Romania is the Main Trade Partner for Moldova, Ciocoi Says

Foreign Minister Aureliu Ciocoi said that he was “a little surprised by the official statement of the Romanian Foreign Ministry” after his meeting with his Romanian counterpart Bogdan Aurescu. “We had a very warm discussion, as between two good neighbors. Honestly, the official statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Romania also a little surprised me, but, on the other hand, I would note that it also has positive sides. Our Romanian colleagues made us think that we draw the line and start from scratch, which is positive in my opinion. In addition to all the likes and dislikes that may exist in Bucharest regarding the current Moldovan government, there are relations between states, which makes us leave aside personal or party sympathies. If we talk about the relations between the states, then I do not see any problems in the cooperation between the Republic of Moldova and Romania now. We follow the cooperation in the same direction. Romania is the main trade partner for the Republic of Moldova. It is our strategic partner. If you remember, in 2010, the presidents of both states signed a declaration on strategic partnership. We are grateful to Romania for all the assistance they provided to the Republic of Moldova, 100 million in grants and 150 million euros in credit. This is a huge amount, which is of great importance for the Republic of Moldova and I am not mentioning the projects carried out by Romania in the Republic of Moldova. For instance, we have 900 kindergartens repaired with Romanian taxpayer money. All this remains valid,” the minister said in an interview for Unimedia. We remind that after the meeting between Aureliu Ciocoi and Bogdan Aurescu on the sidelines of the meeting of the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers in Bratislava, the statement made by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was rather harsh. The Romanian institution mentioned that the support, including the financial one, provided by Romania to the Republic of Moldova would no longer be the same and will be reoriented depending on the specific actions of the new Chisinau government. Point