Today, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PMR, there was a meeting of Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PMR Vitaly Ignatiev with Senior Adviser of the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities Bob Deen. The meeting also saw participation of Jacqueline Carpenter, Senior Human Dimension Officer at the OSCE Mission to Moldova, Igor Pivovar, Legal Expert of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, and Vlada Lysenko, Legal Consultant of the OSCE Mission to Moldova at the OSCE Office in Tiraspol.
The meeting was focused on the preparation of the official visit of the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities to the Pridnestrovien Moldavian Republic. The interlocutors discussed issues of the agenda of the forthcoming visit. In the course of the dialogue perspectives of cooperation between the OSCE and the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Interior on issues related to the functioning of penitentiary facilities was touched upon. Also, the sides discussed issues of education, in particular, the so-called problem of “Romanian schools”.
Vitaly Ignatiev marked that the matter of Romanian schools is unfairly politicized, for many years it had been used as a political detonator of the settlement process. The Pridnestrovien side does not argue against the functioning of such schools in Pridnestrovie and only seeks to implement children's rights to education and development in suitable and comfortable environment guaranteed by legal and educational framework of the PMR. The diplomat underlined that “the Pridnestrovien side considers it unacceptable to use humanitarian issues for achieving political goals in the sphere of the Moldo-Pridnestrovien relations settlement”.
Responding to journalists' questions, Deputy Minister also stated that in the course of the meeting issue of national minorities had not been raised by the OSCE representatives. “There are no national minorities in Pridnestrovie and there are no problems in this sphere,” Vitaly Ignatiev told. He stressed that implementation of all citizens' rights regardless their nationality is of absolute priority to the multiethnic Pridnestrovien society, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is aware of the positive Pridnestrovien experience of harmonious interaction of various cultures.
