CHISINAU, July 7. /TASS/. Moldova’s parliament has voted in favor of denouncing the Convention on the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a TASS correspondent reported.

Members of the opposition Bloc of Communists and Socialists walked out in protest.

"Fifty-five lawmakers voted in favor of denouncing the Convention on the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly," Moldovan Parliament President Igor Grosu announced.

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. However, Minister of Economic Development and Digitalization Dumitru Alaiba said that the country should maintain the agreements that benefit its economy. The Moldovan authorities’ policy of severing ties with the CIS will have disastrous consequences, said Igor Dodon, the country’s former president and leader of the opposition Party of Socialists. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova earlier slammed Chisinau’s policy as hypocritical.