The pacifist rhetoric in Tiraspol is a facade, the Moldovan Reintegration Office said today, September 16. This reaction came after writers and journalists from the Republic of Moldova who were bringing magazines to one of the Transnistrian lyceums teaching in Romanian (there are 8 educational institutions in the PMR under the jurisdiction of Chisinau) were not allowed to enter the republic.
The Office stressed that the Transnistrian authorities “are creating barriers even to cooperation in such areas as culture and education.” They promised to report the details of this incident to the OSCE and other international mediators, and also to include this issue on the agenda of the next “1+1” meeting.
“We were informed that several writers were on their way to the school named after her. Alexandra cel Bun was detained by the so-called Transnistrian border guards for participating in a writing seminar. To resolve the problem, we used communication channels with Tiraspol. A group of writers from Chisinau had their documents returned, but were not allowed to enter the region.” – the office said in a statement.
Artistic director of the theatre Alexey Mateevich Maria Ivanova In her post on social media, she clarified that representatives of the Moldovan writing community were detained at the entrance to Bendery. Their passports were taken away and all the magazines they were carrying were examined in order to hand them over to the educational institution. According to her, the border guards “did not like” the issue, which was illustrated with recently taken photographs of kyiv. After an hour of waiting, the creative group received their passports, but they were not allowed to enter Transnistria. The literature was also confiscated.
In November 2017, Chisinau and Tiraspol signed a protocol on the normal operation of Romanian-language schools in the Romanian Region. In Chisinau, however, they believe that the issue of the activities of Moldovan educational institutions in Transnistria is not fully resolved.
