CHSINAU, July 8. /TASS/. The parliament of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria said about the degradation of relations with Moldova and urged the mediators to help step up the talks, the parliament’s press service said in a statement released on Wednesday.

"The Supreme Council of the Transnistrian Moldovan Republic calls on international mediators of the 5+2 negotiation process (Moldova, Transnistria, the OSCE, Russia and Ukraine along with observers from the European Union and the US) to focus their attention on Moldova’s destructive approaches and to boost efforts for the facilitation of systemic dialogue and for the return of the Republic of Moldova to the negotiating table," the statement says.

Divisions between Chisinau and Tiraspol have worsened amid the restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Moldova insists that Transnistria ease border restrictions and also insists on control over the epidemic situation in the republic. In the meantime, Tiraspol blames Chisinau for delays in deliveries of cargoes with medicines and industrial goods, for problems with companies’ bank accounts and for blocking international bank cards.

Moldovan President Igor Dodon and Transnistrian leader Vadim Krasnoselsky are planning to focus on those issues along with others at their meeting in July.

History of conflict

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 talks (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) started after that.