Transdniestria wants 5+2 talks to be resumed without preconditions - chief negotiator

CHISINAU. Jan 11 (Interfax) - Transdniestria has spoken in favor of resuming 5+2 meetings in 2023 without preliminary conditions or any reservations, Transdniestrian Foreign Minister and Tiraspol's political representative to talks with Chisinau Vitaly Ignatyev said in an interview with local journalists, according to the Infotag media outlet.

"The most important thing that should be done in 2023 by all participants in the Moldova-Transdniestria talks and the OSCE's new chair, North Macedonia, is to steer the negotiating process out of the crisis, which has continued for many years already," the negotiator said.

Ignatyev once again accused Moldova "of sabotaging the talks and exerting pressure on Transdniestria on a whole range of issues," describing "the international community's quite tolerant attitude toward this situation" as "unacceptable."

"The situation in the talks with Chisinau is very difficult today. That is why, we call for a meeting in the 5+2 format to be held, either officially or unofficially, without preliminary conditions, reservations, etc. We have serious instruments that ought to be put into use in order to gain dynamics. But if these instruments do not work, there are no grounds to expect miracles from the [OSCE] current chair," he said.

As reported, at the beginning of 2022, Poland, which held the rotating OSCE presidency at the time, planned to convene a round of Transdniestrian settlement talks in the 5+2 format in Warsaw. That meeting, however, was cancelled due to the situation in Ukraine.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, who visited Chisinau and Tiraspol in March, said that the OSCE supports the parties' willingness to continue talks on all existing platforms, but recognized the presence of difficulties with arranging a 5+2 format meeting in conditions when two format members - Russia and Ukraine - are locked in a conflict against each other. The OSCE acknowledged that it was currently impossible to hold talks in this situation. The other two mediators and Transdniestrian settlement guarantors - Russia and Ukraine - later agreed with this opinion.