A CHANCE TO CIVILIANIZE RUSSIA’S "PEACEKEEPING" OPERATION IN MOLDOVA
By Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
June 12 2007
Moldova President Vladimir Voronin An "Extraordinary Conference of
the States Parties to the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe"
(CFE) opens today in Vienna, to run through June 15. Russia exercised
its right — as one of the 30 state-parties to that treaty — to
convene this conference on short notice. Moscow has artificially
created an emergency atmosphere around this event by threatening
to suspend its own compliance with either the original 1990 or the
1999-adapted CFE Treaty.
Russia hopes to browbeat NATO and EU countries into ratifying the
1999 treaty while tolerating indefinitely the ongoing breaches of
Russia’s own obligations — the Istanbul Commitments — within that
same Treaty. Once the 1999 treaty is brought into force, its scope
would be extended to cover the three Baltic states, where Russia
wants to introduce limits on any hypothetical deployments of Western
forces. This would be a win-win outcome for Russia in southern and
northern Europe.
With Russian troops finally on their way out from two bases in Georgia,
the unlawful presence of Russian troops in Moldova stands out as
a major remaining unfulfilled Russian commitment under the 1999
package. The "Operational Group of Russian Forces" in Transnistria
consists of a reported 1,500 troops, one or two battalions of which
are earmarked for "peacekeeping" duty by rotation. The Russian base
at Gudauta in Georgia and Russian-supplied arsenals to post-Soviet
secessionist forces (Transnistria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Karabakh)
are the other ongoing breaches.
Through shrill rhetoric and a little German help, Moscow hopes to
break the Western policy of linking ratification of the adapted
CFE Treaty with Russia’s fulfillment of the Istanbul Commitments,
primarily on Moldova.
For their part, the United States and some allied countries propose to
accept a small number of Russian troops remaining in Moldova as part
of an internationalized peacekeeping operation for a limited period
of time. Russia would evacuate or scrap its ammunition stockpiles
as well as withdrawing part of its troops. The internationalized
operation would be a military one, though potentially reformable into
an operation with greater civilian content later on (see EDM, June 8).
Its outline revealed by the U.S. State Department in Brussels on June 5
(AP, Reuters, June 5), this looks like a creative solution to satisfy
all sides. The Western allies would announce Russia’s fulfillment of
the Istanbul Commitments (or, preferably from Moscow’s viewpoint,
would simply consign Istanbul to oblivion) and would open the way
for Russia-desired ratification of the CFE Treaty. At the same time,
Moldova would be rid of part of the Russian troops while hosting
Western troops that would more than offset Russia’s in Moldova,
and with a prospect of removal of remaining Russia troops later on.
Whether Russia would accept this solution — or at what political
price — is far from certain, however. Moreover, the details regarding
structure, command, mandate, and other key issues would remain to
be settled through negotiations — with Russia, on one hand, and
among Western countries, on the other hand. Moscow could string out
this particular negotiation for a long time. It could even block it
through the familiar tactic of defining the internationalization of
the peacekeeping operation as conditional on a political settlement of
the Transnistria conflict, even as Moscow itself blocks that settlement
through Tiraspol. The Kremlin counts on Berlin to continue supporting
such sequencing.
Moldova’s position goes further than the emerging Western proposal.
In addition to internationalization, Chisinau calls also for
"civilianization" of the peacekeeping operation. It proposes turning
the Russian military operation into an international mission of
civilian and military observers, with some small military backup,
under an international mandate.
Chisinau first called for civilianizing the peacekeeping operation
in 2005 and has adhered to it steadfastly since then. President
Vladimir Voronin’s recent search for accommodation with the Kremlin
notwithstanding, Moldova’s delegation at the June 11-15 Extraordinary
Conference is acting under presidentially approved instructions to call
for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Moldova and deployment
of an international mission of civilian and military observers.
This position can prove effective, certainly as an opening gambit
and probably also in the upcoming negotiations over how to transform
the existing "peacekeeping" operation. If — as seems likely —
Russia would try to dominate a follow-up operation or stonewall it
altogether, Moldova could always call for a civilianized operation
as a way around such Russian difficulties.
Moreover, rightly or wrongly but almost inevitably in this situation,
Chisinau worries about a trade-off at its expense. This could take
the form of Western allies declaring Russia to be in compliance with
its Istanbul Commitments, in return for a mere promise of compliance
rather than the actual one. However, the adapted CFE Treaty cannot
be ratified in the absence of host-country consent to the stationing
of foreign troops on its territory. Moldova would eagerly give such
consent to a genuine international operation, but only after it is
in place and not if it turns out to be revamped only cosmetically.
Given the likelihood of Russian obstruction of this process, Moldova
seems well advised to stick to its position at least for the time being
and use it as a bargaining card if necessary in follow-up stages of
negotiations toward internationalizing the existing operation. The
use of bargaining cards in negotiations — along with flexibility
in the negotiations — would be a sign of normal state behavior on
Moldova’s part.
The goal of civilianizing the peacekeeping operation could also create
synergy with Georgia, the parliament of which has called in July
2006 for deployment of internationally mandated civilian missions —
mainly police units — in place of Russian "peacekeeping" troops in
Abkhazia and South Ossetia (see EDM, July 20, 2006).