CHISINAU, May 15. /TASS/. Moldovan Parliamentary President Igor Grosu has announced his decision to initiate the country’s withdrawal from the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

"I have decided to initiate the withdrawal of the Republic of Moldova from the Agreement on the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly," he said at a briefing, saying that CIS institutions were "useless" for Moldova.

According to Grosu, he made the decision after consultations with the country’s citizenry, members of the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity, and President Maia Sandu. Grosu described Russia’s activities in Ukraine as "illegal" and accused Moscow of pursuing an "unfriendly" policy toward Chisinau.

At the next meeting of the parliament’s standing bureau, Grosu will suggest that lawmakers formally request that Prime Minister Dorin Recean prepare a bill that would denounce the Convention on the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.

Chisinau’s stance toward the CIS began to shift radically after Sandu won the 2020 presidential election. To date, she has not attended a single CIS summit. This year, Moldova sharpened its critical rhetoric aimed at the CIS, with Foreign Minister Nicolae Popescu launching the denunciation of a number of agreements signed under the intergovernmental organization’s aegis. The Moldovan opposition has been strongly critical of the Sandu administration’s approach, however. Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon believes that the country will not survive without close cooperation with the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union and Russia. He points out that the current government’s policy has plunged Moldova into its deepest crisis in recent years, with agricultural exporters losing access to markets and prices of gas and other Russian energy resources rising significantly. According to Dodon, such a policy course, which is being dictated by external forces, runs counter to the country’s own interests.