"This is not a spontaneous, but a thought-out decision," Ivan Solonenko, Moldovan commission co-chairman, said. "We have made a decision to return to work [within the commission] since otherwise the peace process will be null."
The JCC is responsible for security in the buffer zone between Moldova and unrecognized Transdnestr, and also includes representatives from Russia, which has had peacekeepers in the area since it intervened in a conflict between Moldova and Transdnestr in July 1992.
Moldova had cited a dispute over the village of Dorotskoye, a Moldovan entity with farmland on Transdnestr territory, as the reason it stopped attending JCC meetings.
Valery Nesterushkin, Russia's ambassador at large, said the Transdnestr authorities had recognized Moldova's jurisdiction over the lands, which meant there was no longer any reason for it to avoid JCC meetings.
Moldova's Reintegration Minister Vasile Sova said his country was rejoining the JCC in a bid to help ensure stability in the buffer zone. He said ensuring free travel for people and free movement of goods in the area would promote stability.
"The Moldovan side hopes the JCC will now work with maximum efficiency in accordance with the 1992 agreement," he said.
Nesterushkin hailed the move, saying it "could only be welcomed, as the situation in the security zone has caused concerns of all the parties involved."
But he said no progress had been made in easing the economic blockade of Transdnestr, which led to increased tension after Moldova said all goods bound for neighboring Ukraine had to have an official Moldovan stamp, and it was not to be expected in the near future.
"A great deal of diplomacy is being conducted, the proposals we put forward at a recent meeting of mediators and observers in Moscow are being studied, but we have witnessed no real breakthroughs," he said.
