TRANSDNIESTER TO CONDUCT REFERENDUM ON JOINING CIS.

Tiraspol media announced on October 30, that the Congress of People’s Deputies to the local Soviets of all levels voted unanimously to call a referendum on December 24 on Transdniester’s accession in its own right to the CIS. Voters will be called upon to approve joining the CIS Economic Union, Customs Union, Interparliamentary Assembly, and Collective Security Treaty. Chisinau has thus far refrained from reacting. (14)

The referendum would have symbolic but no legal value and will probably be ignored by official Russia, let alone other CIS countries. But the decision confirms that Tiraspol has no intention of settling its conflict with Chisinau and may indeed opt for escalating it. Transdniester conducted a referendum of this kind when it voted to be part of the USSR as a union republic in December 1991, two weeks before the USSR’s official dissolution, and accompanying the start of the insurgency against Moldova.

Georgian-Abkhaz Talks Relaunched.