The Foreign Ministry hosted a meeting of Vitaly Ignatiev, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PMR with Vitaly Tryapitsyn, the Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Andrei Gorobtsov, the Co-Chairman of the JCC from the Russian Federation attended the meeting as well.
During the conversation, the PMR Foreign Minister made a brief overview of the current situation in the dialogue between Pridnestrovie and the Republic of Moldova. He stated that a certain dynamic of contacts at the level of political representatives and expert (working) groups, which was observed at the beginning of this year, has practically disappeared by now, and the Moldovan side continues to evade the implementation of the previously reached agreements.
In particular, Vitaly Ignatiev drew attention to the transport issue, and stated that instead of solving the existing problems with in the VRO activities, Chisinau artificially creates new restrictions, thus, increasing the pressure on Pridnestrovian drivers. At the same time, according to him, the Moldovan side actually refuses to hold expert meetings, ignoring relevant Pridnestrovian proposal for more than three weeks.
The diplomat stressed there’s a lack of progress in resolving other problematic aspects from the Berlin + package: in the field of telecommunications, criminal cases and interbank cooperation. In addition, he pointed to the new restrictive measures that the Republic of Moldova applied for Pridnestrovie, including blocking the import of goods into the PMR. The head of the foreign ministry also expressed concern about Chisinau plans related to the unjustified threats to restrict the freedom of movement of Pridnestrovian drivers in spite of the existing agreements and the implementation of the so-called “second phase” of joint customs and border control, which could undermine the stability of the negotiation structure and dramatically worsen the situation with the Moldovan-Pridnestrovian relations.
In this context, diplomats expressed a mutual opinion on the need to speed up work at all levels of the negotiation process, including the "5 + 2" format. “We believe that negotiations should take place regularly, rhythmically and without any preconditions. The Permanent Meeting ... platform is a working consultative mechanism. The more effective it is, especially in conditions when there is a certain slowdown in the dialogue, the more chances there are that we will get off the ground and come to a solution to problems,” the Minister noted.
Separately, during the conversation, they touched upon the situation on within the work of the Joint Control Commission. The parties agreed that blocking activities of the constituent mechanisms of the peacekeeping operation creates serious risks as from the security part as for the entire Moldovan-Pridnestrovian settlement.
Continuing the discussion, parties touched upon issues of bilateral cooperation between Pridnestrovie and Russia, including the parameters of the outbound consular service point functioning in Tiraspol. “This is a very important topic, which is related to citizenship issues and other aspects that are important for the life of Russian citizens living in Pridnestrovie. Therefore, we discussed in detail the situation that is developing today for objective reasons, and measures that will allow us to somehow intensify this work and meet people’s aspirations and needs,” Vitaly Ignatiev said during communication with the media following the meeting.
“We paid special attention to the vaccination issues. We are of course, committed to ensuring that the Russian vaccine becomes a part of our health care system, and thus we can ensure the health and safety of our population,” the diplomat added.
Ending the meeting, interlocutors agreed to continue systemic working communication across the entire spectrum of areas within the Russian-Pridnestrovian interaction.
