​NATO PRESS SECRETARY SAYS NATO OFFICE IN CHISINAU WILL BE OPENED BY MID-2017

NATO Press Secretary Oana Lunjescu has stated the NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau will start working in the middle of current year.

She assured that the Office will be not a military base and not a structure of whatever military profile. This will be a purely civilian, diplomatic bureau.

Besides this, this is not going to be something imposed on Moldova: “On the contrary, the Office is the result of the request formulated by the Government of Moldova”, she said.

In her words, the Office will have a purely civilian staff. Besides the Office Head, who is a lady citizen of Lithuania, all the rest employees will be citizens of Moldova.

Before, the Moldovan Government said the NATO Office would be opened in Chisinau in March, then in April. Prime Minister Pavel Filip ordered to eliminate all possible obstacles to opening the Office, disregarding the categorical objections voiced by head of state Igor Dodon, who is the country’s Supreme Commander-in-Chief.