All news

Tiraspol wants Moscow to continue to act as mediator in Transnistrian settlement

At the end of the last year, the parties to the talks managed to break logjam and sign a number of documents to resolve longstanding problems

TIRASPOL, February 6. /TASS/. The unrecognized republic of Transnistria is interested in Russia’s involvement in conflict settlement talks with Moldova where it acts as a mediators, Transnistrial leader Vadim Krasnoselsky said on Tuesday at a meeting with Russia’s envoy to the talks Sergei Gubarev.

"We will continue to agree our plans and actions with the guarantor country. Transnistria wants to find new platforms to voice its position, which remains unchanged - independence with subsequent recognition of the republic," Krasnoselsky’s press service quoted him as saying.

According to the press service, the Transnistrian leader thanked Russia for its efforts in the 5+2 format involving Moldova and Transnistria as parties to the conflict, Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE as mediators and the United States and the European Union as observers.

At the end of the last year, the parties to the talks managed to break logjam and sign a number of documents to resolve longstanding problems and Krasnoselsky informed the Russian diplomat about the process of implementation of these agreements and stressed that the Transnistrian side was ready to discuss other problem issues.

Gubarev, in turn, stressed the need for a mechanism of implementation of agreements the parties reach in negotiations. "It is important that fine words written on fine white paper be implemented in concrete deeds, bearing in mind that the package of agreements reached last year is geared to improve people’s life," he was quoted as saying.

Earlier, Moldova’s negotiator at the talks, Deputy Prime Minister Cristina Lesnic called to invigorate talks in all formats and promised that Chisinau would not raise political settlement issues that are complicating the talks at the moment.

Transnistria, a largely Russian-speaking region, broke away from Moldova following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its relations with Moldova’s central government in Chisinau have been highly mixed and extremely tense at times ever since then. In 1992 and 1993, tensions erupted into a bloody armed conflict that claimed the lives of hundreds of people on both sides.

The fratricidal war was stopped after a peace agreement was signed in Moscow in 1992 and Russian peacekeepers were brought into the conflict area. Negotiations on the conflict’s peace settlement known as the 5+2 format talks started after that.