Today, a meeting of representatives on political issues from Pridnestrovie and Moldova Nina Shtanski and Victor Osipov was held at the initiative of the Pridnestrovian side in the office of the OSCE Mission in Tiraspol.
The Pridnestrovian side proposed to coordinate the schedule of meetings for the next few months in order to avoid stalling which resulted in a pause of more than three months in the meetings in the “1+1” format. The Pridnestrovian side proposed to hold such meetings on a systematic basis every Thursday. Following the discussion, the Moldovan side agreed to define a schedule, but decided to hold a meeting less frequent - twice a month.
The central issue of the meeting, as planned, was the discussion of the problem of politically motivated criminal cases against Pridnestrovians. As Nina Shtanski clarified during a briefing following the results of the dialogue with the Moldovan counterparts, today criminal cases are initiated not only against the Pridnestrovian officials, as it was in 2014, but also against entrepreneurs, farmers and other citizens of Pridnestrovie.
According to the foreign ministry, the positive outcome of the meeting was a decision to resume the cooperation of experts, representatives of law enforcement institutions and prosecutors on termination of politically motivated criminal cases. We remind the previous meeting was held on April 21, 2015 and did not produce results. “The political representative of the Republic of Moldova has assured us that he could orient experts on substantive fruitful, and hopefully productive work,” - noted Nina Shtanski.
The Pridnestrovian diplomat also noted that in the course of communication with the Moldovan side it was possible to specify the actual number of criminal cases against officials of Pridnestrovie. “We had information about 103 criminal cases at the time of the meeting on April 21. Not long ago, we have been surprised to read the information circulated by Victor Osipov in the media that there are more than 200 cases. Today, we were assured that there was an error, and the number of criminal cases has not increased. We hope that this information is based on the real situation and the problem of criminal prosecution will not only be exacerbated, but will be solved,” - stressed the minister.
During the dialogue between the political representatives the Pridnestrovian side raised the issue of the deportation of Pridnestrovians from the Republic of Moldova at the airport in Kishinev. “We have talked in detail about the deportations of specific citizens who have home and the family in Pridnestrovie - such as, for example, citizens Dogotar and Gratov. Families were left without breadwinners, people are on the territory of the Russian Federation without a livelihood, their inalienable right to live at home is violated. We have agreed to continue the dialogue with the Moldovan side and we hope that the decisions taken will be reviewed. So far, we have received assurances that the Moldovan side is “ready to work with it”, - said Nina Shtanski.
Expeditious discussion was held separately on a new problem related to railway communication (further information will be posted).
According to her, it had been scheduled to discuss a number of other issues related to the fate of individuals. “For the most part these are socially important problems relating to orphans, property rights of people, documentation support. All this is the subject of our correspondence, but the Moldovan side, unfortunately, often ignores such requests”, - the diplomat said.
The sides agreed that to hold the next meeting of the representatives on political issues from Pridnestrovie and Moldova on August 20, 2015 in the office of the OSCE Mission in Kishinev.
Meetings of expert (working) groups on railway communication, as well as of the experts on the termination of criminal cases could be held on the same day.
