PRESIDENT DODON WARNS ONE SHOULD NOT EXPECT A BREAKTHROUGH IN TRANSNISTRIAN CONFLICT SETTLEMENT

Moldova President Igor Dodon has warned that after a change of power in Chisinau, one should not expect a breakthrough in the Transnistrian conflict settlement process.

Speaking on the local television on Wednesday night, Dodon said: “Our fragile parliamentary majority consists of very different political forces. We have agreed to not touch on very acute, complicated problems and to avoid confrontation. Presently, we have to cleanse the country of corruption, of the criminal schemes left here by the previous regime”.

As for the Transnistrian conflict settlement, President Dodon believes Chisinau and Tiraspol should continue the tactics of small steps.

“All previous accords with Tiraspol must be observed and fulfilled. We must handle step by step all the problems faced by the residents of both Dniester River sides. As for the questions of a legal status for Transnistria or a final settlement of the Transnistrian conflict – I guess we can return to them in half a year or a year”, said the President.

At the same time, Igor Dodon presumes that the problem might be resolved easier.

“Everybody saw how peacefully we had achieved the transfer of power – because we had the population’s support and the solidarity of all our external partners. Who knows, may be the same partners – EU, Russia, USA – will decide to support us in the Transnistrian problem settlement, too? But in any case nobody but us must work out and propose a solution – nobody will do this job instead of us”, said Igor Dodon.

Commenting on the recent sayings by Moldova’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Nicolae Popescu, who happened to name the 1992 events on the Dniester “a civil war”, Igor Dodon said that he regards the armed confrontation with Transnistria “a domestic conflict”.

“The minister made a well-weighted assessment of those events. It was a domestic conflict, in which people of various ethnicities fought on both sides. Now somebody is criticizing the minister, trying to say that it was a war with Russia. Come on, guys, what are you saying? It was a bitter conflict, in which people died from both sides. This is a very deep wound in our hearts and minds, but we have to live on. Instead of looking for the responsible, we now need to develop dialog and achieve a compromise. Otherwise we will never reunite our country”, said the President.