​PRO- AND ANTI-DODON ACTIVISTS ARGUE OVER FLAG INCIDENT IN TEHERAN

Supporters of and opponents to Moldovan President Igor Dodon are expressing their diametrically different opinions about the incident with the Moldovan national flag that happened in the capital of Iran. Stormy debates over the issue continued throughout the past weekend.

Last Friday, at the ceremony of the opening of the world women’s chess championship, the organizers displayed the flag of Moldova with a distorted Moldovan coat of arms, namely the eagle did not have the cross in its beak and there was no scepter in the bird’s paw. The flag was hanging behind President Igor Dodon, who spoke at the ceremony as president of the Moldovan National Chess Federation. Photographs from the championship opening were posted on the Facebook page by Igor Dodon himself.

Some local mass media were quick to notice the distorted coat of arms. They accused the head of state of profanation of the country’s official symbols, and reminded to Dodon that he had won the recent presidential election under the slogans of protecting Orthodoxy and Christian values.

Pro-presidential media objected to such accusation and stated that the President had no relation to the distortion because it was not he who had hanged out of the flag of Moldova but the receiving party.

“Out of considerations of political correctness, the leaderships of Moslem countries often remove crosses and other Christian symbols from the flags of foreign countries. Naturally, President Dodon has no relation to this practice”, wrote pro-presidential Bloknot-Moldova portal.

The portal maintained that an analogous picture could be seen also at the opening of the Republic of Moldova’s consular office in Antalya (Turkey). But other media outlets refuted this assertion.

President Dodon interfered into the dispute and promised in his online commentary to sort out everything.

“Flags are in the scope of responsibility of not visiting presidents but of the host party. As a rule, such questions are tackled by embassies. But Moldova has no embassy in Teheran. We will clear everything out. I am going to have a meeting with the President of Iran. If they appear to have no genuine flag of the Republic of Moldova, I will be insisting on removing this flag”, wrote Igor Dodon.

In his next post in the social network, Dodon published photographs of his meeting with President of Iran Hassan Rouhani. The photographs featured a Moldovan flag with a cross and scepter all right. Igor Dodon did not return to the flag incident anymore.

Concerning the conversation with President Hassan Rouhani, Igor Dodon wrote that the parties exchanged opinions on bilateral relations and possibilities to further develop them.

“There are many promising spheres such as e.g. agriculture. Iran has a population of some 80 million. We touched also on the question of cooperation in the energy sphere. In Moldova, both Dniester River sides consume 2.8-3 billion cubic meters of natural gas per hear, whereas Iran produces a billion cubic meters per day”, said the Moldovan President.

According to him, the parties agreed also to consider the possibility of opening each other’s embassies in Chisinau and Teheran.