Foreign Minister Vitaly Ignatiev held a meeting with Thomas Mayr-Harting, Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. The meeting was also attended by Head of the OSCE Mission to Moldova Kelly Keiderling.
Vitaly Ignatiev opened the meeting by noting that international mediation, including that of the OSCE, is necessary for normalizing the dialogue between Pridnestrovie and Moldova. He expressed the hope that joint efforts will help bring the negotiation process out of stagnation and “make certain steps to meet the interests of the people”.
During the conversation, the Minister provided information regarding the prevented terrorist acts, one of which targeted the OSCE delegation, and stated the need to “do everything possible to prevent a flare up in tensions and destabilization of the security situation”.
Continuing the discussion, the PMR Foreign Minister pointed out a number of negative trends in the Moldova-Pridnestrovie relations as a result of Moldova’s refusal to fulfill the previous commitments, and the emergence of new problems. He drew attention to the aggravation in terms of the free movement of Pridnestrovian citizens and the importation of medicines and food products into the republic. The expansion of repressive tools for criminal prosecution of the people of Pridnestrovie by introducing amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Moldova were also mentioned.
In this context, the diplomats exchanged views on the initiatives put forward by Pridnestrovie and the OSCE that could facilitate the advancement of the Moldova-Pridnestrovie settlement process. In particular, they discussed the Pridnestrovian proposal regarding the possibility to organize interventions by political representatives from Pridnestrovie and Moldova on the OSCE platform. Prospects for a number of OSCE events were also addressed, including those outlined by Chairperson-in-Office Bujar Osmani during his meeting with the PMR President on February 14 this year.
In the course of the meeting, Vitaly Ignatiev particularly underscored that any attempts to revise the existing mechanisms of the dialogue in the present context are dangerous and counterproductive.
“Our task is to make sure that peace, security and safety of people are ensured, so that the negotiation process is not held hostage to subjective approaches of individual participants. We believe it is wrong to create difficulties or ignore the mechanisms of the “Permanent Conference...” in the 5+2 format citing some kind of reasons or circumstances. In our view, this mechanism is crucial and must be functional. Contacts and meetings are always better than their absence,” the diplomat said in an interview following the meeting with the OSCE delegation.
