CHISINAU, May 22. /TASS/. Moldova’s Parliament Speaker Igor Grosu has submitted a request to the government to prepare a draft decision allowing the republic to withdraw from the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS, the Moldovan legislature’s press service said on Monday.

"Grosu has asked the government to initiate the withdrawal of the Republic of Moldova from the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The relevant proposal was submitted to the government earlier today," the press service said in a statement.

The pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity, which has control of the republic’s parliament, is led by Grosu. Earlier, he explained this decision by Russia’s actions in Ukraine, which he slammed as ‘illegitimate’. He also accused Moscow of pursuing an "unfriendly" policy toward Chisinau.

Chisinau’s stance toward the CIS began to shift radically after Maia 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 who now leads the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova 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.