Tiraspol, December, 17. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. Last night in Chisinau, there was wrapped up the meeting of the political representatives of Pridnestrovie and Moldova, Vitaly Ignatev and Alexandru Flenchea. The negotiations lasted about six hours. The results of the meeting were commented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PMR Vitaly Ignatiev.
The fact of the meeting was called by the head of the foreign ministry “an important step forward”. Despite the fact that a new political representative from Moldova was appointed in mid-November, the meeting was organized only a month later, and thanks to the perseverance of the Pridnestrovian side.
Vitaly Ignatiev and Alexandru Flenchea discussed the prospects of signing the Bratislava Protocol, the banking issue, the import of goods in Pridnestrovie after February 1, 2020, the problem with driver’s licenses and other important issues on the negotiation agenda.
“We discussed the options for a possible signing of the Bratislava Protocol. I note that international partners, mediators represented by the OSCE, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and observers, would like to see the result of this work. Pridnestrovie, as you know, also agreed with the language that was proposed in Bratislava, and accordingly we looked for possible options that would reflect objective reality,” Ignatev told the press following a meeting of political representatives.
Recall: in October, negotiations at the Permanent Meeting level in the 5 + 2 format (Pridnestrovie and the Republic of Moldova — the parties; the Russian Federation, the OSCE, Ukraine — mediators; the US and the EU — observers) were paused. Then the Moldovan side refused to sign the final protocol. At the same time, international mediators recognized that Pridnestrovie had fulfilled all its obligations and called on Chisinau to follow its example.
However, after today's meeting with Alexander Flenchea, Vitaly Ignatev stated that so far there were no results.
“So far, the Moldovan side is not ready to sign it in the parameters proposed by the OSCE in Bratislava,” he stated.
Chisinau, according to Ignatiev, offers mutually exclusive formulations.
“Maybe Chisinau does not want to sign the document. We will find out about this in the near future. The year ends and the Slovak Chairmanship finishes its job. We and international partners would like to have a specific document with specific work parameters,” the PMR Foreign Minister noted.
He expressed hope that the meetings with the Moldovan political representative would help move forward.
“We are ready to sign a document that indicates which problems we specifically discussed and on which problems we want to see the dynamics of progress. Unfortunately, we have no results so far, but we will continue such informal work until the end of the year. Maybe we will still see some kind of positive process. And this will entail the possible changed approach of Chisinau. As yet, it is not changing,” Ignatev stated.
