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Transdnestr "5+2" talks off - Russian envoy

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Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, the EU, and the United States were looking for ways of holding further consultations to keep the peace process going.

MOSCOW, April 1, (RIA Novosti, Natalya Belova) - A Russian Foreign Ministry official said Saturday a meeting of conflict mediators on the Transdnestr settlement in the 5+2 format (Moldova, Transdnestr, Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, the EU and the U.S.), scheduled for April 4-5, would not take place.

"This time frame was set at the latest round of negotiations which the Moldovan delegation walked out on without completing it," Ambassador-at-Large Valery Nesterushkin said. "But naturally, since March 3, when new customs regulations were introduced for the passage of Transdnestr exports across the Ukrainian border, the situation has changed drastically."

He said Russia, Ukraine, the OSCE, the EU, and the United States were looking for ways of holding further consultations to keep the peace process going.

Nesterushkin said "mediators and observers are seeking bilateral consultations with the parties involved with a view to facilitating a political settlement."

A Moldovan delegation failed to turn up at an emergency meeting of conflict mediators March 29 to discuss the police presence in the self-proclaimed republic of Transdnestr.

The emergency meeting was called to discuss interaction between Moldovan and local police in the Transdnestr city of Bendery, in response to local administration criticism of 400 Moldovan police officers present in the city.

The emergency session was originally scheduled for March 28 to include delegates from Russia, Moldova and Transdnestr in the Joint Control Commission, a body set up in the early 1990s to coordinate peacekeeping efforts in the conflict zone.

The commission includes all three parties, but Moldova stopped attending sessions in October 2005.

As of March 3, all Transdnestr goods bound for Ukraine are required to have an official Moldovan stamp, which some Russian politicians have said amounts to an economic blockade of the region.

This move is the latest flare-up in the conflict over Transdnestr's status since an armed conflict broke out in March 1992, when Moldova declared its independence from the Soviet Union and Transdnestr in turn proclaimed itself a republic. Russia intervened in the conflict at the Moldovan president's request and the Russian and Moldovan presidents signed a ceasefire agreement in the presence of the leader of Transdnestr in July 1992.

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