Visiting Moscow, Condoleezza Rice was cautioned by pro-Western opposition leaders to not support Kosovo independence unilaterally. Doing so, they told her, would expose Washington double standards in how it treats Transdniestria. The day before her visit, a made-to-order report was issued on Kosovo's quest for statehood. 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was advised to think twice about the solo rush for Kosovo independence (file photo)MOSCOW (Tiraspol Times) - They hate Putin and love Bush. So it must have come as a surprise to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to hear from Russian opposition spokesmen that she should not pursue an aggressive pro-independence policy on Kosovo, lest it would reveal Washington's double standards in relation to the four unrecognized countries on the post-Soviet space: Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno Karabakh and finally Pridnestrovie; also known unofficially as Transdniestria or Transnistria.
The U.S. Secretary of State spent Tuesday, 15 May, in Moscow. In her hotel room, she whiled away some alone-time in that popular American pastime known as "channel surfing": Later, she asked the owner of Nezavisimaya Gazeta (“Independent Newspaper”) what Russians watch. She admitted that she had flipped through the Russian channels in her hotel room and saw game shows and courtroom shows.
Before meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Rice gave precedence to a meeting with five members of the Russian civil society and opposition. The meeting started at 9:45 a.m. at the residence of U.S. ambassador William Burns, Spaso House.
Irina Yasina, right, shown here in an earlier photo, warned Condoleezza Rice of too-obvious U.S. double standards (Photo: The White House).
Among the invited was Konstantin Remchukov, Editor-in-chief of the critical Nezavisimaya Gazeta, as well as Irina Yasina, program director of the Open Russia foundation.
Open Russia, founded by Kremlin-antagonist Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has Condoleeza Rice's predecessor Henry Kissinger on its board of trustees, alongside Lord Jacob Rothschild, OM GBE.
- Risk of accusations of double standards
Rice asked her sounding board how Russia feels about the possibility of giving Kosovo independence.
" - We warned the U.S. against a unilateral resolution of the Kosovo question," Remchukov said. "We said that it would irreversibly lead to a broad wave of anti-Americanism in Russian society and accusations of double standards. We said that the topic of unfriendly' states could become one of the main ways of earning political points in election campaigns."
Yasina added, "Everyone agreed that, after such an event, there would be little to keep Transdniestria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia from seceding from Moldova and Georgia."
Apparently the warning from Russia's pro-American opposition fell on deaf ears. Later that day, in her official meeting with Russia's President and Foreign Minister, Rice repeated Washington's gung-ho position on Kosovo again. But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov did not budge from his belief that artificial timelines and imposed solutions do more harm than good.
" - As for Kosovo, we agreed to try to find a resolution that would suit everyone but, unfortunately, we haven't found it yet," Lavrov said.
One day before Rice arrived in Moscow, a made-to-order report full of recommendations on Kosovo was issued by the Washington-funded International Crisis Group. Predictably, the recommendations read like an extravagant State Department laundry list with only the barest of concessions to Russia's concerns.
Important issues such as the Kosovo precedent were brushed aside in paragraphs rich on generalities but with a very low-calorie content of international law analysis.
Pridnestrovie (Transdniestria) declared independence in 1990 and meets all of the requirements for statehood under international law. But for political reasons, it has been unable to obtain international recognition.
A lack of diplomatic recognition does not invalidate statehood, but makes it harder for a country to work together with others in the international community. But even countries which are members of the United Nations do not have full and complete international recognition by all other members. Cyprus, Israel, People's Republic of China are generally considered countries, yet have not been able to successfully obtain recognition by all governments in the world.
" - Subjectivity plays too large a role in geopolitics," says a spokesman for the government in Tiraspol. (With information from Kommersant)
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