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Transnistria is in a quandary: While it calls itself a country, no one else does.
It has a flag, stamps, banknotes and the self-proclaimed name of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic. But to the former Soviet republic of Moldova, where it is situated, the eel-shaped sliver of land with 550,000 people is just the "left bank" of the Dniester River. The Russian-speaking area, which fought a bloody battle for independence from Romanian-speaking Moldovans in 1992, is now a pawn in a new, tense game of East-West diplomacy. The refusal by President Vladimir Putin of Russia to withdraw 1,200 troops is one sticking point in ratification by NATO members of a treaty that is a cornerstone of post-Cold War security. Putin has signed legislation suspending Moscow's participation in the treaty as of Wednesday.
"The Russians have little interest in solving this one," says Jacques Rupnik, a professor at the Paris Institute of Political Studies. "The current situation is much more useful to them."
Most of the Russian troops in Transnistria guard a 21,000-ton stockpile of outdated weapons left behind by the once-mighty Soviet 14th Army. Moldova, among other countries, argues that their presence violates a 1999 revision of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, which is often referred to as the CFE.
"Our position is that all sides should accept their responsibility under the CFE, including the removal of foreign troops," says Andrei Stratan, the Moldovan minister of foreign affairs and European integration. "The Russian position worries us a lot and also creates discomfort in Europe."
Russia's threat to withdraw from the treaty also raised alarm in Washington. Putin's move may increase pressure on the United States to step back from plans for a missile-defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland, which Russia says would compromise its security.
"This is Russia unilaterally walking out of one of the most important arms-control regimes of the last 20 years," the U.S. under secretary of state, Nicholas Burns, said last month. "This is a mistake."
Moldova, which has not ratified the treaty, borders Ukraine to the east and has historic ties to its western neighbor, Romania, now a member of the European Union. Moldova is also developing broader ties with western Europe and in 2005 added "European Integration" to the name of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This year, for the first time, more than half its trade was with EU nations.
"Moldova has come to be at the center of attention, as everyone looks for a compromise to save the CFE treaty," said Vasili Sova, Moldovan minister for reintegration.
The country recently offered to disband its army in return for a Russian withdrawal and to give Transnistria broad autonomy. Russia has neither accepted nor rejected the proposal.
"This is a solvable problem," says Louis O'Neill, the former head of the Moldova mission for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "We could solve it quickly if there was the will."
Transnistria accounted for 40 percent of the Moldavian republic's gross national product during Soviet times. Its ambiguous status now is one of several "frozen conflicts" to emerge from the messy collapse of the Soviet Union during the 1990s. It may also be the easiest to fix, diplomats say.
"This is not a frozen conflict so much as a conflict whose solution has been frosted," Kalman Mizsei, a European Union special representative, said at a conference in Ukraine last month.
Passions that fueled the 1992 clash between Transnistrians and Moldovans, which killed 1,500 people, have cooled. The inhabitants of the two banks of the river come from the same ethnic groups: Russian, Ukrainian and Moldovan.
"Moldova is not such a big country to be divided in two," said Leonid Ceban, 52, who keeps a shop in Cosnitsa, a village in a no man's land guarded by an old Soviet personnel carrier draped in camouflage. "Nobody remembers why they fought."
Still, separatist sentiments are re-emerging as the United States and the EU prepare to recognize, against Russia's wishes, the likely secession of Kosovo, a predominantly Albanian region of Serbia. "Our goal is to get international recognition, and we would look at Kosovo as an important precedent," said Vladimir Yastrebchak, Transnistria's first deputy foreign minister. "In our view, we have a greater right to recognition than Kosovo."
Russia has argued that a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo would set a dangerous precedent for other conflicts, including two on its border with Georgia.
"It would likely cause a chain reaction," the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in September.
Russia holds the key to the Transnistrian impasse and to its solution. Besides its troops, it sustains Transnistria's economy through hidden subsidies, like a $1.3 billion unpaid bill owed to the Russian gas company Gazprom.
Both sides of the Dniester River are increasingly frustrated with the state of limbo, which they blame for their continuing poverty. According to the CIA World Factbook, Moldova, with a population of about 4.7 million, is among the poorest countries of the former Soviet republics. Thirty percent of its economy is fueled by remittances from citizens working abroad.
"People are just tired of the uncertainty," says Vitali Omelianov, a surveyor who was born in Transnistria and who lives now in Chisinau, Moldova's capital.
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