The chief negotiator of Tiraspol to the Transnistrian settlement process Vitaly Ignatiev said the negotiations between the sides in the course of this year reached a deadlock due to the steps taken by Chisinau. According to him, the Republic of Moldova not only didn’t fulfill the commitments it undertook by the previous agreements, but also resorted to new actions of pressure on the Transnistrian region and the OSCE experts confirmed this, IPN reports.

Vitaly Ignatiev was quoted by the local press as saying that Chisinau practically hampered the talks in the 5+2 format by refusing to sign the final protocol of Bratislava. ”Despite the efforts made by the mediators, the document could not be signed by this yearend”.

The de facto minister of foreign affairs of the region Vitaly Ignatiev also noted that the chief negotiator of Chisinau to the negotiation process Alexandru Flenchea refused to meet with him in the last moment. This way, Moldova torpedoed the settlement process, ignoring the humanitarian problems that should be addressed in people’s interests. “The refusal to take part in the December 23 meeting shows lack of interest in adopting the document. My previous and current counterparts from Chisinau used any stratagem to prevent the signing of the final protocol, of the Bratislava meeting.”

The “5+2” format includes representatives of the Republic of Moldova and the Transnistrian region as the parties, the OSCE, Russia and Ukraine as mediators and the EU and the U.S. as observers. The last round of talks held at the start of this October in Bratislava didn’t end with the signing of a document. According to Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration Alexandru Flenchea, the protocol drafted after the meeting wasn’t signed because the official Tiraspol didn’t support four priorities announced by the official Chisinau. Therefore, the Special Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office for the Transnistrian Settlement Process Franco Frattini proposed a compromise solution.