MOST TRANSNISTRIANS HOLD MOLDOVAN PASSPORTS

UNCLAS CHISINAU 000067 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/UMB E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PBTS MD SUBJECT: MOST TRANSNISTRIANS HOLD MOLDOVAN PASSPORTS Sensitive But Unclassified. Please Protect Accordingly. ¶1. (SBU) Summary: On January 16 the Government of Moldova adopted a decree prolonging until July 1 the free issuance of internal passports for Transnistrian residents. Since free issuance was introduced in 2005, an additional hundred thousand TN residents have signed up for citizenship papers. This brings to 385,000 the number of TN's 515,000 residents that are officially Moldovan citizens, having received either internal Moldovan passport, birth certificate or confirmation stamp in their old Soviet-style passport. Some of these individuals may also have Russian and/or Ukrainian citizenship. The fact that almost 75 percent of Transnistria's residents have confirmed their Moldovan citizenship suggests that popular acceptance of being citizens of Moldova may be a lot easier than the hard-line TN regime would like us to believe. End Summary. 75 Percent of TN Has Moldovan Citizenship... -------------- ¶2. (U) In September 2005, the Government of Moldova adopted a decree providing that TN residents can receive internal passports and birth certificates for children under 16 free of charge. Until that time TN residents paid the same fees as ordinary Moldovan citizens. A number of offices were opened along Dniester River to deal with TN residents. This decree has been prolonged every six months; the most recently to July 1, 2008. Over 100,000 new internal passports and birth certificates were issued between September 2005 and November 2007. Some 385,000 TN residents are considered Moldovan citizens having been issued either internal Moldovan passports or a birth certificate out of the total population of the region of about 515 thousand. ...But Many Have Russian and/or Ukrainian Passports -------------- -------------- ¶3. (U) As Transnistrian passports are not internationally recognized as legal travel documents, TN residents need to obtain citizenship of a recognized state if they wish to travel abroad. Some 130,000 TN residents have Russian citizenship, while about 70-80,000 have Ukrainian citizenship. Though no official statistics are available, some TN residents may have double or even multiple citizenship (predominantly Moldovan, Russian and Ukrainian, though there are also much smaller numbers of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens). ¶4. (SBU) Comment: While Smirnov and his hard-line inner circle would have us believe that the Transnistrian population are all clamoring for independence and Russian citizenship, in reality the majority of TN residents have made a more practical decision. Confronted with the reality of needing citizenship papers issued by an internationally-recognized state, almost 75 percent have chosen to register for internal or external Moldovan passports. This suggests that if 5+2 negotiations are ever successful, acceptance by residents of Transnistria that they are citizens of Moldova may not be so difficult to achieve. End Comment. KIRBY