Now, the Passport Issue

Last Tuesday the Moldovan government decreed that residents of Transdnistria can confirm their Moldovan nationality free of charge between September 11 and December 31, 2005, “according to a maximum simplified procedure.” This can be done in any population documentation center in cities along the right bank of the Dnister. A Soviet passport with a stamp confirming the bearer’s Moldovan nationality must be submitted. In the absence of this passport, residents of the region will be issued with ID papers as Moldovan nationals. President Vladimir Voronin has instructed that expenses connected with citizenship confirmation and the issuance of new documents be covered by the central budget. According to data of the Ministry of Informational Development (Chisinau), more than 270,000 residents of Transdnistria are formally Moldovan nationals; at least 80,000 are Russian citizens, and approximately as many are citizens of Ukraine. According to Interfax, the 2004 census indicated 583,000 residents of Transdnistria.

Dmitry Bragish, former prime minister of Moldova, believes that Chisinau’s plans to simplify the naturalization procedure meet the interests of part of the Transdnistrian population. At the same time he does not deny the possibility that they were developed within the framework of the Moldovan leadership’s policy of suppressing its own stand in the process of regulating the situation in Transdnistria. “If the majority of citizens of the unrecognized republic obtain Moldovan citizenship, this will mean that they prefer living in a single Moldova,” Mr. Bragish stated in an interview published in Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Chisinau’s move is in complete conformity with the spirit and letter of bills recently passed by the Moldovan parliament, the very ones that the Ukrainian side and Moldovan experts describe as attempts to torpedo Yushchenko’s plan for Transdnistria. Political analyst Viktor Zhosu, for example, notes that the “Address concerning Democratization Criteria in the Transdnistrian Region” (June 10, 2005) indicates that only Moldovan citizens who can confirm their citizenship should take part in elections on the territory of the unrecognized republic. Ukrainian proposals to settle the Transdnistrian issue state that the elections to the Supreme Council of Transdnistria, supervised by foreign observers, should lead to the emergence of a legitimate representative body of the unrecognized Transdnistrian Moldovan Republic (TMR).

Three documents dated June 10, as well as a law on the status of Left-Bank Dnester, passed by the Moldovan parliament, contradict a number of clauses in Viktor Yushchenko’s plan. “The Moldovan president could not avoid finding a middle ground with his Ukrainian colleague’s ambitious desire, especially in view of Moldova and Russia’s worsening relations,” notes Viktor Zhosu. “Nevertheless, Voronin quickly made it clear that he was prepared to do this only to a certain point, which is limited exclusively to agreeable verbal wishes.”

Mr. Yushchenko’s plan envisages the juridical formation of Transdnistria as a region with special status within Moldova, to be carried out in several stages. Ukrainian mediators believe that Chisinau has “jumped the gun,” to put it mildly. Commenting on one aspect of the problem, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the TMR Petro Chaly said, “In a recently passed law the parliament of the Moldovan Republic specified the status of Transdnistria as an autonomy, following the example of Gagauzia. But we are seeing that this status will not foster a rapprochement between the various sides. We do not support the idea of Moldova’s federalization, but what the Moldovan parliament has proposed without coordinating or consulting with Transdnistria will also fail to yield any positive changes. We, mediators, must consider a way out of this situation, how to help get everyone to the bargaining table. In the manner of an ultimatum the Moldovans have declared that without an expanded format they will not conduct negotiations with separatists — specifically without the involvement of mediators, in addition to the OSCE, Ukraine, Russia, the EU, and the US. It is difficult to convince Russia to agree to expand the format. Viktor Yushchenko’s plan provides for just such a contingency; we believe that this move will stimulate the negotiating process, but the Moldovans say that without this they will not sit down at the negotiating table.”

The Moldovan parliament’s resolution “Address on the Principles and Conditions of Demilitarization” urges Russia to “complete the removal and disposal of Russian munitions and arms, as well as the withdrawal of all Russian troops” by the end of 2005. Naturally, no one in Moscow is in any hurry to comply with this “request.” Petro Chaly warns: “They want us to be dragged into the problem of withdrawing Russian troops. This warrants a cautious approach: we are not participants in the conflict, but they are trying to turn us into one of the sides.”

At the same time, it must not be overlooked that Ukraine began granting Ukrainian citizenship free of charge to Transdnistrian residents — many of whom are ethnic Ukrainians — long before Moldova. According to Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, “some 5,000 Transdnistrians have taken advantage of this.” Petro Chaly, who holds a dual post as departmental head of the Presidential Administration in charge of citizenship questions and ambassador, is convinced that this policy is not dragging Ukraine into the conflict and is not interference in the internal affairs of a neighboring country: “The Moldovans are accusing us of this, but Moldovan legislation, unlike Ukraine’s, allows dual citizenship: Moldovan and Romanian, Moldovan and Russian... At one time the government dispatched hundreds of thousands of people to Transdnistria to work, develop agriculture, and as a result they obtained some sort of incomprehensible status. According to our laws and international law, we not only can but are obliged to grant citizenship to all stateless persons. There are more than 100,000 of them in Transdnistria. Above all, this means caring for people,” Petro Chaly declared in response to a question from The Day. (Keep in mind that at one time Kyiv protested against the mass issuance of Romanian passports to residents of Chernihiv oblast: these were not stateless people but Ukrainian nationals).

There is another piece of news from the “Transdnistrian field”: the European Union is planning to launch a technological aid project before the end of the year, aimed at upgrading the security of the Ukrainian-Transdnistrian border. The EU will supply equipment to help improve border control, provide assistance in creating databases for exchanging information, and conduct training courses for officials on both sides of the border. EU officials will also conduct surprise inspections of the Ukrainian-Moldovan border in the Transdnistria region. This monitoring meets Ukraine’s national interests. “The main thing is for our border guard troops to demonstrate their work: how we have brought order to the frontier, how we are fighting against contraband. This is extremely important, as it will help improve Ukraine’s image, enable us to use appropriate technology on the border, and raise our border guard troops’ professional level,” stated Petro Chaly.