A leading member of the political opposition in Moldova told last week that the country remains vulnerable to criminal forces from the breakaway territory of Transdniestr

A leading member of the political opposition in Moldova told last week that the country remains vulnerable to criminal forces from the breakaway territory of Transdniestr, while the economic and political system of Moldova is stagnating after two years of communist rule. "Moldova is a small country under pressure of revanchist forces from abroad," said Oazu Nantoi, the chairman and co-founder of the Social Democratic Party of Moldova, explaining that Russia has both fostered the separatists in Transdniestr and attempted to "legalize" the presence of its own troops in the region. Nantoi says that a formula, developed by former Russian Prime Minister Evgeniy Primakov and accepted by the OSCE, to promote a negotiated settlement of the Transdniestr problem is "unbalanced" because it gives veto rights over any settlement not only to Russia, but the criminal regime in Transdniestr. Nantoi believes that "with grassroots activity it's possible to rebuild trust in Transdniestr and Moldova proper," thereby reuniting the two states. He acknowledges that "de-criminalization will be the toughest part of the effort" to bring peace to the region, and that the present government of Moldova might not be able to accomplish this.