President Nicolae Timofti refused to go to the CIS Council of Heads of States, where according to the protocol he was supposed to sit beside Vladimir Putin. The event will take place on September 16th in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, and our country will be represented by a delegation headed by Prime Minister Pavel Filip.

The Secretary Genereal to the President, Ion Păduraru confirmed to Deschide.MD that the head of the state refused to go to this event. 

"The decision belongs to him and I do not know the reasoning underlying it. We have informed the government and asked to be taken all appropriate measures", the official stated.

In turn, the spokeswoman of the Prime Minister, Stela Nistor, confirmed that Pavel Filip accepted to go to this event, and at the today meeting of the Government should be decided the nominal component of the delegation.

At the same time, governmental sources told us that the initial plan was the Moldovan delegation to be led by the Deputy Minister, Lilian Darie. However, this would have been a too "abrupt" diplomatic message in relation with the lack of interest of the Republic of Moldova towards the CIS states community and especially - towards Russian Federation. During the last visit in Chisinau, Russian Deputy Minister Dmitrii Rogozin requested more presence from Chisinau at the events concerning bilateral relations with Russian Federation.

We remind you that President Timofti accepted the invitation of the Council of Heads of States in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Last year the high official refused for the first time to attend this event, the Republic of Moldova being represented by a delegation led by the former Prime Minister Valeriu Strelet. 

As important is to remind that at the 2014 summit held in Minsk, Nicolae Timofti had a flame war with Vladimir Putin. Timofti expressed regret about Russia's attitude towards signing the Association Agreement between Moldova and the EU and reproached Putin with placing embargoes on Moldovan products.

"We regret that, in the wake of the negotiations and consultations that we had, our colleagues from Russia introduced the embargo. They have not gave credible arguments on  the introduction of embargo", stated Timofti.

In turn, Putin has expressed his regret that Moldova refused to consult with Russia on its association with the European Union.