CHISINAU, April 6 (Itar-Tass) — The Parliament of Moldova on Friday considered a government report on the progress of the negotiations on the Transnistrian settlement, which was presented at a closed-door meeting by Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Eugen Carpov.
“I expected more from the meeting - thought more details will be given, we have heard nothing that the press would not know. The report noted progress in the negotiating process, the basis for which, in my opinion, had been prepared during the reign of the Communists,” MP Igor Dodon, who heads the Socialist Party, told Itar-Tass. According to him, the meeting participants did not discuss the upcoming April 16-17 working visit to Moldova by Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Presidential Special Representative for Transnistria.
“We invited the government official, because only from the press we learn that Prime Minister Vlad Filat holds informal meeting one day with former leader of Transnistria Igor Smirnov, and another – with the region’s new head Yevgeny Shevchuk. It concerns the interests of the country, and we would like to get answers to our questions,” MP from the Liberal Party Ion Hadarca explained.
“That kind of meetings yield result – the talks in ‘five plus two’ format (Moldova, Transnistria, the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine, as well as observers from the United States and the EU) have been resumed, an agreement on the restoration of train traffic through Transnistria has been signed, the work on the restoration of telephone communication between the two banks of the Dniester River is nearing completion,” said Valeriu Strelet, the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party faction supporting the prime minister.
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine. Since its declaration of independence in 1990, and especially after the War of Transnistria in 1992, it is governed as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR, also known as Pridnestrovie), a state with limited recognition which claims the territory to the east of the river Dniester, the city of Bender and its surrounding localities located on the west bank.
The negotiations were interrupted in February 2006 after the Moldovan delegation, accusing Tiraspol of intractability, withdrew from them. The sides managed to resume the dialogue with Russia’s help: in April 2008, the first over seven years meeting of the ex-presidents of Moldova and Transnistria was held. However, this process was later suspended due to the unstable political situation in Chisinau. Since then, only informal consultations on the Transnistrian conflict settlement were held between representatives of the sides, mediators and observers. During the recent meetings that took place at the end of 2011 and beginning of 2012 in Moscow, Vilnius and Dublin, it was decided to resume negotiations in the “five plus two” format.