REPRESENTATIVES OF RUSSIA AND SOME OTHER COUNTRIES TAKING PART IN TRANSNISTRIA ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION
02.09.2010
The representatives of Russia and some other foreign countries ignored the recent appeal by the Moldovan Government to abstain from taking part in festivities dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the self-proclaimed Transnistrian republic, and gathered here for the event.
On its eve on Wednesday, a large official anniversary assembly in Tiraspol was attended by a whole number of esteemed guests – Russian Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Moldova Valery Kuzmin, prominent Russian statesman and politician, former Vice-President of the Russian Federation Alexander Rutskoy, president of Russian State University of Trade and Economics professor Sergei Baburin, actress and Russian State Duma deputy Yelena Drapeko.
The ongoing anniversary festivities have gathered also a delegation from the Russian Nobility Assembly, official delegations from South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorny Karabakh, officials from the Moscow oblast [region] administration and from the Russian Gazprom Concern, delegations of the Russian Cossack organizations, Tiraspol’s twin-cities, Romanov royal dynasty heir Grand Duke Georgii Mihailovitch, Metropolitan of Odessa and Izmail Agafangel, Metropolitan Justinian, and other.
The speech, delivered by the region’s unchangeable leader Igor Smirnov about the foundation, the present and perspectives of Transnistria, lasted 2.5 hours, and the subsequent ceremony of handing in anniversary medals took another two and a half hours.
Ambassador Valery Kuzmin reaffirmed that the Transnistria conflict must be finally settled by using exclusively peaceful political means on the basis of respect for the international law and proceeding from the geopolitical reality that has settled in Transnistria and around it.
“The official Moscow is convinced that an equal-right dialog and consolidation of Moldova’s constitutional neutrality are precisely the prerequisites for achieving a reliable and fair formula of conflict settlement. In acting so, Transnistria must be provided with a special, reliably guaranteed legal status”, said the diplomat, stressing that one of the corner stones of the settlement continues to be “the unique peacekeeping operation being implemented on the Dniester under Russia’s auspices”.
Actress and parliamentarian Yelena Drapeko said that Transnistria has quite many supporters in the Russian political elite as well as among citizens.
“I am convinced that one day we will together celebrate the real independence of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic”, she added.
Gen. Alexander Rutskoy, a Hero of the Soviet Union and an Afghan war veteran, called Transnistria “an island of freedom, whose citizens have made a real feat by pulling their state out of an economic and social mess. As a matter of fact, Transnistria depends on practically nobody. We should develop partnership and cooperation in all spheres with it. As president Igor Smirnov said, friendship between the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic and Russia is for centuries because we are just doomed to be together”.
Sergei Kivalov, Chairman of the standing committee for legal issues in the Ukrainian Supreme Rada [parliament], said that the citizens of Ukraine residing permanently in Transnistria (and constituting approximately 30% of the region’s population) “now have a future and stability”.
After the official meeting, Igor Smirnov was decorated with Abkhazia’s Order of Stoicism, and Metropolitan of Odessa and Izmail Agafangel handed in to him the Russian Orthodox Church’s supreme award for secular persons – the Order of St. Prince Vladimir, First Class.
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