MOSCOW, January 28. /TASS/. Russia as a mediator and guarantor of the Transnistrian settlement is ready to facilitate work on putting back on track the dialogue between Chisinau and Tiraspol, Alexey Polishchuk, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Department of the CIS Countries said in an interview with TASS.

"In our opinion, what is needed is not idle fantasies, but real work to set right the degrading dialogue between the banks of the Dniester. Russia as a mediator and guarantor of the Transnistrian settlement is ready to facilitate this," he said.

Polischuk noted that the Transnistrian settlement process is in a deep crisis, with Chisinau's economic pressure measures on Tiraspol pushing back the prospects for the settlement. "The recent decision by the European Council to open pre-accession talks with Moldova caused euphoria in Chisinau. Putting the cart before the horse, they started speculating about the probability of Moldova's joining the EU ‘together with Transnistria or without it’," Polishchuk said.