US Gets More Proactive in the Transdniestrian Settlement

The first meeting of the new Parliament of Moldova is to be held this week, at which the first outlines of the future coalition are expected to be revealed. Ritual flirtations with the ACUM bloc are still ongoing, but many experts tend to think that the parliamentary majority will be formed without the participation of right-wing pro-European forces. At the same time, the demonstrative frequency of meetings of the American Ambassador in Chisinau with various political parties and movements clearly suggests that Washington has chosen the role of the chief architect of power in Moldova in the next 4 years. The Russian Ambassador’s contacts with Igor Dodon, comparable in frequency, are probably intended to somehow balance the ‘disproportion of meetings’ and support Moscow’s positions – though caused little stir in the media.  And looking at the intensity and political spectrum of the contacts of the main American diplomat in Moldova, the comparison is not in favor of his Russian counterpart. The format of the potential PSRM-PDM coalition is to a certain extent toxic for all – both for the participants and for external partners. Therefore, such a union needs a convincing and understandable reasoning for all, including listing of strategic objectives that will attribute new high significance and concrete prospects to the cooperation of these two nominal antagonists. Most likely, the modernization of the country, the search for a balance in foreign and domestic policy, as well as the Transdniestrian settlement will be the conciliating objectives. It is known that any distinct and documented plan of conflict settlement with Transdniestria wasn’t presented during all time of government of the pro-European forces in Moldova. The only concept to date belongs to President Igor Dodon. Probably, it will be adopted by the future coalition bloc as an ideological basis in the Transdniestrian issue. The main idea of the concept is to achieve an international deal of all the leading world powers in relation to Moldova, drawn up at the level of the UN Security Council, including international guarantees of military ‘neutrality’ of Moldova and long-term external financing of the entire post-conflict period. That is, the President proposes to directly involve the main geopolitical players in the process of resolving the long-standing conflict at the systemic level. This move is well-founded in terms of sharing the overall burden and, most importantly, sharing the responsibility for the dynamics of the negotiations and the final results. The project of the Moldovan leader has a good chance to find the right response in the world capitals. However, Igor Dodon’s initiatives were treated with great criticism in Tiraspol. Somewhat unexpectedly there was a tough statement by the foreign policy body of unrecognized Transdniestria, which some experts began to consider as a deliberately detailed version of the statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry made a few days earlier. In their opinion, the Russian partners could ask Tiraspol to express Moscow’s position in some other lexical forms. It is difficult to say how true this is, but it is not difficult to understand the meaning of each of the statements. The Russian Foreign Ministry scolded the Moldovan leader solely for his hasty views on the prospects for the settlement of the Transdniestrian conflict. Tiraspol criticized the very concept of the Moldovan President, seeing it as an attempt to break the current course of negotiations that is focused on solving social and humanitarian problems, without considering status political issues. Viewed from this angle, it suggests that the signal transmitted through Tiraspol was intended not so much for Chisinau as for specific persons who patronize the political situation in Moldova. A few days later, we witnessed a round of shuttle diplomacy of the US Ambassador to Moldova, who managed to communicate with President Igor Dodon in the morning, and to visit Tiraspol in the afternoon for a meeting with Vadim Krasnoselsky. Apparently, the signal from Transdniestria made some impact on the planned launch of the coalition process in the Moldovan Parliament, taking place under American patronage, which, of course, required an urgent reaction of the States. The Transdniestrian conflict settlement will become one of the central elements of this no longer secret and generally expected plan from the new government of the Republic of Moldova. Therefore, it is quite obvious that the shuttle activity of American diplomats will only increase over time with all the ensuing political consequences. The main conclusion that can be drawn from the situation – Washington came in Moldova and is here to stay, and the construction of the new building of the US Embassy is only a banal illustration of this fact. Active mediation of the US Ambassador means that the US is moving from engaged observation to direct participation in the settlement process. Probably, the Americans are determined to succeed and are ready to take into account many years of past experience in this field with its many mistakes. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain the fact that American diplomats at the present stage pay no less attention to Tiraspol than to Chisinau.