Deputy Foreign Minister of the PMR Dmitry Palamarchuk gave an exclusive interview to the Novosti Pridnestrovya News Agency
- The Moldovan side refused to hold the previously announced and, as it seemed, agreed meeting of representatives on political issues in Tiraspol. What is the reason for this decision?
- This situation is inexplicable for the Pridnestrovian side. Pridnestrovie has repeatedly faced over the years of negotiations with the Moldovan side’s inability to fulfill the agreements reached, its commitments, attempts to evade discussion of acute problematic issues.
However, I think this is the first time when the refusal to hold a meeting already agreed upon in the presence of more than ten international diplomats and members of the negotiating teams of Pridnestrovie and Moldova occurs. Such actions can hardly be justified - they are illogical and irrational. The Moldovan side, as the word is, “shot itself in the foot”. Fellow-diplomats remark on this demarche more sharply on the sidelines.
- What such a position of the Republic of Moldova can say about?
- First of all, it confirms that the unique instruments and capabilities that the current negotiation mechanisms provide the sides with are absolutely neglected by our Moldovan counterparts.
Of course, such an approach is short-sighted. In fact, the Moldovan side intentionally or unintentionally acts to unbalance the existing negotiating structure. Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Cord Hinrich Meier-Klodt invites the sides to work towards the creation of a “small success stories”. However, such stories are unattainable through the Moldovan side’s methods.
Today, in view of the public inquiry, the interest of international mediators and observers both sides need for professional, result-oriented work at various levels of the negotiation process. But instead our Moldovan counterparts only make declarative messages in the media. There have been continuing statements from the Republic of Moldova on the need to use all available opportunities to discuss and solve problems, to establish constructive dialogue, intensify negotiations in all formats – RM Prime Minister of Pavel Filip speak a lot about it.
In fact, the Moldovan side has refused to hold the previously agreed meeting of representatives on political issues, has ignored three invitations to the meeting of the expert (working) groups on the development of transport and road facilities, two - on rail transport and communications this year alone. Pridnestrovie is also offered to hold a meeting of experts on the termination of criminal proceedings, meetings of expert (working) on education, regulatory and documentation support of citizens and humanitarian aid. Answers to these initiatives have not been received.
In most mentioned areas there are integrated developed offers of the Pridnestrovian side, sent in a written formal way to the colleagues in the RM, and all other “5+2” participants. However, these ideas remain only on paper, since the self-removal of Moldovan representatives from the contacts does not allow to start a discussion on them.
Perhaps the RM Prime Minister has a reason for thinking about the fact that the actions of his direct subordinate – the representative on political issues of Moldova - are fundamentally and cardinally inconsistent with the official declarations of the Moldovan side.
- What is the Pridnestrovian side going to take?
- The representative on political issues of Pridnestrovie is on an official visit to Moscow, where he will hold a meeting with Ambassador at Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Nikolayevich Gubarev earlier in the week. At the end of the week Pridnestrovie expects the visit to Tiraspol of a newly appointed representative of Ukraine – Ambassador at Large of the MFA Valery Timofeyevich Zhovtenko. The negotiating team from Pridnestrovie is in constant contact with representatives of the mediators and observers in the negotiation process.
The Pridnestrovian side raises and will continue to insistently raise the issue on increasing discipline in the dialogue, on the inadmissibility of profanation and RM’s attempts to cover up its inability to constructive solutions with “a fig leaf” of empty declarations.
Today there is need for a thoughtful, professional, productive, result-oriented, in the interest of the population of Pridnestrovie and Moldova work. The Pridnestrovian side is ready for this and has already put on the negotiation table a list of developed substantive initiatives in the field of road transport, railway, and other relevant areas. As soon as the response of the Moldovan colleagues appears, as soon as the Moldovan negotiating team begins to think and act objectively, we will be able to intensify the dialogue. Pridnestrovie expects that a similar message to Moldova will be addressed by the mediators and observers in the negotiation process.
- Is there some kind of “plan B” in the event of Moldova’s rejection of the functional dialogue?
- Pridnestrovie is firm and staunch supporter of political and diplomatic methods of solving the existing problems with the use of available instruments of the negotiation. It is necessary to reach an understanding, including at the international level, that the paradigm of unilateral uncoordinated steps taken today by the Republic of Moldova, is not acceptable.
The fact is that the unilateral actions are a direct threat to the ongoing negotiation process, because, in effect, they nullify the value of dialogue, compromise means of resolving problems.
Unfortunately, the RM or some “hot heads” in the Moldovan authorities and organizations act currently in a very brutal, purely unilateral way and the representative on political issues of Moldova has nothing to say in order to justify discriminatory decisions taken. His role, in fact, becomes nominal, so he tries to step aside, “turn into the invisible”, avoiding the full-scale work, because he knows that an open discussion will expose very quickly a dearth of ideas and arguments from the Moldovan side.
We would not like that the decision-making methods which are uncoordinated and taken outside the negotiations have become overriding in our relations with the Republic of Moldova.
- What impact Moldova’s unilateral steps have on the situation in the negotiations?
- The incautious steps by Moldovan opponents do not only affect the dynamics and trust inside the negotiation domain, but have a direct negative impact on the well-being of citizens, business entities.
The examples are not far to seek. The blocking actions on the railway lead to a daily loss of Pridnestrovian enterprises. Various restrictions related to the freedom of movement of citizens are painful.
Special destructive potential is contained in decision adopted by Moldova and Ukraine on the establishment of joint customs and border control at the checkpoint “Kuchurgan”. The multi-factor analysis of possible consequences suggests that the implementation of this decision could provoke significant risks in the fields of economy, security, freedom of movement of citizens.
The PMR's MFA predicts problems with the delivery of goods to Pridnestrovie, subjected to phytosanitary and veterinary control, any goods imported by individuals or organizations which are not registered in the Republic of Moldova, with the importation, including temporary, of vehicles. There is concern that administrative barriers currently facing by the citizens of Pridnestrovie at the airport in Kishinev will be extrapolated to the crossing of the Ukrainian-Pridnestrovian border. And this list of fears is not complete.
Therefore, Pridnestrovie is making every possible effort to give maximum publicity to some Moldovan-Ukrainian collusions, to explain the possible consequences to the international partners and to prevent the implementation of the said destructive decisions. The Pridnestrovian side in this regard calls upon the Moldovan counterparts for rationality, openness, and negotiations in their classical immanent sense.
Source: Novosti Pridnestrovya News Agency
