“OLVIA-PRESS”

THE PRESIDENT OF MOLDOVA TRIED TO VIOLATE THE EXISTING MECHANISM OF INTERRELATIONS OF THE PARTIES IN THE MOLDAVIAN-DNIESTRIAN SETTLEMENT

As the information agency “Olvia-press” has already informed, at the meeting of representatives of Dniestria, Moldova, Russia, the Ukraine, and OSCE, that had taken place in Kiev, mediators and of the Dniestrian settlement planned to hold the next round of negotiations in August 2002 in Kishinev. And it should have been held in the neutral territory: in embassies of Russia, the Ukraine, and the OSCE Mission. Since then, in the mass media many rumors and assumptions have been spread regarding the date and agenda of the next meeting of the parties.

But as the Dniestrian experts’ group representatives exacted to the “Olvia-press”, Kiev agreements and the existing practice suppose that initiative of determining the concrete date of the meeting, its program and agenda as well belongs to the mediators: Russia, the Ukraine, and OSCE. The next meeting of the parties within frames of permanent convention on the Moldavian-Dniestria settlement will thus take place only after respective invitation from the mediators. There was no such invitation yet.

Nevertheless, this week it became known that the President of Moldova Vladimir Voronin sent to representatives of Russia, the Ukraine, OSCE, and Dniestria, an official proposal to hold negotiations of the plenipotentiary representatives of all the 5 parties on August 15^th. The Moldavian President thus unilaterally determined the date of meeting having taking functions of mediator and guarantee country upon himself, and tried to violate the existing mechanisms of quanta-lateral relationship.

The experts’ group of Dniestria, where the agency “Olvia-press” correspondent addressed with request of comments, appreciated that step as non-contributing to enforcement of trust between the parties. In the experts’ opinion, the attempt of V. Voronin to thrust his decision on the negotiation participants without preliminary conditions may just add a negative feature to the political portrait of the Moldavian President. As the experts remarked, the Dniestrian side, remaining open for constructive dialogue, considers that success of the meeting is directly connected with non-deviate respect of existing forms and mechanisms of the parties’ interaction, and expects respective initiative from the mediators.

***** August 14^th 2002 *****