The Transdniestrian Settlement in 2021: Are There Any Prospects?

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Sergiu CEBAN A breakthrough in the negotiations between Chisinau and Tiraspol can hardly be expected, but tensions between key international players might seriously shake the Transdniestrian settlement status quo Maia Sandu chaired her first meeting of the Supreme Security Council the day before. It was held to discuss the current domestic situation as broadly and in detail as possible, as well as to make a number of important political decisions. Most likely, the participants in the meeting did not ignore the Transdniestrian settlement issue which is not listed among the main topics for the new president yet, but is still relevant. It is crucial for the present interim government not only to define its strategic vision of the Transdniestrian issue, but to understand the current position of the country's political leadership on some technical issues that affect relations with Tiraspol here and now. The OSCE Special Representative for the Transdniestrian Settlement Thomas Mayr-Harting is on a working visit to Moldova these days, since he has retained his post and will assist Sweden in managing the negotiations during the year. Apart from the need to prepare for the upcoming visit of the OSCE Chairman, Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde to Moldova, the diplomat has probably arrived with a very specific practical purpose: to take the "temperature" in the dialogue between Chisinau and Tiraspol in order to plan work for 2021 and draw up an agenda of priority tasks. The previous year turned out to be especially difficult for the negotiation process. The pandemic had a negative impact on the Chisinau-Tiraspol relations, who decided to break off their relations completely instead of combining efforts, experience and resources and jointly confront a major common challenge. Apparently, that was also due to the lack of external attention, which resulted in a scenario when both sides lost more than gained. As a result, the settlement process reached another critical indicators (minimum of meetings at all levels, no 5+2 meetings), and the international participants failed to find an opportunity to convene for consultations. The new abundance of problems accumulated during 2020 and the internal political situation development which is difficult to predict will hardly offer great prospects to normalize the Transdniestrian issue in the coming year. As experts note, the international negotiators waiting for more certainty in the fight against the pandemic still have a low interest in the Transdniestrian topic. They are clearly in no hurry with any practical initiatives that would help revive dialogue between Chisinau and the Tiraspol administration and reintroduce this problem in the international discourse as one of those which is more likely to be finally resolved. In these conditions, the main expectations are apparently associated with the new American administration's stance which will (re)formulate its further approaches to the post-Soviet space in the next six months. This primarily concerns Moldova and Ukraine, where unresolved conflicts continue to exist with a strong Russian presence. Meanwhile, Moscow seems to be focused primarily on the Moldovan electoral agenda, in particular on the need to ensure a successful revenge by former President Igor Dodon and the Socialist Party in the event of early elections to the country's legislature. It seems that the Transdniestrian issue is still viewed by the Kremlin strategists as a functional non-core resource, and any radical changes in the post-Soviet regions under external influence will meet Moscow's ad-hoc response. At the same time, many observers are confident that the situation around Moldova and Ukraine will change anyway and these changes might well be very dramatic. The key trigger will be a more intensive confrontation between Washington and Moscow, with different points of refraction, including our region. Thus, the regional balance that has developed over the past 30 years might be shifted with all the ensuing consequences. Bucharest, as one of the US most important strategic allies in the region and a close partner of Moldova, through the mouth of Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu, has recently called on the EU authorities to take a leading role in resolving frozen conflicts, including the Transdniestrian one. In this regard, the Swedish and subsequent Polish chairmanship in the OSCE allows the West to start a more consistent principled line to neutralize the Russian influence while supporting Kiev and Chisinau. By the way, Ukraine is already working proactively and is involved in building the ground for the new American leadership's military-strategic decisions. Here we speak about another law adopted by the Verkhovna Rada on the foreign troops deployment on Ukraine's territory in 2021. This is most likely due to the plans of the United States to join with the European allies to conduct "Defender Europe 2021", the most ambitious military exercise since the collapse of the USSR. Therefore, the possible involvement of Ukrainian and Moldovan units in the event may have a very specific goal to implement a plan on neutralizing the Russian military group located on the left bank of the Dniester, with the involvement of the North Atlantic Alliance forces. Thus, our regional platform may become a place of active geopolitical tensions in the coming years, and the political settlement of the Transdniestrian conflict may approach its final solution.