CHISINAU, April 19. /TASS/. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean urged that the movement of two employees of the Russian Embassy be restricted in the wake of the incident where Head of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov was denied entry to the country. "I would like to thank the border police as well as the Interior and Foreign Ministries. Two representatives of the Russian Embassy should have their airport credentials taken away. <...> Mr. Deputy Prime Minister [Popescu], check whether one of these two [employees] deserves to be deported," he said at a meeting of the government.
As Moldovan government spokesman Daniel Voda explained to reporters, the embassy employees would lose their special access to Chisinau airport for their "inappropriate behavior" when the plane with the Russian delegation was landing. Recean criticized the delegates of Moldova’s parliament as well as of the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia for inviting the Russians.
His remarks were criticized by Head of Gagauzia Irina Vlah, who is also a member of the Moldovan government. "We have been cooperating with Tatarstan for 25 years. This region has given us a lot of support. We received hospital equipment, computers and musical equipment for schools among other things. I don’t understand why you are linking Minnikhanov and the war in Ukraine," she noted.
Minnikhanov, who was denied entry to Moldova on Monday said that the Moldovan authorities declared him an undesirable person in the republic. According to him, he came to Chisinau at the invitation of representatives from the Moldovan parliament and the autonomous territory of Gagauzia, who had recently visited Tatarstan and planned an extensive program of joint work. Earlier, the Moldovan authorities on several occasions denied entry to Russian actors, political scientists, scholars, public figures and journalists. The refusal was explained by what has become the mantra for the Moldovan Border Police: they could not justify the purpose of their visit.