JCC fails to sort out fate of car with Moldovan money arrested by Transnistrian customs office

Even after convening the sitting of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) for the fourth day in a row with the purpose to solve the issue of the Transnistrian customs officers arresting a car with 130,000 lei belonging to “Posta Moldovei”, the sides have reached no solution. The money is pensions for inhabitants living on the left bank of the Nistru in villages under Moldova's jurisdiction, Info-Prim Neo has learnt from the Defense Ministry. According to Sergiu Golovaci, a Moldovan member of the JCC – the board insuring security in the area --, “the position of the Transnistrian side was not constructive from the very beginning. With no further detail, without putting up ways to solve the issue, the Transnistrian delegation refused to discuss the problem and postponed the JCC sitting for July 10. The Moldovan delegation expresses their concern with the Transnistrian side not being interested in solving the case as urgently as possible and with the elderly waiting of their pensions. According to the Tiraspol regime's agency “Olvia-press”, the JCC sitting has lasted for 5 minutes only. As soon as they have found that the positions of the Moldovan, Russian and Transnistrian delegations were unchanged, the Transnistrian co-chairman, Oleg Belyakov, who chaired the sitting of the fourth time, declared it close. “Solving administrative conflicts is not the JCC's competence, yet the Moldovan delegation wants to involve the JCC in debating issues not related to the peace-keeping mission,” Oleg Belyakov argued. “We did our job by forwarding the notification of Posta Moldovei to the Customs Department of Transnistria. No representative of Posta Moldovei addressed the (Transnistrian) Customs Department to clear up the situation. It seems returning the money to the Moldovan side was left to be done by the JCC delegation, what is a totally wrong approach of the problem because such matters are not the competence of the JCC,” Belyakov has said. “At the same time, the Transnistrian delegation watches the search of the Customs Department concerning the fact that Posta Moldovei violated the customs regime, Belyakov argues. According to him, the JCC will be notified on the results. The Russian co-chairman, Victor Shanin, backed the idea to close the sitting and to let the matter be sorted out on Thursday. “Russia insists on its position that the JCC and the peace-keepers should deal with their business, but not to get involved in areas not related with the peace-keeping mission on the Nistru,” Shanin is quoted by “Olvia-press” as saying.