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Another round of Transnistrian settlement talks planned for November, Tiraspol says

According to Vadim Krasnoselsky, Tiraspol plans to raise a pressing problem of the ban on the entry to and movement in Ukraine of Transnistrian motor transport from September 1, as well as issues of inter-bank ties with Moldova

CHISINAU, September 14. /TASS/. Another round of 5+2 talks on the Transnistrian settlement is planned for November, the press service of President of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria Vadim Krasnoselsky said on Tuesday after his meeting with OSCE Special Representative for the Transnistrian Settlement Process Thomas Mayr-Harting in Tiraspol.

"[The diplomat] is preparing a visit by the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office scheduled for November 6, 2021. The upcoming meeting with the Swedish foreign minister will help get prepared for a meeting in the 5+2 format, which is preliminarily planned for November 2021," it said.

According to Krasnoselsky, Tiraspol plans to raise a pressing problem of the ban on the entry to and movement in Ukraine of Transnistrian motor transport from September 1, as well as issues of inter-bank ties with Moldova. He also noted that the negotiating process has been stagnating over recent years and accused Chisinau of non-fulfilment of the existing agreements.

Moscow’s and Tiraspol’s representatives called for convening a 5+2 meeting as soon as possible. Moldova’s Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Kulminski, who is responsible for the Transnistrian talks, said at a meeting with the OSCE envoy that Chisinau is ready to resume talks without preliminary conditions. Kulminski also said that Moldova is interested in proceeding to the discussion of political aspects of the settlement process whereas Tiraspol says it is not yet time for it.

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 (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.

The settlement talks began to lose momentum in 2019 amid political instability in Moldova.