EXPERTS COMMENTING DIFFERENTLY ON SECURITY CHIEF'S RESIGNATION

Moldovan experts are offering differing assessments of the sudden resignation of Information and Security Service Director Vitalie Pirlog appointed to the sensitive post only 2 months ago - last December 21.

Alexei Tulbure, Moldova's former Permanent Representative at the Council of Europe and the United Nations, offered an opinion that "apparently, there are problems in his relationship with Vlad Plahotniuc [Democratic Party leader and the 'executive coordinator' of the ruling coalition in Moldova]".

"I don't think that their differences can be of a principal, serious character, for Pirlog has always been an obedient performer of the oligarch's will. But something must have gone wrong. I am not ruling out completely that Moldova's international partners have thus asked Plahotniuc to make Pirlog "get out". In the Interpol, not everything is going smoothly for Vitalie Pirlog, either. There, he has a reputation of mafia's man. I believe he must not hold whatever public posts at all. So, his departure from the ISS is a good news", said the diplomat.

Doctor of History Ruslan Shevchenko reminded that Vitalie Pirlog did not have a particular desire to become a parliament member from the Communist Party, so the ISS Director post seemed interesting to him at the beginning, and he accepted the offer.

"But when Pirlog started going deeper into the ISS professional kitchen, he began realizing that he had got into something really great. A parliamentary election is approaching, and half a year after it, in summer 2019 - local elections. Torrents of compromising evidence will start flowing from all sides, and yells about pressing, tapping, victimizing, harassing and what not. The ISS traditionally plays an important-most role in all this. Pirlog, whom the political opposition have heretofore perceived relatively neutrally, will immediately become in their eyes a devil incarnate, a deadly enemy, and everybody will start digging compromising materials on him. He has realized all this and preferred to disappear quietly, and to return to the Interpol. There, he will be no hindrance to any of Moldovan politicians", said Shevchenko.

Vitalie Pirlog was appointed ISS Director on December 21, 2017 for a 5-year term of office when his candidacy was voted for by 55 Deputies in the 101-member Parliament of Moldova.

Vitalie Pirlog was born on July 28, 1974. In 1997 he received a diploma in "International Law" of the International Independent University of Moldova (ULIM). In 2001-2006 he was the Moldovan Government's Permanent Representative at the European Court for Human Rights. From September 2006 to September 2009 he was holding the post of Moldova's Minister of Justice. In early 2016 he was appointed Chairman of the Commission for the Control of Interpol's Files (CCF). In December 2017 he refused to take the mandate of a Parliament Member after Communist MP Oxana Domenti had retired from the legislative forum. Pirlog was standing next on the Communist Party's 'waiting list' for the Parliament.