THE 2005 LAW CREATED BASIS FOR TRANSNISTRIAN SETTLEMENT - FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR

Historian and anthropologist Mark Tkachuk, a former Advisor to ex-President Vladimir Voronin and an ex-Member of the Parliament, maintains that the 2005 Law "On main principles of the Transnistrian settlement" created a good basis for the process of conflict settlement.

During a conference within the project "Transnistrian Dialogs", he said he is categorically against the statements made by Tiraspol representatives, who say that the unanimously-voted law prevents the resolving of the Transnistrian problem.

"The law was adopted timely to prevent the process from degrading. It establishes framework principles for settlement, which may be and should be filled with details. It establishes redlines without which the settlement is impossible: the Moldova's statehood, neutrality and the international succession. It includes the name "Transnistria" but not eastern raions of Moldova or different somehow. According to the law, Transnistria may have its supreme soviet, emblem, anthem, symbols and three state languages. This is the basis on which the process of settlement may be built", Tkachuk maintains.

He reminded that the law was adopted unanimously and may be cancelled only by three-fourths of MPs' votes. At the same time, the law loses its legal force if a new law that establishes the Transnistria's status is adopted.

The expert said that for conflict settlement, it is necessary to have a variety of circumstances that are absent at the moment.

"Now, attempts are made to resolve the Transnistrian problem without taking into account that such problems have not been resolved at the global level", the analyst said.

According to him, certain conditions were created in 2003, when the so called Kozak Memorandum was developed, but back then certain circumstances hindered its signing.

"Moldova made certain concessions back then to sign this document. But we did not have public support or proper international consensus Russia undertook to ensure. There were other obstacles as well. I think that had Vladimir Voronin signed the Memorandum, this would have been the last document signed by him in the status of Moldovan president", supposed the former presidential advisor, adding that he does not know real reasons why the Moldovan president refused to sign the Memorandum.

Mark Tkachuk concluded that currently, the interest to Moldova from the side of the main international players is at a very low level, which hinders the seeking of the Transnistrian problem solution.

"Now, we have to develop horizontal relations between Chisinau and Tiraspol. For this, we need responsible leaders with high level of legitimacy", Tkachuk said, making it clear that there are no such leaders either at the right or at the left side of the Dniester River.