Incidents in Corjova put a dent in the achieved level of trust, Victor Osipov

The recent arrest of two people in Corjova village has put a dent in the level of trust achieved among the banks of the Nistru River, thinks Victor Osipov, former Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration. Commenting on the incident that occurred over the past weekend, Osipov told Info-Prim Neo that the Transnistria militia must have had no particular reason to arrest the men considering that they were released few hours later after the incident. “These incidents are part of a series of actions and an attitudes that have been shown for a quite a long period of time by opposing forces in Transnistria in response to Chisinau’s and international community’s efforts to solve the conflict. In Tiraspol, too, there are reasonable people who realize that achieving a settlement is important, but there are also others who oppose. The latter are very aggressive and are trying to aggravate the situation by provoking tensions in the security zone”, Victor Osipov mentioned. He added that these incidents, as well as previous ones, including the detention of a local councilor and of the mayor, are caused by the ambiguous status of “shared areas” of the village, which can be patrolled by both the Moldovan police and the Transnistrian militia under the 1992 ceasefire agreement. Osipov said that incidents in Corjova might be a reaction to Chisinau’s and the international community’s expectations that official negotiations on the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict need to be resumed as soon as possible. He thinks that, as a result of efforts over the last two years, the resumption of official negotiations is a realistic perspective. “Against this background, those who oppose the settlement are trying to torpedo the next round of negotiations which is being prepared these days”, said Victor Osipov. He added that on both sides of the Nistru River there are people who can manifest themselves only in confrontational situations. Victor Osipov avoided to tell names, but blamed them for hindering the pacification and settlement efforts. “They show off only during conflicts. If there are no conflicts, they are forgotten by everyone”, said Osipov. The former Deputy Prime Minister stressed that in the current circumstances, the priority must be to carry on the confidence-building measures, because the lack of mutual trust would inevitably aggravate things.