On June 21, 2011, Moscow hosted a regular round of informal consultations of the participants of the Permanent Consultations on Political Issues in the Framework of Pridnestrovien Settlement Negotiation Process. Opening the forum, Foreign Minister of the RF Sergey Lavrov stressed that the Russian Federation places special emphasis on the given event. Russia as a responsible guarantor and co-mediator took a whole number of efforts for deblocking the given format. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the RF reminded of the Joint Statement of the leaders of Russia, Pridnestrovie and Moldova, signed in March 2009, pursuant to which the sides obliged themselves to create necessary conditions for the resumption of official work in the 5+2 format. In this context Mr. Lavrov addressed the conflicting parties with the question, whether Kishinev and Tiraspol had come to clear understanding of such conditions.
According to Sergey Lavrov, settlement should secure rights and freedoms of a person in accordance with the European standards, as well as regional stability in general context of the European security, basing in this regard upon the will and interests of the people.
At the beginning of his speech before the participants of the meeting, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Pridnestrovien Moldavian Republic extended condolences to the Russian side in connection with the plane crash in Karelia.
With respect to the analysis of the current situation, Vladimir Yastrebchak emphasized that since the last analogous meeting in April 2011, the Moldovan side had made no real steps that would be indicative of the presence of Kishinev's real political will for solution of specific problems and readiness for creation of necessary prerequisites for the restart of official work in the five plus two format. Basing on the proposals of the OSCE Mission from April 4, 2011, on the necessity to settle the most urgent problems (freight railway traffic, cessation of criminal and administrative prosecution of Pridnestrovien citizens, and others), the head of PMR's MFA dwelt upon the situation around interaction of the sides to the conflict over the past period. Thus, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Pridnestrovie recalled this April's agreements between field-specific structures of the sides regarding deblocking of railway communication which, however, never obtained support of the leaders of Moldova's executive power. He also marked hardening of official Kishinev's attitude regarding the draft procedural rules of expert (working) groups which was already agreed last November-December, and drew attention to the refusal of the Moldovan authorities from equitable interdepartmental dialogue on areas outlined by the OSCE, and cited concrete examples of those obstacles which are as before created by the Moldovan side for economic agents and citizens of Pridnestrovie in various spheres.
As consequence, the Pridnestrovien side pointed, that during the latest period of time there were no steps forward, but Kishinev withdrew from earlier agreements and arrangements on the number of directions, declining the constructive everyday work.
During the meetings all the guarantors, cointermediaries and observers consented to the fact, that
the measures, taken in social and economic and other spheres, are not sufficient for effective and successive solving of existing problems.
Pridnestrovien delegation drew the attention of the participants to the fact that any decision, including that, concerning such an important issue as the resumption of the official work of one of the formats of settlement, can not be built on the vacuous statements and populist appeals, supported by nothing, made by one of the sides of the conflict. Furthermore, official or unofficial type of work in 5+2 format scarcely affects the approaches of the Moldavian side to the perspectives of equal in rights dialog with the Pridnestrovien Moldavian Republic on full spectrum of possible interaction.
Nevertheless, owning the possibility of continuation of the important work on the track of political settlement, the Pridnestrovien side, having all necessary powers and assignments of the Authorities of the Pridnestrovien Moldavian Republic, declared about it's readiness to work on the coordination of one of the project of final document of the meeting, which was suggested by the Russian side. Unfortunately, this constructive approach did not meet understanding from the Moldavian side, which insisted on adding to the document absolutely nonviable provisions, which does not correspond goals and objectives of the process of normalization of the relations between the Republic of Moldova and the Pridnestrovien Moldavian Republic, which were settled by already signed multilateral agreements. Naturally, this approach was not supported by the other participants of the meeting.
In order to fulfill the provisions of the Moscow Statement, dated from March 18, 2009 and the Joint Statement of the Presidents of Russian Federation and Ukraine, dated from March 17, 2010 on the necessity of creation of the preconditions for the resumption of the official work in 5+2 format and deblocking of the situation on practical level, the Pridnestrovien side proposed to continue Moscow round of unofficial consultations to give all the participants the possibility for continuation of searching for mutually acceptable outcomes. All the participants of the meeting accepted this proposal. It is supposed, that next meeting will take place this September.
