A meeting of Representatives on Political Issues from Moldova and Pridnestrovie Nina Shtanski and Victor Osipov was held in the office of the OSCE Mission in Tiraspol today. The meeting was also attended by Ambassador at Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Sergey Gubarev who is currently on a visit to the conflict region, as well as representatives of parties of the “5+2” format.
The central issue of the meeting was the new discriminatory measures of the Republic of Moldova limiting the freedom of movement of Pridnestrovian citizens by road transports with Pridnestrovian registration. The Moldovan side confirmed the existence of such a prohibition on the movement of vehicles across the border of the Republic of Moldova at the international border crossing points, as well as the fact that that measure was purely a unilateral decision of the Moldovan authorities, not related to any requirements of any international partners. “We have been informed that this is not a new measure, but only the implementation of the decision which was adopted in 2009 and due to some reasons was not executed for 5 and a half years,” - Nina Shtanski spoke to the media after the meeting.
As the diplomat reminded, the principle of registration of motor vehicles in the territory of Pridnestrovie and Moldova follows from the foundations of settlement, in particular, the principle of territoriality which was taken as a basis for negotiation in 1992, and fixed that the parties independently carry out administrative and economic activities in controlled areas. According to Nina Shtanski, new restrictions on freedom of movement imposed by Moldova are in direct contradiction to this principle.
“Moldova’s actions signal to us about the next change of approaches and allude to the crumbling of the status quo in the conflict. Of course, we have urged our Moldovan partners to abandon this solution which is ill-conceived, illogical and contrary to the priorities of the negotiation process. Of course, we also wanted to know what steps the Moldovan side would be ready to take to solve that problem because it's not just about the many thousands of Pridnestrovian car owners, but also about failures in transport connections - many routes have already been stopped,”- the minister said.
According to Nina Shtanski, during the meeting the Pridnestrovian side, taking into account the fact that the issue was unlikely to be resolved soon, asked the political representative of Moldova to bring the concerns of Pridnestrovie and the requirement to immediately cease that practice to the Government of Moldova. “We have also had to inform that, apparently, Pridnestrovie will begin to develop and implement response measures in order to protect the interests of Pridnestrovian car owners. It is difficult to imagine how the Moldovan authorities will explain to tens of thousands of Moldovan car owners possible responses on the part of Pridnestrovie, if their freedom of movement will suffer because of this unreasonable policy on the part of some representatives of the Moldovan authorities,”- said the Foreign Minister.
As Nina Shtanski said, the sides also touched upon the so-called “railway issue” at the meeting. The diplomat noted that the status of the problem which had been detailed at the level of experts was still not fully defined despite assurances from the Moldovan side that all the necessary steps had been taken to resolve it.
“Indeed, a telegram was addressed to the Ukrainian side. It was to bring the situation to the status quo. However, some of the wordings in the document were not specific enough, so we agreed to hold soon another meeting of experts with the participation of Ukrainian railway men to resolve all possible contradictions at a technical level. I believe that we are close to solving the problem,”- said the Minister.
During the meeting, political representatives also discussed the situation in the area of politically motivated criminal cases against Pridnestrovians, as well as the problem of deportations from the airport in Kishinev.
