CHISINAU. Oct 4 (Interfax-AVN) - A 24-car train carrying Russian weapons and military hardware left a terminal in the Trans- Dnestr region on Friday.
The convoy with Uragan multiple launch rocket systems, rockets for them, mines, artillery shells and materiel of the Russian troops group left the Kolbasna terminal at 2:00 p.m. Moscow time (1000 GMT), a source in the Russian group headquarters told Interfax-Military News Agency. The train is bound for a military unit in the Moscow region.
"Sentries of the Moscow military district are guarding the train. They arrived in Tiraspol on Thursday evening," he said.
OSCE military monitors, led by David Swartz, head of the OSCE permanent mission in Chisinau, inspected the convoy on Thursday and did not register any violations.
At the OSCE summit in Istanbul in 1999, Russia promised to withdraw its troops from Moldova before the end of 2002. Three trains with military hardware left Tiraspol in November and December 2001. However after the presidential elections in the region in December 2001, the Transdnestrian administration banned the military train service, demanding a compensation of USD100m.
The withdrawal of arms and armament from the Trans-Dnestr region is resumed in accordance with a protocol signed in Tiraspol on September 25 by Army General Vladimir Isakov, chief of the Armed Forces logistics support department, deputy defense minister and head of a Defense Ministry commission, and Igor Smirnov, president of the self-proclaimed Trans-Dnestr Republic. The Russian delegation agreed to write off some of the Transdnestrian region's USD600m debt for gas supplies by way of compensation for the removal of defense hardware and ammunition. The principal debt was reduced by USD50m and the penalties by another USD50m.
The Russian troops command is ready to dispatch the trains from the region every three days. "However such a mission has not been assigned, under an accord with the Transdnestrian authorities, trains will depart once a week," the source said.
Storehouses of the former 14th Russian army in the Kolbasna village contain some 42,000t of ammo. Over 25,000t that are to be withdrawn to Russia before the end of the year, and the rest are to be scrapped on the spot. A fair share of the ammunition has been kept in the region since World War II and cannot be transported.