“The Moldovan President Is Framed by His Own People”. Dmitry Astakhov on Outcome of the Meeting between Dodon and Krasnoselsky

A meeting of the head of the Republic of Moldova Igor Dodon with the leader of the unrecognized Transdniestria, which was held at the Condrita residence of the Moldovan president, predictably cost no sensations. As a result, the leaders of the parties to the protracted unsettled conflict did not tell the journalists anything hitherto unknown. A purely technical ‘novelty’ can be considered a discussion at the level of the heads of Transdniestria and Moldova of the Dniester ecology – although this problem is hardly paramount and, in the opinion of expert colleagues, was brought into the dialogue between Dodon and Krasnoselsky due to a lack of practical issues, which the Moldovan president has sufficient authority to decide on. Before the meeting the RTA wrote that Igor Dodon was in a tough situation – now it is extremely difficult for him to offer Tiraspol something concrete and mutually beneficial. The leader of the Moldovan socialists is not least to be blamed in this situation, in 2016-2017 he demonstrated excessive self-confidence regarding the “Transdniestrian issue”. Anyway, Igor Dodon has to be extremely cautious with Transdniestria, especially before the upcoming parliamentary elections, in which the head of the Republic of Moldova is going to participate on the list of the PSRM. Therefore, the banal peacekeeping issue and now the ecology of the Dniester are already being discussed during the meetings with the Transdniestrian leader. Nevertheless, the Condrita meeting still brought something remarkable. Some expert colleagues drew attention to the fact that the agenda of the dialogue at the state residence of the Moldovan president was not announced by the host, but by the guest – the head of Transdniestria, Vadim Krasnoselsky, and besides at a press conference on the occasion of another “PMR Independence Day”. Up to this time Igor Dodon retained from the details and only later through his press attache M. Lebedinsky confirmed the topics of the meeting. And in Condrita itself something strange happened: Krasnoselsky at a press conference mentioned about the independence of Transdniestria and “for both” said that neither Chisinau nor Tiraspol are ready to discuss the political settlement. All this happened with the patient silence of Igor Dodon, who is very difficult to blame for supporting the independence of the PMR. There can be many explanations for what happened, however I would like to mention the main thing – someone is trying to drag Igor Dodon, who has already ‘burned’ himself on the topic of Transdniestria, into the Transdniestrian issue trap. This is happening today, at a time when the leader of socialists must be focused on a successful electoral campaign, and not on his own mistakes. So, on the eve of the meeting in Condrita, his deputy and propagandist of the pro-presidential PSRM Bogdan Tirdea did Igor Dodon an ill service, who in an interview with the Russian Nezavisimaya Gazeta said that the Moldovan socialists offer a federal model for settling the Transdniestrian conflict. The PSRM indeed invented something similar in 2013, however, Igor Dodon abandoned the federation concept back in 2017 and talked only about the “special status”, and by the end of 2018 has limited to standard rhetoric about the unification of the country. In this context, the president surely should not have raised the topic of political settlement of the conflict with Tiraspol before the meeting with Krasnoselsky – and he tried not to. That is why, already on the eve of communication with the head of Transdniestria, Igor Dodon personally disavowed Tirdea’s words, assuring that there can be no talk of a political settlement and certainly of a federation. This was awkward – the Moldovan leader was put in an uncomfortable position by his own people in their innocence or out of malice. The latter should not be excluded, since the Moldovan policy has long been a classic war of all against all. Moreover, Mr. Tirdea managed to do a bad favor to his boss not only before talking with Krasnoselsky, but also before the first meeting of the Transdniestrian leader with Dmitry Kozak, according to RTA colleagues this meeting could happen almost within the next day. The head of Transdniestria would thus have the opportunity to convince with reasons the Russian special representative of the adventurism and an indiscretion of his Moldovan counterpart, Dodon’s misunderstanding of the depth of the Transdniestrian conflict, etc. That is why the leader of the socialists preferred to agree with Krasnoselsky when he declared futile attempts of a political settlement of the Tiraspol-Chisinau relations. The Moldovan president followed the logic of “do no harm”, which means that he cannot achieve any real progress in the dialogue with Transdniestria, nor can he offer anything tangible to Tiraspol in the economy or the social sphere. One way or another, the Moldovan president will try to be cautious with the “Transdniestrian issue” in the coming months. Although some will certainly make him remember about it.