Transdniestrian Settlement Process a priority for Austrian Chairmanship in 2017

The OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, visited Moldova from 3 to 4 February 2017.

The visit, undertaken at an early stage in Austria’s 2017 Chairmanship, underscores the priority Kurz places on promoting progress in the Transdniestrian Settlement Process. Meeting with high-level Moldovan officials and the political leadership in Tiraspol, Kurz discussed a way forward based on a results-orientated dialogue at all levels of the negotiations process.

In Chisinau, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office met with Prime Minister Pavel Filip, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and European Integration Andrei Galbur and Deputy Prime Minister for Reintegration and Moldovan Political Representative Gheorghe Balan, and was received by Moldovan President Igor Dodon.

In Tiraspol, Kurz met with representatives of the Transdniestrian leadership, leader Vadim Krasnoselsky, Speaker of the Supreme Soviet Alexander Shcherba and Transdniestrian Political Representative Vitaly Ignatiev.

In 2016, under the German OSCE Chairmanship and with the help of mediators and observers, the Transdniestrian Settlement Process resumed in the 5+2 format, with a commitment from the sides to produce results, an approach Kurz said the Austrian Chairmanship would continue to take this year. In his meetings, he underlined to the sides the importance of remaining focused on implementing the Berlin Protocol, signed by Chisinau and Tiraspol last year, as well as of finding solutions for the Latin script schools, the Dubasari farmland and freedom of movement for people, goods and services.

“Results are needed to set the context for the next meeting in the 5+2 format,” Kurz said.  “Our goal is, on the one hand, to have the dynamics going in the right direction and, on the other, to achieve concrete steps towards improving the living conditions of the people on both banks of the Dniester/Nistru River,” he stated at a press conference following his meeting with Prime Minister Filip.

Kurz welcomed the commitment by the Moldovan side to develop a government policy and vision for a special status for Transdniestria. In both Chisinau and Tirsapol, the principle behind the solution “must clearly be the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Moldova combined with a special status for Transdniestria,” he said.   

The OSCE Chairperson, in his discussions with the Foreign Ministry, said the OSCE’s Mission and Institutions would continue to assist Moldova in promoting an inclusive, tolerant and resilient society through the implementation of a Strategy on integration of national minorities, strengthening the functionality of the Gagauz autonomy, and promoting the commemoration and education of the Holocaust.