MOSCOW, April 24. /TASS/. Igor Dodon, the leader of the Moldovan Socialist Party, on Monday said the Ukrainian crisis has created a window of opportunity for a settlement in Transnistria and called on the government to hold talks, according to his interview with Rossiya-24 television.

"At this stage, taking into account the regional situation, it makes sense for us to intensify communication with Tiraspol, because we are in the same boat. Now we have a chance to make real progress on issues that we could not even include on the agenda for several decades," he said.

Dodon pointed out that Transnistria itself was calling for negotiations and was ready to cooperate. "Unfortunately, the Moldovan government is looking for ulterior motives and avoids such a conversation. Most likely, they don’t have permission from the West. Perhaps, they have other plans for this territory over there," said Dodon, who is the former president of Moldova.

Negotiations in the "five plus two" format (Moldova, Transnistria, OSCE, Russia, Ukraine and observers from the US and the EU) have not been held for several years now. The last meeting for this format was held in Bratislava in 2019, and talks were put on ice afterward. At first, this was due to political instability in Moldova, then relations between the two banks of the Dniester cooled even further after the election of Moldovan President Maia Sandu, who made some harsh statements about Tiraspol and refused to meet with the president of the breakaway republic, Vadim Krasnoselsky. Political instability in Chisinau also didn’t help move the dialogue forward.