Moldova has begun the process of withdrawing from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
This was stated by the countryʼs Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihail Popsoi on Radio Moldova.
The government is preparing three basic Commonwealth agreements for denunciation: the CIS Charter of January 22, 1993, the Agreement on the Establishment of the CIS of December 8, 1991, as well as the Appendix thereto of December 22, 1991. The documents are planned to be sent to parliament by mid-February.
Moldova has signed a total of 283 agreements with the CIS, 71 agreements have been denounced, and approximately 60 are in the process of denunciation.
The Moldovan authorities began taking the first official steps towards leaving the CIS in 2023. In July of that year, the Moldovan Parliament voted to withdraw from the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.
- The CIS currently unites nine post-Soviet states: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
- Previously, Georgia withdrew from the CIS — in 2008 (after the war with the Russian Federation) and Ukraine in 2018. In January 1993, Ukraine did not sign the CIS Charter, therefore de jure it was not a member state of the Commonwealth, but had the status of a founding state and a member state of the CIS.
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