Moldova will maintain neutrality but deepen its cooperation with NATO to ensure its defensive capability, Moldova’s Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said on Tuesday.
“Moldova is a neutral country, but neutrality does not mean isolation, on the contrary, it is necessary to invest in the defense of our country“, Popescu said, quoted by the portal Protv.md.
The Moldovan minister also recalled that his country signed an association agreement with NATO in 2016.
Asked at a press conference with the British Minister for Europe, Leo Docherty, about the possibility of requesting the country’s entry into NATO, as the Ukrainian president did last week, the head of Moldovan diplomacy limited himself to saying that his country “needs to continue to strengthen this partnership.”
“This implies strengthening defense and deepening cooperation in this sphere,” the Moldovan minister said. According to the diplomat, for Moldovans “it is important to feel protected”.
“For this we need modern defense tools, both in the military, cybernetic, economic and energy spheres. This also implies the modernization of our defense potential according to the highest international standards”, he explained.
The head of Moldovan diplomacy defended the need to deepen cooperation with partners “that support independence, territorial integrity, freedom and democracy” in Moldova. To this end, Chisinau is in dialogue with the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union (EU) and NATO.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky applied for NATO membership on September 30 in response to Russia’s annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine.
Zelensky signed the request to join the alliance, through the urgent procedure, at the end of an urgent meeting of the Security and National Defense Council in kyiv, arguing that Ukraine and NATO are already de facto allies and that the kyiv Army meets the necessary requirements. requirements
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said, in turn, that the doors of NATO “remain open” for Ukraine, but reminded kyiv that there is a process to follow to enter the Atlantic Alliance.
In addition, Blinken avoided answering whether his country would support an urgent accession procedure to the Atlantic Alliance, such as the one followed this year by Sweden and Finland.
Source: Observadora
