TIRASPOL (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th July, 2022) Foreign Minister of the breakaway republic of Transnistria in the northeast of Moldova, Vitaly Ignatiev, expressed the general discontent with the operations of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which co-mediated the "5+2" talks on the Transnistrian crisis.
The "5+2" negotiations on the Transnistrian settlement process involve Moldova and Transnistria, as the two sides of the conflict, Russia, Ukraine and OSCE as mediators, with the European Union and the United States acting as observers. The initiative was stalled in 2019, when the last round of discussions took place in Bratislava on October 9-10, and has not been revived since.
"This format ceased to be functional at the end of 2019. And it has nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine. Because many people are trying to pretend as if something happened to the format right now. No, the OSCE has been sitting on their hands, initiating no meetings in the 5+2 format here from the end of 2019 to the present. This is certainly why we are dissatisfied with the work of our co-mediators, OSCE," Ignatiev told the First Transnistrian broadcaster.
Transnistria, about 60% of whose population is Russian and Ukrainian, has been seeking to secede from Moldova since the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing that Moldova would merge with Romania. In 1992, Transnistria became a territory de facto not controlled by Chisinau.
