Official reception house hosted a meeting between the President of the PMR Yevgeny Shevchuk and the RF delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation on Pridnestrovie Dmitry Rogozin. From the Russian side the meeting was also attended by Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the RF to the RM Farit Mukhametshin, representatives of the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ministry of Economic Development, from the Pridnestrovian side – Chairman of the Government Pavel Prokudin, acting Head of the Presidential Administration and members of the Government.
Yevgeny Shevchuk: “Dear Dmitry Olegovich, dear Mr. Ambassador, dear members of the delegation! I am pleased to welcome you to the city of Tiraspol – the capital of Pridnestrovie. Today, almost the entire Government takes part in the meeting. We would like to discuss a number of topics that are of interest to us within the framework of cooperation of Pridnestrovie with the Russian Federation.
First of all, I would like to thank the Russian leadership, you personally, Dmitry Olegovich, for well-established elements of cooperation between Pridnestrovie and Russia. On behalf of the Pridnestrovian people I would like to thank you for the humanitarian aid, a set of projects implemented on the territory of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic in the framework of humanitarian cooperation. These are projects by the ANO “Eurasian Integration” and humanitarian aid to the pensioners of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, and quite a wide range of cooperation in various fields, which creates the conditions for maintaining the social level of life of Pridnestrovian citizens.
Taking this opportunity, I, on behalf of the Pridnestrovian state, would like to thank Deputy Prime Minister, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for the contribution in maintaining the standard of living of their compatriots, Russian citizens residing in the territory of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, in these difficult conditions.
I would propose to hold a meeting today with the Government to ensure that the entire Government has an opportunity to become familiar with the discussion on the areas of development and strengthening of the cooperation between Pridnestrovie and the Russian Federation. Once again I welcome you to the Official Reception House of the President of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic”.
Dmitry Rogozin: “Thank you, Yevgeny Vasilievich! Dear colleagues, we have not had a meeting of this format for a long time. But this was caused primarily by the difficulties faced by the Russian delegations, which arrived in Kishinev. Another way to get in Pridnestrovie was not open for us any more after the well-known events in Ukraine, particularly in Odessa region. Therefore, in recent years we have mainly met in Moscow, where the Pridnestrovian representatives came quite often. We have not lost contacts. My colleagues and representatives of the Russian ministries and departments have been in contact with Pridnestrovian colleagues. Therefore, we kept abreast. The point is that there has not been such a format in slightly more than two years. Nevertheless, today we will try to use our meeting with the maximum benefit for both sides, to increasingly understand the problems, which exist in Pridnestrovie at the moment, in the middle of 2016 in the difficult geopolitical conditions, which we are all well aware of. Strictly speaking, the status of Pridnestrovie clearly did not win in this geopolitical situation, but on the contrary, there are difficulties associated with the blockade tightening, republic’s isolation. Nevertheless, we still state that you are full of energy and determination to fight and survive in the interests of the people.
I would also like to say that yesterday in Kishinev we met with the relatively newly formed Government of the Republic of Moldova, touched various issues, primarily the bilateral relations of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova. Moldova has a great interest to return to the Russian market with fruits and vegetables and agricultural products. But in order to get through this period, all participants of this process must do their homework. This homework is specified, prepared by the Russian side in the “road map” of the actions to be taken, first and foremost, by Kishinev, so that we could go back to the previous status, and products of Moldova would return on the shelves of Russian stores. Our Moldovan colleagues, I informed you on this, would like to do this. And we have outlined an action plan.
In September there will be an intermediate contact, meeting, where we would have to witness progress in this direction. And we presume that at the end of the year we will hold a full meeting of the intergovernmental commission. And I would ask the Pridnestrovian side to send a representative also, as we did it before, as an observer. Frankly, we touched on issues related to the relations between Kishinev and Tiraspol, again, above all in the sphere of economy, industry, transport and other issues. We believe that both banks of the Dniester will benefit from the tactics of small but useful actions, and the Russian side strongly urges the Moldovan side to do this kind of activity, uncork those processes, in particular transport accessibility, exchange of goods, registration of goods, products and many other things we talked a lot about. Let us hope that today in Kishinev we are dealing with pragmatic interlocutors. The time will show soon: are we right or not.
In general, I want to reiterate that we are always interested in the affairs of Pridnestrovie. Here our fellow citizens, our citizens, relatives live, that is why no matter how difficult is the situation from economic and political perspectives, you know, but again I think it is not superfluous to say, you can always rely on the broad shoulders of the Russian Federation”.
Source: the website of the PMR President
