MOLDOVAN CONCESSION FAILS TO ADVANCE TRANSDNIESTER TALKS.

Held in Chisinau September 13, another round of negotiations between Moldovan president Mircea Snegur and Transdniester leader Igor Smirnov ended in failure despite a marked Moldovan retreat from its previous stance: Snegur had, shortly before the meeting, consented to federal status for Transdniester as a "republic" with some elements of statehood within Moldova. But on September 9, Smirnov had made a speech in Russia’s Duma calling for Russian recognition of Transdniester’s secession from Moldova, pending a future accession to the Russian Federation. The September 13 negotiating session in Chisinau produced no document, and no date was set for another meeting, despite the OSCE Mission’s mediating efforts. (12)

The other mediator, Russia’s ambassador Vladlen Vasev as special envoy of Boris Yeltsin, has long countenanced Tiraspol’s intransigence. A third mediator, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma’s senior adviser Volodimir Furkalo, joined the negotiations for the first time at this round. Tiraspol has indicated that it is not interested in further negotiations, at least not until Russia’s upcoming parliamentary elections, from which it expects a further increase in the Duma’s hard-line majority, leading to greater Russian support for Transdniester. Ethnic Russians make up only 25 percent of the region’s population.

Poor Response Yeltsin’s Alliance Call.