Chisinau regrets initiative to prolong movement restrictions in Transnistrian region

Chisinau, 1 December /MOLDPRES/ - The Reintegration Policies Bureau expresses regret and concern about Tiraspol’s initiative to extend the quarantine period till 1 February 2021, with the keeping of the same restrictions to the free movement of more categories of citizens, the Reintegration Policies Bureau has reported.  

Despite hundreds of approaches and appeals submitted by Chisinau through communication channels at the level of political representatives and with the use of the present dialogue platforms, including with invitation to international mediators and observers to have an active contribution in this respect, the artificial obstacles are maintained in continuation. At the same time, in the last nine months, thousands of residents from both banks of Dniester have been in impossibility to have access to jobs, homes, close relatives, respectively, are limited in fulfilling the right to free movement on all the territory of the country and a string of other related fundamental rights.   

The growing statistics as to the infections with COVID-19 in the Transnistrian region from the last period, which maintains the regions practically on the top of the administrative and territorial units with large number of infections, clearly shows the groundless character of restrictions enforced continuously and the need to replace them by sanitary and epidemiological, as well individual protection measures in public and closed spaces, according to widely applied practices all over the country and internationally, without hitting the inalienable right of people to free movement, to work, accessing medical services on the right bank of Dniester, etc.     

Chisinau has repeatedly showed full openness to provide assistance in diverse aspects as to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, from testing residents at the laboratories accredited in Chisinau to sharing with protocols recommended by the World Health Organization and joint implementation of the roadmap on the measures of preventing and combating the new-type coronavirus in the settlements and medical institutions from the region, according to the recommendations generated by WHO, as a result of a technical visit to Tiraspol on 6 May 2020, at a request by the Reintegration Policies Bureau.    

Thus, we reiterate the call on the need to unconditionally de-block the free movement of residents from both banks of Dniester, without connecting this process to the pandemic context; or the international practice sees viable ways of ensuring the protection of public health without affecting the fundamental human rights. At the same time, Chisinau’s proposal, repeatedly highlighted, on the indispensability to re-launch the dialogue between experts in the healthcare sector remains further valid, in order to coordinate the steps necessary to be taken for the efficient management of the pandemic situation and providing qualified medical assistance to people hit.