On November 21, a meeting between the President of the Pridnestrovien Moldavian Republic Igor Smirnov and Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova Vladimir Filat was held in Bender. The PMR's Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Yastrebchak and heads of Pridnestrovien expert groups, including Minister of Economy Elena Chernenko and Minister of Internal Affairs Vadim Krasnoselskiy, were among the members of Pridnestrovien delegation. Vice-Premier Evgeniy Karpov and heads of Moldavian working groups visited Bendery as members of Moldavian delegation. Head of the OSCE Mission in Moldova Philip Remler opened the meeting, held on the site of the OSCE Mission.
During the meeting Igor Smirnov and Vladimir Filat made an exploratory trip to the city. In particular, the politicians visited railroad depot, Bendery Fortress and memorial military complex.
Joint Statement, signed by Igor Smirnov and Vladimir Filat, became the main outcome of the negotiation. As the President, in the document the sides fixed the agreement on holding of the first official meeting in 5+2 format after a long recess. The meeting will be carried out on November 30 – December 1, 2011 in Vilnus. Kishinev and Tiraspol agreed to hold such meetings on continuing basis. First meeting will be dedicated to the problems of definition of regulations and procedure of work of 5+2 format.
Besides, Igor Smirnov noted that the sides expressed concern on the situation in Security Zone and reported on their readiness to settle disputable issues. The problem of resumption of full-fledged railroad connection was also discussed on the meeting. The sides agreed to continue joint activity until its final settlement. Tiraspol and Kishinev have intentions to make the efforts in restoration of communication links between Moldova and Pridnestrovie more active. The Head of Pridnestrovien state emphasized, that this issue is connected not only with telephone communications, but with interaction in postal sphere and matters, connected with the distribution of frequencies. Alongside with this, the arrangement on activization of bilateral interaction was achieved on the meeting. As reported by Igor Smirnov, the necessity of development of close cooperation of law-enforcement bodies of Moldova and Pridnestrovie is also mentioned in Joint Statement. Separate attention was paid to the problem of interaction of expert (working) groups in economical sphere. In particular, preferential regimes and their implementation, cooperation in the sphere of statistics and methodology of macro economy were concerned.
Answering the questions of journalists, the President of the PMR noted, that dialog with Kishinev will be carried out on the basis of equality. According to the Head of state, this principle, fixed in documents, is recognized by all the members of negotiation process, but, unfortunately, it is not always observed. Therefore, according to the President, the development of mechanism of guarantees of observance of achieved arrangements will be among the principal issues, raised by Tiraspol on the meetings in 5+2 format. Igor Smirnov also noted, that the Pridnestrovien side is intended to follow the will of people, confirmed on the Referendum in 2006, that is to continue the course on strengthening of state independence of the PMR and development together with Russia.
