A Tiraspol delegation led by deputy secretary of the Transnistria
security council Yury Sukhov took part in a Kiev consultative bilateral
meeting of experts on Transnistrian conflict settlement issues.
According
to the regional television, Transnistrian minister of foreign affairs
Valery Litkai met with president Igor Smirnov and reported to him the
results of the first such forum ever.
Litkai said that besides
the usual circle of Ukraine international politics experts, the meeting
was attended by the representatives of ministries and other state
structures of Ukraine, by transport, industry, customs, border
officials i.e. people in charge of everyday contacts with Transnistria
and interested in resolving the problems that have accumulated over
last several years.
The Transnistrian delegation to Kiev
included minister of industry Peter Stepanov, Transnistrian central
bank governor Alexei Melnik, and senior officials from the
Transnistrian Railroad Company.
The parties negotiated
cooperation between Transnistria and Ukraine – border demarcation,
banking questions, transport problems, etc.
“I liked the
Ukrainians’ good mood very much. We could see they had received a clear
instruction to establish wide cooperation with Transnistria and develop
it to a maximum-possible extent. May be, that was caused by the
behaviour of Mr. Voronin, who recently made a new zigzag in his policy
and is trumpeting all around about his “special relations” with Russia.
In his speeches lately, he would categorically avoid even mentioning
Ukraine as a guarantor country in the Transnistrian settlement process.
Naturally, that could not help causing Kiev’s certain reaction and a
certain consolidation of relations between Transnistria and Ukraine”.
Valery Litkai said.
He stressed the idea to hold such
Tiraspol-Kiev consultations stung Moldova so strongly that its Ministry
of Foreign Affairs and European Integration issued a note of protest ,
but even that could not upset the Kiev meeting, though restricted to a
certain extent the Transnistrian delegation’s possibilities to appear
on the Ukrainian television.
In Kiev, the parties decided to
hold such consultations regularly and frequently, and have agreed to
meet next in Odessa (Ukraine) in April.
“It has been
decided that the participating delegations will be broadening, and that
smaller-size working groups of experts will be meeting and tackling
current problems without waiting for mediators or for organization of
such consultative meetings”, said the Transnistrian foreign
minister.
Infotag
