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Originally Posted by Plant Woman
Egads, am I on a sugar high.
Someone please talk me down. 
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Want to read part of my draft? That should dispel any high that you currently feel
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was the first international organization become involved in the conflict, setting up headquarters in Chisinau in 1993. The OSCE has faced criticism from both Chisinau and Transnistria, and despite its relentless encouragement of negotiations between the parties involved, has not produced significant progress. It has served primarily as a point of contact for the involved parties: the Transnistrians, Moldovans, Russians, and Ukrainians. A 1993 OSCE report (Doklad N.13 Missii SBSE v Moldove) examines options for granting Transnistria “special status” within the “territorial integrality of Moldova,” and the possibilities of a unitary government, a federation, a confederation, or an autonomous region, perhaps based on the model of the Gaugauzian autonomous region of Moldova. The OSCE-sponsored 1997 “Memorandum on the Bases of Normalization of Relations Between the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria” (Memorandum ob osnovakh normalizatsii otnoshenii mezhdu Republikoy Moldova i Pridnestrov'em) attempts to present a framework for moving ahead, and includes several provisions relevant to Russian policy, including a request for Russian mediation and a guarantee for Transnistrian influence in the formulation of Moldovan foreign policy. The leaders of Moldova, Transnistria, Russia, and Ukraine signed the document.
In 1998 and 1999, the OSCE convened two summits – one in Oslo and the other in Istanbul - to develop a framework and a timeline for Russian withdrawal from Transnistria. The final result was a schedule for withdrawal of military equipment and troops by 2005, and the US Congress provided $43 million of aid in support of this goal. Russia did remove or destroy equipment in order to come into compliance with CFE agreements. However, significant amounts of materiel remain in Transnistria. In 2000, President Putin reiterated a need for synchronization of Russian withdrawal with a political settlement.
