CHISINAU, December 11. /TASS/. Transnistria will urge Moldova to comply with its commitments made during the talks mediated by the OSCE, Russia and Ukraine in 2016-2018, Alexander Stetsyuk, a deputy foreign minister of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria, said at the parliament on Friday.
"In the incoming year, the Transnistrian Republic will proceed from positions of Moldova’s strict compliance with its commitments under the Berlin Plus package. In this context, attention should be drawn to the fact that at a recent meeting of the foreign ministers of the OSCE participating states the statement on Transnistrian settlement, which was supported by the Moldovan side, stipulated the implementation of the 2016-2018 agreements. The document also calls for a 5+2 meeting, chaired by Sweden, at the soonest possible time," the parliament’s press service said citing the senior diplomat.
At the 5+2 talks, involving Moldova, Transnistria, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Russia, Ukraine and observers from the United States and European Union, in Berlin in 2016 and in Vienna in 2017, the sides reached agreements on numerous conflicting issues.
Nevertheless, the implementation of agreements was stalled amid the pre-election race in Moldova in 2019, and in 2020 the sides could not even convene a 5+2 meeting. The renunciation of mutual criminal prosecution of officials, the opening of a direct telephone line connecting the two banks of the Dniester, and the establishment of a guarantee mechanism for the implementation of the agreements were left in limbo.
In 2019, after the parliamentary elections, Moldova’s government was reshuffled three times, while the parliamentary majority changed twice. In 2020, Moldova held a presidential election, which Incumbent President Igor Dodon lost. Immediately after the election, the winner, Maia Sandu, lashed out at Tiraspol with a series of sharp statements, emphasizing that she was against a mild dialogue with Transnistria. After the presidential election, Moldova has begun preparations for the 2021 early parliamentary election.
Transnistria conflict
Transnistria, a mostly 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 afterwards.