UKRAINE PRESIDENT'S VISIT TO MOLDOVA IS NOT PLANNED

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Embassy to Moldova has refuted information about an alleged visit of President Petro Poroshenko to Chisinau. The Embassy press service said that such a visit is not being planned.

The Moldovan governmental press service has also reported that the Government is not expecting such a visit by President Poroshenko.

On Monday evening, President Igor Dodon said on the local television that President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is coming to Chisinau on February 13, but there will be no meeting between the two Presidents.

"According to the information available with us, Poroshenko is to come here on Wednesday, and we were requested to provide the Guard of Honor. Mr. Poroshenko is a candidate for a second presidency, and I presume that the President of Moldova should not hold meetings with any Ukrainian presidential candidates so as not to interfere into the electoral process in Ukraine. It is our neighbor, which we respect and should not interfere into Ukraine's home affairs", said Igor Dodon.

For more than 2 years of his presidency, Igor Dodon has not met with the Presidents of the only two neighbors Moldova has - Ukraine and Romania. President of Romania Klaus Iohannis is refusing to hold meetings with Dodon in a belief that Dodon, unlike his predecessors on the supreme post, is waging an anti-Romania policy.

And President Petro Poroshenko stated yet long ago that he would agree to meet with Igor Dodon only after he officially recognizes that the Crimea belongs to Ukraine. In 2016, during his presidential campaign, Dodon stated on the local television that the Crimea belongs to Russia. That statement caused a stormy reaction in Kiev, and since then Ukrainian officials refuse to meet with the Moldovan President.

However, in the course of the last November's Forum in Paris dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the First World War end, Igor Dodon held a series of protocol meetings "on the feet" with foreign leaders, including with the Presidents of Romania and Ukraine.