​OSCE SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE ON TRANSNISTRIA SETTLEMENT WOLF DIETRICH HEIM TO VISIT CHISINAU AND TIRASPOL THIS WEEK

The Special Representative of the Austrian OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the Transnistrian Settlement Process, Ambassador Wolf Dietrich Heim, will visit Chisinau and Tiraspol on January 17-20, the OSCE Mission to Moldova has reported.

According to it, the Special Representative of the Austrian OSCE Chairperson-in-Office will arrive in the Moldovan capital later on Tuesday. In the course of his visit, the diplomat will meet in Chisinau with Moldovan Parliament Chairman Andrian Candu, Prime Minister Pavel Filip, with Moldova’s Political Representative at the Transnistria negotiations, Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Affairs Gheorghe Balan, and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Lilian Darii.

On Thursday, Ambassador Wolf Dietrich Heim will meet in Tiraspol with Transnistria’s new president Vadim Krasnoselsky, Transnistrian supreme soviet [parliament] speaker Alexander Shcherba and Tiraspol’s acting Chief Negotiator Vitaly Ignatiev.

During his visit, Ambassador Heim will also hold meetings with the resident Ambassadors from the Russian Federation and Ukraine (Mediators) and the European Union and the United States (Observers) as part of the international partners’ co-ordinated efforts within the 5+2 format to support the sides in moving the process forward.

As already reported by Infotag, the negotiations in the 5+2 format would not have been held for two and a half years by now. In 2016, thanks to the efforts of then-German OSCE Presidency, the stakeholders held a number of informal meetings, but official talks failed to be resumed. The solution of this problem will be sought in 2017 by the incumbent Austrian OSCE Presidency.