​NATO OFFICE IN CHISINAU WILL BE OPENED IN JUNE – SECRETARY GENERAL

The NATO Liaison Office will be opened in Chisinau in June 2017, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in his telephone conversation with Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip on Thursday.

The Bureau question, which is categorically disapproved by Moldova’s President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Igor Dodon, was the main topic of the talk. Stoltenberg said the procedure of accreditation of the Office head and staff will begin already in March, and in June the Office will be officially inaugurated.

Pavel Filip assured his Government will render all necessary backing to this process. He invited the NATO Secretary General to come to Chisinau to attend the Bureau opening ceremony.

The interlocutors discussed also consolidation of political dialog and practical cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance in spheres determined in the Moldova-NATO Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP). Premier Filip stressed that the principle of Moldova’s neutrality has already been stipulated in the Plan, “therefore there is no need signing a separate agreement [on neutrality recognition] to this effect”, wrote the governmental press service.

Pavel Filip and Jens Stoltenberg discussed also the Transnistria settlement question.

“The Prime Minister expressed gratitude to the North Atlantic Alliance for its support to the Republic of Moldova in the peaceful settling of the Transnistrian conflict with the observance of the Republic of Moldova’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as for efforts to remove the military subdivisions of the Russian Federation deployed illicitly in the territory of our country”, wrote the governmental press service.

As already reported by Infotag, in late November 2016 Moldova signed an Agreement on opening a NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau. Signatures under the document were put in the NATO Headquarters in Brussels by Pavel Filip and Jens Stoltenberg. The Agreement was ratified by the Moldovan Parliament in December and inaugurated promptly by outgoing President Timofti a few days before his successor, Igor Dodon, had been sworn in.

At a Government meeting in early February, Premier Filip called the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration to avoid whatever procrastination of the Office opening process.

President Igor Dodon is categorically against having the NATO Office in Chisinau, regarding this entire enterprise as a provocation and encroachment on Moldova’s constitutional neutrality. After his first meeting with Parliament Chairman Andrian Candu and Prime Minister Pavel Filip earlier this week, Dodon stated that “if they permit the Office opening”, next year the President will all the same close it down.

The North Atlantic Alliance has already appointed Kristina Baleysyte as Head of the Office in Chisinau. Currently she heads a NATO Office in Tbilisi [Republic of Georgia].