DEPUTY PREMIER STANDS FOR ENHANCING NEGOTIATIONS ON TRANSNISTRIAN SETTLEMENT

Deputy Premier, Minister for Reintegration Gheorghe Balan met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA to Moldova James D. Pettit on Monday and spoke for activating negotiations on Transnistrian conflict settlement.

According to the Bureau for Reintegration, the stakeholders discussed relevant topics from the agenda of negotiations on Transnistrian settlement, in particular, the development of the situation in the Security Zone and perspectives of conducting a new meeting in the 5+2 format.

Balan confirmed Moldovan Government’s desire to find solutions for problems faced by the population of the two sides of the Dniester River. It is about the rehabilitation of telephone communication, ensuring free movement of people, goods and vehicles, normal functioning of Moldovan schools with teaching on the basis of Latin graphic, recognition of Transnistrian education diplomas, ensuring free access of Moldovan farmers to their agricultural lands in Transnistria.

The press release also says that the sides pointed at the importance of supporting active and constructive dialog within the existing negotiation platforms.

“The participation of international subjects in negotiation process may efficiently contribute to resolving of the existing problems and to activation of negotiations in the 5+2 format”, Balan said.

As Infotag has already reported, negotiations in the 5+2 format have not been conducted for already three years. In 2016, two informal meetings of negotiation process were held in Germany, but negotiations have not been renewed. In early June 2016, a protocol of 7 points was signed in Berlin, after the fulfillment of which the decision should have been made on resuming the 5+2 negotiations. However, the protocol remained unfulfilled, which did not allow adoption of the decision on resuming full-scale negotiations.

Neither the German presidency in the OSCE in 2016, nor the presidency of Austria this year managed to convince the sides to come back to the negotiating table. Besides, due to discrepancies between the sides, this year, for the first time since 2009, the informal meeting in Bavaria did not take place during which Chisinau and Tiraspol representatives used to discuss issues, connected with support to confidence building measures.