Eurasia Press & News
The participants in the consultations on Transnistrian conflict settlement, held in Vienna last Friday, discussed ways to eliminating obstacles to resuming negotiation process in 5+2 format, the OSCE press service reported.
According to its news release, in Vienna the delegations agreed on the need to intensify dialog in order to resolve remaining questions.
Dimitri Droutsas, Acting Foreign Minister of the Greece presidency of the OSCE, voiced approval of the parties’ intention to resume the meetings of the Permanent Conference on political issues within the negotiation process on Transnistrian settlement in the 5+2 format after a three-year-long pause.
Droutsas stated the Greek presidency is resolutely supporting the efforts being made by the international mediators and observers in the 5+2 format, and is calling upon the negotiation parties to resume talks without pre-conditions, on the basis of honesty and in a spirit oriented to concluding a comprehensive, lasting and mutually acceptable political agreement on resolving the conflict.
The negotiations, in which Moldova and Transnistria are settlement sides, Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE – the mediators, and the European Union and the United States – the observers, were suspended in February 2006.
The initiative of resuming 5+2 consultations belongs to the Greek presidency of the OSCE. In Vienna, bilateral meetings were held as well, including a meeting between Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Issues Victor Osipov and Transnistrian minister of foreign affairs Vladimir Yastrebchak.
Transnistrian leader Igor Smirnov stated to the press after the Vienna meeting, “They say elections come and go… In Moldova, elections have come, but would not end. So far, there is no president in Moldova, and no state power institutions have been formed yet, so there is nobody to speak to in Chisinau. Therefore, to intensify the dialog, as it was decided at the Vienna consultations, is not possible so far, either”.
