Today, the PMR's Foreign Ministry hosted the meeting between Deputy Prime Minister of the PMR for International Cooperation, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nina Shtanski and the OSCE delegation headed by Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Radojko Bogojević. The meeting was also attended by Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova Michael Scanlan.During the meeting, Nina Shtanski noted that interaction with the OSCE Chairmanship is becoming stable and systemic, which, according to her, is especially important in the situation when Moldova takes a number of openly provocative and unfriendly actions aimed at the breakdown of talks. The Foreign Minister noted that since the previous visit of Radojko Bogojević to Pridnestrovie the situation in the dialogue not only had not stabilized, but significantly degraded.
“Instead of working to find the solutions that were planned to have been adopted in the framework of the “5 + 2”, new problems are being created. New criminal cases against officials of Pridnestrovie were initiated: Moldova is prosecuting the Pridnestrovian leadership, including the Prime Minister and a number of ministers. An unjustified repressive machine is put into action also against the leaders and members of expert groups, despite the fact that expert groups according to the Principles and Procedures of the Negotiation Process are an integral subsidiary mechanism for working out draft decisions. Several years ago we agreed to tackle at the negotiations only those issues that were worked through by experts. But today it is impossible. We have an impression that acting like this the Moldovan side is implementing some special tactics. We consider such actions to be dangerous for the talks,” the diplomat told.During the discussion with the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Nina Shtanski drew attention of the Serbian diplomat to a whole range of other areas of concern on which no progress had been reached since the last 5+2 meeting. First of all, she pointed out that the Moldovan side is still avoiding the substantive dialogue on unblocking foreign economic activities of the Pridnestrovian business entities. Despite the intention of the Moldovan side voiced during the Conference on Confidence Building Measures in Freising to provide its vision regarding Pridnestrovie's presentation on foreign trade problems, the given issue which is pressing due to objective difficulties faced by Pridnestrovian economic agents in connection with the situation in Ukraine was not discussed either by field experts or in the “1+1” format. Nina Shtanski emphasized the destructive position of the Moldovan side in the dialogue on the functioning of Romanian schools in Pridnestrovie. In particular, last year the Pridnestrovian side raised the problem of taxation of physical persons – the staff of those institutions. Despite the agreement reached between the political representatives on August 25, 2014 to initiate a meaningful dialogue on the given issue, the financial experts of the Moldovan side at the next day's meeting in Kishinev avoided deliberation of the given aspect. During the meeting other agenda issues were raised as well. Nina Shtanski expressed hope that the OSCE would contribute to the stabilization of the situation and voiced a proposal of the Pridnestrovian side to activate “shuttle diplomacy” in order to find the settlement. In this regard, the diplomat reminded that earlier in the difficult times of the negotiation process, this method proved its effectiveness many times, and noted that at present this approach is more effective than the “5 + 2” meeting in Vienna. “Under current circumstances, the negotiators should get involved as deep as possible into the essence of the problems that prevent progress in our dialogue. After our latest meeting in Vienna, the parties failed to come close to solving any of the issues on the agenda. We reckon that the “5 +2” participants will find it possible to communicate with the delegations of Moldova and Pridnestrovie in conditions when, in fact, “Policies and Procedures” – the main document regulating activities of all participants in the “5 +2” format – is broken on several articles. Our proposal is based on the belief that the meeting of all “5 + 2” participants in Tiraspol and Kishinev in this situation will be much more useful than the meeting in Vienna. We are full of energy and intention to continue to work constructively, we are open to negotiations and look forward to meeting the “5 + 2” participants in Tiraspol in the near future”, Nina Shtanski said to reporters after the meeting. In his turn, Radojko Bogojevic proposed to hold two rounds of negotiations: in Vienna in September, and in Tiraspol and Kishinev in October. Nina Shtanski reported about her willingness to bring this proposal of the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office to the attention of the Head of the State.Nina Shtanski reaffirmed an exceptional commitment of Pridnestrovie to the principles of a constructive dialogue. “Pridnestrovie preserves a steady commitment to the peaceful settlement of any disputes and conflicts through negotiations. Our position today is expressed in the fact that during two and a half years Pridnestrovie has tabled almost fifty initiatives,” the Minister told. At the end of the meeting Nina Shtanski addressed suggestions to the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office about a visit to Pridnestrovie of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, President of the Swiss Confederation Didier Burkhalter.
