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Friday, October 31, 2008
CHISINAU, Moldova: Nato Secretary-General Jaap de HoopScheffer urged Russia on Thursday to comply with its pledge to withdraw its troops and weapons from Moldova.
De Hoop Scheffer was referring to a pledge Russia made at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe summit in Istanbul in 1999 to withdraw from the separatist region of Trans-Dniester in eastern Moldova.
“I sincerely hope on the basis on the principles we all agreed upon (in Istanbul) ... a solution can be found,” the Nato chief said during a brief visit to Moldova. Trans-Dniester broke away in 1992 after a bloody war with Moldova that left more than 1,500 people dead. Russia maintains about 1,500troops and an unknown amount of light weapons in Trans-Dniester, despite calls by the United States and the European Union to respectthe 1999 pledge to withdraw them.
Russian officials say Trans-Dniester is strategically important for Russia and that withdrawing the troops would cause instability.
In August, the Kremlin warned Moldova that aggression against Trans-Dniester could provoke a Russian military response.
De Hoop Scheffer met Thursday with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and told him that Nato respected Moldova’s neutrality. Healso met with Defence Minister Vitalie Vrabie and Foreign MinisterAndrei Stratan.
Moldova, located between Nato member Romania and Ukraine, is a member of the alliance’s partnership for peace program but has not sought Nato membership.
Meanwhile, The United States on Thursday welcomed Russia’s initiative to host the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks on the disputed Nagorny Karabakh region.
“We are pleased by this initiative that Moscow is undertaking. We hope that the initiative succeeds. We are monitoring it very closely,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
Moscow announced it will host a meeting on November 2 between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian to help end the long-simmering conflict over Nagorny Karabakh.
The region is an enclave of Azerbaijan with a largely ethnic Armenian population that broke free of Baku’s control in the early 1990s.
Analysts say Moscow is keen to boost its influence in the South Caucasus after Russia’s brief war with US-allied Georgia in August raised tensions throughout the region. The August war, which began when Georgia attacked its own breakaway enclave of South Ossetia, raised fears of similar violence in Nagorny Karabakh.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
