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Transnistria’s delegation to JCC asks Russia to build up military presence in security zone

2 july 2010, 15:42 print out copy link The link has been copied to the Clipboard

The Ghimpu decree on declaring the former holiday of June 28 as a Day of Soviet Occupation may cause negative consequences undermining stability and security in the Transnistria Security Zone, maintains the unrecognized Transnistrian republic’s delegation to the Joint Control Commission (JCC) for the Transnistrian Conflict Settlement.

At the JCC ordinary meeting held in Bendery on Thursday, the Transnistrian delegation distributed a statement in response to the decree issued by Moldova’s Acting President Mihai Ghimpu on June 24, and drew attention that in the decree “the ultimatum-like demand to Russia to withdraw its military contingent, which carries out mainly peacekeeping functions, is aimed at changing the efficiently functioning format of the peacekeeping operation and at ruining the mechanisms of directing the Joint Peacekeeper Forces and of ensuring peace in the Security Zone”.

“The demand clearly demonstrates that Chisinau is aiming at escalation of tension and creating prerequisites for a possible forcible restoration of the so-called ‘constitutional order’ and of restarting an armed confrontation with Transnistria”, presumes the Transnistrian delegation.

Accordingly, “for the sake of preventing developments like the ones that happened in August 2008 in the Georgia-South Ossetia conflict zone”, the Transnistrian delegation has called upon Moscow to restore the strength of Russian peacekeepers and to resume regular helicopter flights over the Security Zone.

Besides this, Tiraspol has demanded to pull out the Moldovan police commissariat and penitentiary institutions from Bendery.

The Moldovan JCC delegation refused to accept the Transnistrian side’s statement even for looking through, dispelled Tiraspol’s apprehensions, and reminded that in conformity with the 1998 Odessa Accords, the strength of the sides’ peacekeeper contingents in the Security Zone was reduced, and the demand to build up military presence in the Zone is completely unfounded.

As Infotag has already reported, the official Chisinau has been long demanding to replace the existing military peacekeeping contingent with an international mission of civilian observers with an OSCE mandate.

Infotag