​MOLDOVAN-UKRAINIAN TRADE REACHED US$785.2 MILLION IN 2016 – AMBASSADOR IVAN GNATISHIN

The trade turnover between Moldova and Ukraine grew 23% in 2016 against 2015 rate and reached US$785.2 million.

In his interview to Newsletter program of the Foreign Policy Association (APE), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Moldova Ivan Gnatishin said that Kiev and Chisinau are holding an active and interested political dialog.

“In 2016, 10 high-level meetings took place, within which heads of the two states discussed the development of bilateral relations, in particular, the Transnistrian conflict settlement”, the diplomat said.

Asked about Ukraine’s interest in the Transnistrian settlement before and after 2014, the Ambassador said that Kiev has a single interest – a peaceful, unified, prosperous and economically developing Moldova, which will be a stable neighbor for Ukraine.

“This is the object, pursued by Ukraine both in development of bilateral relations between our countries and in the Transnistrian settlement”, Gnatishin said.

According to him, Ukraine’s position is unchangeable and implies the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict on the basis of preserving sovereignty and territorial integrity of Moldova in the borders, recognized by the international community.

At the question about Ukraine’s attitude towards the proposed federalization of Moldova for settling the Transnistrian issue, the diplomat said: “We regard the federalization, which is being imposed to Moldova from outside on the basis of the 2003 model [the Kozak Memorandum], not as a way of settling the conflict, but on contrary – as a situation aggravation”.

The Ambassador said that Ukraine supports the policy of small steps in the Transnistrian settlement, being a supporter of Moldova in what concerns the transition to discussing political issues in the 5+2 negotiation format.

“We are entirely supporting Moldova in its demands on removing foreign military from its territory, which was promised back at the 1999 OSCE summit in Istanbul”, Gnatishin said.