CHISINAU (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, the Moldovan leader held a meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in the Iranian capital of Tehran.
"As a Moldovan president and on the ground of a legitimate mandate given to me by the nation of our country, I will defend the interests of the Moldovan people and I intend to block the efforts of the ruling Democratic Party to undermine and to hinder our bilateral relations with Russia by all possible legal means, even via boycotting the draft laws adopted by the parliament," Dodon said on his Facebook account after the meeting.
Earlier, the Moldovan government declared Rogozin persona non-grata for the latter's "offensive" statements, made during an interview with the Rossiya 24 broadcaster, when the deputy prime minister said that the delegation of the Moldovan government, which visited Russia a half of year ago, behaved like "gypsies."
The Russian government strongly condemned the actions of the Moldovan authorities. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that naming Rogozin a persona non-grata was absolutely unacceptable. The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned the Moldovan ambassador to the country over the issue, while Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said that Moscow would consider adequate retaliatory measures.
The Moldovan move comes after on July 28, a Russian S7 airlines plane with Rogozin on board, flying to the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, was denied access to enter Romanian airspace due to the fact that the official was on the EU sanctions list.
