CHISINAU, January 11. /TASS/. Transnistria has offered to resume talks on the settlement of the conflict in the ‘five plus two’ format (Moldova, Transnistria, the OSCE, Russia, Ukraine and the US and EU as observers) without preconditions in order to get them out of the long-standing crisis, the unrecognized republic's Foreign Minister, Vitaly Ignatiev, said on Wednesday, commenting on the transition of the OSCE presidency to North Macedonia.

"The situation with the negotiations with Chisinau today is very difficult, so we call for a meeting in the ‘five plus two format’ - either officially or unofficially, without preconditions, reservations and so on. We have really serious instruments that we need to use in order to gain momentum. If these tools do not work, there is no reason to expect miracles from the current presidency. Of course, here we hope for a new impulse and new interaction with the incumbent chair, Northern Macedonia," Ignatiev said during a Pervy Pridnestrovsky (First Transnistrian) TV broadcast.

He added that "the most important thing now is to lead the negotiation process out of the deadlock in which it has been in for many years."

The negotiations in the ‘five plus two’ format were last held in Bratislava in 2019 and were later put on halt. At first it was explained by political instability in Moldova, and then relations between the two banks cooled even more after pro-Western politicians came to power in Moldova. Against the background of the events in Ukraine, Moldovan President Maia Sandu said that progress in the negotiations was possible only after the settlement of the situation in the neighboring country.