Dodon cannot prevent opening of NATO Liaison Office in Moldova

Although President of Moldova Igor Dodon is categorically against cooperation with NATO, regarding this as encroachment on Moldova’s constitutional neutrality, a NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau will open in Chisinau already in the nearest future, said Sanda Sandu, the Project Manager from the NATO Information and Documentation Center in Chisinau.

According to Sandu, the Center has been participating in governmental working groups for a decade, thus helping to create a strategy of national defense and national security as well as in parliamentary ad hoc groups to improve legislation in the media field.

Sandu said NATO’s activities are not limited to military security issues. The alliance provides also projects of humanitarian destination.

As Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Igor Dodon has banned the National Army to participate in missions abroad after the government of Moldova ignored his directives and sent a military contingent to annual NATO-led drills in Ukraine.

Before that, Dodon recalled the military doctrine drafted with the help of the NATO experts. According to the parliament and government of Moldova, such attitude by the president will have adverse effect on the country’s defense capacity.

The opening date of NATO Liaison Office has not been announced yet. Earlier, the opening had been postponed on repeated occasions.

EADaily reported earlier that Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg signed an agreement to pave the way for the establishment of a NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau at NATO Headquarters on 29 November 2016. The Parliament ratified the document in December, and it came into effect before President Dodon took office. He regarded it as a provocation saying, “if the government opens the office, the president will close it in a year.”

At a government meeting in February, the prime minister urged the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and European Integration to prevent any delays with opening of the NATO Liaison Office.