Topical issues on observance of Security Zone's regime discussed at first meeting of Joint Control Commission from 2024

Chisinau, 18 January /MOLDPRES/ - The head of Moldova’s Delegation, Sergiu Golovaci, was confirmed as co-president of the Joint Control Commission, at a meeting of the Joint Control Commission (JCC) held in Bender today, the Reintegration Policies Bureau has reported.    

The OSCE Mission in Moldova signaled new obstacles on behalf of Tiraspol to the implementation of the principles of cooperation between this organization and JCC, signed on 10 December 2004. Thus, in December 2023 and January 2024, the Mission’s monitoring teams were not allowed to pass through the infrastructure of the illegal posts of the Transnistrian structures set between the settlements Proteagailovca and Harbovat, Dubasari and Cosnita and waited for 30 minutes at the illegal post Bender-Varnita. These serious irregularities take place, even if the OSCE Mission preliminarily notified about the trip by its representatives. The OSCE Mission describes Tiraspol’s request to make such notifications as infringement of its mandate and demanded the involvement of the Joint Control Commission in ensuring the freedom of movement for its teams for the efficient fulfillment of their mandate.     

While tackling the issue of observance of the Security Zone’s regime, the Moldovan Delegation’s members signed a declaration, in which they revealed another case of ignoring the basic acts of the Joint Control Commission, referring to the trainings carried out by the military contingent of Russia’s peacekeeping forces on 22 December 2023. The actions were carried out at the posts of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces, outside the deployment points, with the use of weapons, military machines and equipment, some types of which were not even notified as belonging to the military contingent. Two military commandants were present on the spot, who also infringed the regulation, as they did not have the approval of the Joint Military Command. Concomitantly, the representatives of Russia and Transnistrian region blocked the movement of military observers for the documentation of incidents. The concerned trainings had a negative impact on the citizens from the nearby settlements, who expressed concern about the frightening sounds of the weapons and possible undesirable tension in the Security Zone.   

In the context, Moldova ‘s Delegation demanded the ceasing of these infringements, as well as the working out of new regulations on the way of carrying out of trainings, so that such abusive actions on behalf of one of the military  contingents of the Joint Peacekeeping Forces are ruled out.