OSCE representative to visit Chisinau, Tiraspol to discuss resumption of 5+2 talks
Cord Meier-Klodt, Special Representative of Germany's presidency in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) for the Transdniestrian Settlement Process, is due to arrive in Moldova on Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday, he will travel to Tiraspol, where he will hold talks with the Transdniestrian administration, and on Thursday, he will meet with the Moldovan leadership in Chisinau, the OSCE Mission to Chisinau told Interfax on Tuesday.
During his visit, the diplomat will hold meetings with the permanent ambassadors of the mediators and observers in the five plus two negotiating process "for further coordination of progress in this process," the spokesperson said. At the end of the visit, Meier-Klodt will hold press conferences: in Tiraspol, on Wednesday, and in Chisinau, on Thursday.
According to unofficial information, during his visits to Chisinau and Tiraspol, the OSCE representative is going to agree on the date for a round of five plus two negotiations. In early April, a delegation of five plus two representatives visited the two cities. The delegation, which was led by Meier-Klodt, was comprised of Russian and Ukrainian special representatives to the talks, Sergei Gubarev and Valeriy Zhovtenko, as well as United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Brigit Brink, and the Managing Director for Europe and Central Asia at the European External Action Service, Thomas Mayr-Harting.
The delegation members discussed the possibility of reviving the five plus two format at their meetings with the heads of Chisinau and Tiraspol delegations at the talks, Moldova's Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration, Gheorghe Balan, and Transdniestria's foreign minister, Vitaly Ignatyev, respectively. After the meeting, Balan said that talks could resume as early as this June, whereas Ignatyev said that "the conditions necessary for that do not yet exist."
Gubarev said, after the visit, that a round of talks could be held before the end of 2016. At the same time, he said: "Cord Hinrich Meier-Klodt thinks the talks could resume as early as before the end of May."
The five plus two talks over the Transdniestrian settlement process (with Moldova, Transdniestria, Russia, Ukraine and the OSCE as parties to the talks, and the U.S. and the European Union as observers) began in 2005, and were then put on hold in 2008. In late 2011, it was agreed to resume the talks, and these were held in 2012 and 2013, with a regularity of five rounds a year. In 2014, the negotiating process was stalled again, with the last round held in Vienna, in June 2014.