Serbia, Montenegro Demand Explanation After Moldova Coup Plot Claim

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By Madalin Necsutu and Milica Stojanovic

Officials in Serbia and Montenegro on Tuesday called for clarification from Chisinau after Moldovan President Maia Sandu alleged that citizens of Russia, Belarus, Serbia and Montenegro planned to try to enter Moldova and violently oust the country’s pro-EU government in order to replace it with a Russian-controlled puppet regime.

Sandu claimed on Monday that foreign saboteurs with military training, disguised as civilians, would try to stage a coup and take hostages under cover of protests staged by Moldova’s pro-Russian opposition.

Several Serbian football fans who flew to Moldova to watch an international match were turned back in case any of them were undercover saboteurs.

Moldova’s airspace was also briefly closed on Tuesday afternoon for what were described as security reasons.

But Serbia and Montenegro claimed they had not been informed about any plot or any specific individuals allegedly involved.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said he rejected the Moldovan president’s claims, saying that Belgrade “demands that the Moldovan authorities urgently send us any information in their possession because we have never received such notification from Moldova to date”.

Montenegrin Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic said that if Moldova can provide more information, “we are more than willing to hear it”.

“Until then, I do not have any special information, nor have I heard [anything about] it, except for what I have seen in the media,” Abazovic told media in Podgorica.

He added that “if there are irresponsible individuals, they probably exist in our country and in some other spheres”, but that what he read about Sandu’s statement “sounded a bit harsh to me”.

Presidency sources in Chisinau said that Moldova will resolve the situation with Serbia and Montenegro diplomatically.

Russia also insisted that there was no evidence that its citizens were involved in any coup plot.

Twelve Serbian citizens said they flew to Moldova on Monday as tourists to watch a football match between Partizan Belgrade and Sheriff Tiraspol from Transistria but were held at Chisinau airport and barred from entering the country. They said they were ordered to go back to Serbia.

A spokesperson for the Moldovan Football Federation, Alexandru Grecu, told BIRN that the ban was imposed after a request from the Intelligence and Security Service amid suspicions that among the supporters of the Serbian team could be saboteurs who would try to destabilise Moldova.

The UEFA Europa Conference League match will be played on Thursday without the presence of fans, the Belgrade club said on Tuesday.

“FC Partizan informs the public that the Football Association of Moldova, on the order of the Security Service of Moldova, decided that the match between FC Sherif from Tiraspol and FC Partizan Belgrade will be played behind closed doors,” the club wrote on Twitter.

“We inform all Partizan fans that entry to Moldova is not possible, as well as attendance at the match, and we ask you not to travel,” it added.

An MP from the governing Action and Solidarity, PAS party, Andrian Cheptonar, told BIRN that law enforcement agencies have said they believe that people of various nationalities will try to enter the country in order to destabilise the situation.

Pro-Russian opposition forces in Moldova funded by wanted Moscow-backed businessman and politician Ilan Shor staged anti-government protests last year.

“They failed with people paid by fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor and now they are trying these actions with outsiders. No fans will come to this match. Many people of the mentioned nationalities come to the border crossing points every day. If there are suspicions regarding the reason for their entry, they are returned home,” said Cheptonar.

On Monday, the head of the Parliamentary Commission for Defence, Security and Public Order, MP Lilian Carp, told TVR Moldova that in the last year, about 200 people from the Russian region of Dagestan had come to Moldova but were stopped at the border because they could not justify their visit to Chisinau.

Balkan Insight

The Balkan Insight (formerly the Balkin Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN) is a close group of editors and trainers that enables journalists in the region to produce in-depth analytical and investigative journalism on complex political, economic and social themes. BIRN emerged from the Balkan programme of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, IWPR, in 2005. The original IWPR Balkans team was mandated to localise that programme and make it sustainable, in light of changing realities in the region and the maturity of the IWPR intervention. Since then, its work in publishing, media training and public debate activities has become synonymous with quality, reliability and impartiality. A fully-independent and local network, it is now developing as an efficient and self-sustainable regional institution to enhance the capacity for journalism that pushes for public debate on European-oriented political and economic reform.

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