The 5+2 format on the Transnistrian settlement de facto is not working but there are no better alternatives to it on this issue, Alexey Polishchuk, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s second CIS department, said on Thursday.
“The role of some participants of this format leaves much to be desired but so far we have nothing better at this time. As of now, the format de facto is not functioning, the last meeting took place over two years ago,” he said at a roundtable discussion on Russia’s peacekeeping operation in Transnistria at the Federation Council.
He noted that currently Russia does not see any prospects of renewing this work but “time will tell” about the future of this format.
The peace talks in the 5+2 format (involving Moldova and Transnistria as parties to the conflict, Russia, Ukraine and the European security watchdog OSCE as mediators and the United States and the European Union as observers) began to lose momentum in recent years amid the political instability in Moldova. The mediators call on the sides to implement their commitments under agreements reached during the talks in Berlin in 2016 and Vienna in 2017, when Chisinau and Tiraspol arrived at compromise solutions on many matters of conflict. However, a number of agreements between the two banks of the Dniester remained suspended.
