MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russia calls for the soonest resumption of talks on Transnistria in the 5+2 format, a senior Russian diplomat said.

"Russia has been consistently calling for the soonest and unconditional resumption of the 5+2 format, the only recognized and effective mechanism for resolving the conflict. However, due to Chisinau’s and later Kiev’s positions, the format has been inactive since 2019. The meetings between Chisinau and Tiraspol’s political representatives in the so-called 1+1 format have proved to be insufficient to reach a solution," Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in an interview with the Izvestia daily.

According to Galuzin, the 5+2 format has all the authority and enjoys international recognition. "Tiraspol has never refused from dialogue with Chisinau to discuss practical issues that are topical for both sides," he noted.

The Russian foreign ministry hopes that the upcoming meeting of Moldovan and Transnistrian political representatives on April 16 will give a fresh impetus to dialogue between the Dniester banks.

Transnistria, a largely Russian-speaking region on the left bank of the Dniester River, broke away from Moldova in September 1990 when radical Moldovan politicians demanded that the republic withdraw from the former Soviet Union and unify with Romania. Its relations with Moldova’s central government in Chisinau have been highly mixed and extremely tense at times ever since then. In 1992, after Chisinau tried to resolve the problem with the use of force, 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 ceasefire was signed in 1992 and Russian peacekeepers were brought into the conflict area. Negotiations on the conflict’s peace settlement known as the 5+2 format (Moldova, Transnistria, the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine and observers from the United States and the European Union) started after that. However, the talks have been frozen since 2019.