Earlier in the day, the Moldovan government declared Rogozin persona non-grata for the latter's recent statements "of defaming, offensive and unfriendly nature." The Russian Foreign Ministry expressed a strong protest to Moldovan ambassador to Russia Andrei Neguta over the move.
"We are convinced that this demarche is yet another proof of Chisinau's strategy of deliberately heightening tensions, aggravating the situation in the dialogue with Transnistria and pushing Russia from the region," Transnistria's Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry said that with this move, Moldova showed its unwillingness "to develop civilized interaction with Russia and Transnistria."
Transnistria, a region with a predominantly ethnically Russian and Ukrainian population, is a self-proclaimed republic that seceded from the Soviet Republic of Moldova in 1990, fearing possible reunion with Romania. The separation led to a conflict known as "The Transnistria War" that ended in a ceasefire declared in July 1992, although the issue is still unresolved. Since 2005, the talks on the conflict in Transnistria have been held in the 5+2 format, which, apart from Transnistria and Moldova, includes the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union and the United States as mediators.
