CHISINAU. July 27 (Interfax-AVN) - The United States will not recognize the results of a planned referendum in the Moldovan breakaway region of Transdniestria on September 17 on proposals for the region to formally secede from Moldova and become part of Russia, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday.
Julie Finley, ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, told a meeting in Vienna of the OSCE Permanent Council that the planned referendum could not be seen as a serious or legitimate expression of the will of the Transdniestrian people and that no nation would recognize Transdniestria as a state with a lawful government.
Finley also asked Russia as a mediator in the Moldovan-Transdniestrian conflict to demand that Transdniestria cancel the planned referendum and to help find a negotiated solution to the conflict.
The Transdniestrian parliament has decided to put two questions on the referendum.
The first reads, "Do you consider it possible to sustain the course for international recognition of the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic and for the subsequent free entry of the TMR into the Russian Federation?"
The other is "Do you consider it possible for the Transdniestrian Moldovan Republic to cease to be independent and enter the Republic of Moldova?"