Protest against opening of NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau

08.12.2017 14:57
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Members and supporters of the Party of Socialists (PSRM) on December 8 mounted a protest in front of the Skytower Center, where Prime Minister Pavel Filip and NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller were giving a news conference on the occasion of the opening of the NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau, IPN reports.

MP Vlad Batrancea, executive secretary of the PSRM, said the government made the country hostage of geopolitical games. The rapprochement with NATO will bring benefits not to the people of Moldova, but only to the authorities.

According to the Socialists, the Moldovan Government’s decision to open the NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau is another unconstitutional act of the ruling regime. It is a logical continuation of the policy to ignore the country’s neutrality and the will of the majority of people. After the adoption of a scandalous and antidemocratic law “to combat Russian propaganda”, the opening of the NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau is another step towards a rupture in the relations between Moldova and Russia.

In a meeting of President Igor Dodon and NATO Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller earlier today, the Head of State suggested that the Office should state in a political document that NATO has a respectful attitude to the constitutional status of permanent neutrality of Moldova. “Our principled position is that in its relations, both with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Republic of Moldova should focus exclusively on its neutrality status,” said the presidential press service.

According to President Dodon, the hurry in which the NATO Liaison Office in Moldova was opened could significantly hamper the efforts to settle the Transnistrian dispute. “The Government and the parliamentary majority should first of all make effort to minimize the internal political confrontations, not to make the situation in Moldovan society tenser,” he stated.

The NATO Liaison Office in Moldova was inaugurated in Chisinau on December 8. This is a diplomatic mission of experts from Moldova’s development partner states. It has no military implications and was set up in accordance with the provisions of the agreement that was signed by Prime Minister Pavel Filip and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels on November 29, 2016.