U.S. Does Not Consider ‘TMR’ Occupied Territory

Recently, the US Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm delivered a message on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of NATO. The American diplomat talked a lot about the historical mission of the North Atlantic Alliance, the relevance of collective security mechanisms, as well as the growing number of international challenges and threats. According to the RTA regular expert Dorin Mocanu, the Ambassador’s speech fully fits into the logic of the current confrontation between the West and Russia, if not for one ‘but’. “The Ambassador said that international challenges come primarily from China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, as well as international terrorist organizations. At the same time, surely, Russia is defined as the biggest threat to the sovereignty and independence of national states in Europe. The message clearly says: Moscow is showing aggression that threatens to undermine the prosperity, stability and peace built over the past 70 years. Throwing accusations against the Kremlin, the US official in Romania stressed that Russia has invaded and continues to occupy parts of the territory of sovereign Ukraine and Georgia,” the expert said. At the same time, Mocanu draws attention to the fact that the Embassy’s message left out mentioning of the Republic of Moldova. “The fact that there is no mention of a neighboring state with Romania in the Embassy’s message is extremely remarkable. After all, the Moldovan authorities have been demonstratively fighting with Russia and its illegal armed forces in the Transdniestrian region for almost 30 years. In May 2017, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova even recognized the Left Bank of the Dniester as a territory occupied by Russian troops. Therefore, Chisinau should be particularly offended that it was not mentioned in the same row with Georgia and Ukraine. The only thesis that just barely can be attributed to Moldova is that the North Atlantic Alliance complies with its obligations to partner states,” the analyst points out. According to the expert, such a symbolic fact may hardly by accounted as the banal distraction or oversight of the American Ambassador and his advisers, especially “on such sensitive issues of US regional policy”. “No need to remind about the importance of precise and well-considered language in diplomatic practice. Moreover, we are not talking about an oral statement, but about a thorough prepared in advance message on the general issues of international security. Besides, Bucharest is not some distant city, located at a serious distance from the political events in and around Moldova. On the contrary, Romania is a springboard for cooperation with both the neighboring republic and Transdniestria, which is increasingly falling into the G-field of regional processes. It’s enough to remember a joint workshop organized by the FBI for law enforcement officers from both banks,” the expert emphasizes. Mocanu believes that such a foreign policy message fits into the general trend that is to change the position of the United States in the region: “Obviously, there is ongoing gradual separation of Moldova and Transdniestria in some two separate cases that will be managed one-by-one”. At the same time, according to the expert, the United States is studying the possibility of increasing influence in the unrecognized region, but safely camouflages their actions through non-governmental and research institutions in Romania. In this context, Mocanu recalls that the sensational sociological study on Transdniestria was organized by the Black Sea University Fund in conjunction with the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “The United States has always been a leader in the invention and practical use of various mechanisms of ‘soft power’. It has long been a common practice for Washington to work with regions, often bypassing the capital, through local authorities, the civil sector and other loyal structures. The only thing that guides the United States is the criteria of their own interests in a particular place in the world, whether it is autonomy, city or unrecognized state entity. For a long time, the US has been working on the Transdniestrian track in line with the official position of Chisinau, supporting Moldova’s efforts to reintegrate the Left Bank. Apparently, approaches are changing, and Washington’s interests are significantly shifting away from the traditional ‘frontal’ fighting with the Russian threat in the region,” says Mocanu.