombastic method of an often-less-than-fully-informed State Department in dealing with the Moldova/Transdniester issue. More than once, heavy handed and politically motivated intervention by Washington-based bureaucrats has damaged progress on status settlement.

" - I personally regret that the unfortunate last minute pressures in Washington prevented continuation of the five years of harmonious work by the OSCE PA Group on Moldova," said the head of OSCE's Moldova mission, Ambassador William Hill, in 2005. "I hope we will be able to overcome misunderstandings and hard feelings, and restore what has been a helpful channel for cooperative work by parliamentarians."

In the case of Pridnestrovie, which the State Department calls Transnistria and which OSCE refers to under a slew of different names (including Transdniester and Transdniesteria), it is an already a country which is simply not recognized internationally yet. It meets the requirements for statehood, both under international law and with respect to U.S. policy on the matter.

OSCE diplomat urges more realism

The legal definition of a state under The Foreign Relations Law of the United States of America reads as follows: " §201: Under international law, a state is an entity that has a defined territory and a permanent population, under the control of its own government, and that engages in, or has the capacity to engage in, formal relations with other such entities."

The United States is also a signatory to Montevideo Convention which spells out much the same, and for good measure adds that the political existence of the state is independent of recognition by other states.

" - Surely, someone like Nicholas Burns can not be ignorant of U.S. law, international law and of treaties which his own crew has signed," says Garner. "But maybe he is hoping that he can pull a fast one on the other participants at the OSCE summit."

The United States has consistently argued for a hardline approach which excludes the legitimate rights of the people of Pridnestrovie to democratically decide their own future, free from outside intervention. In a typical statement, former American Ambassador to Moldova, Pamela Hyde Smith, has called the existence of Transnistria "illegal," refusing even to dignify it with its official name, Pridnestrovie.

However, as late as last year, the head of OSCE's Mission to Moldova explained that he was "troubled" by "an approach to achieving a political settlement in Transdniestria that apparently involves a complete rejection of dialogue with anyone in Transdniestria and an exclusively confrontational approach to the Russian Federation."

The high-ranking diplomat explained that "in my view this leads to a dangerous illusion that a political settlement in Transdniestria may be achieved solely through the application of coercion or the use of force" and emphasized that "successful policies must also involve persuasion and realism, or they simply risk increasing the resistance and hostility that they purport to overcome." (With information from BBC)

See also:
» US Defense chief hails self-determination and "the right to choose their own destiny" [1]
» US intelligence briefing predicts future PMR statehood as "likely" [2]
» Harvard study gives support for Pridnestrovie statehood [3]