In 1992, Moldova joined the
North Atlantic Cooperation Council, renamed the
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) in 1997. Relations expanded when Moldova joined the
Partnership for Peace programme (PfP) in 1994. The Partnership for Peace was signed by
Mircea Snegur and
Manfred Wörner, on 16 March 1994, with Moldova becoming the 12th signatory country and the second of the
Commonwealth of Independent States after
Ukraine. On July 8, 1997,
Petru Lucinschi and
Mihai Popov, the
foreign minister of Moldova attended the
NATO summit in
Madrid. The Mission of Moldova to NATO was established in 1997 with the appointment of the first Moldovan representative to the EAPC. The mission is located in the
Embassy of Moldova in Brussels and has a liaison office in the premises of
NATO headquarters in
Brussels.
Vladimir Voronin visited NATO headquarters in Brussels on 23 June 2003, 7 June 2005, 22 June 2006, 18 June 2007, and 5 December 2007. At the
2004 Istanbul summit, NATO accepted
Russia's military presence in Moldova and
Georgia (the withdrawal of these troops was an obligation Russia had assumed at the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's
1999 Istanbul summit). US Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld stopped, en route to Istanbul, in Moldova, where he called for the withdrawal of Russian forces from the country. On 23 September 2004, the
NATO Secretary General,
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, traveled to
Chişinău where he met with
President of Moldova Vladimir Voronin, with
Foreign Minister of Moldova Andrei Stratan and Minister of Defence
Victor Gaiciuc. The
Individual Partnership Action Plan between NATO and Moldova was signed on 19 May 2006. With the support of NATO's Public Diplomacy Division, an Information and Documentation Centre on NATO was inaugurated at the
Moldova State University in October 2007. On 3 April, at the
2008 Bucharest summit, NATO announced its support for the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of Moldova. Voronin participated to the Working Lunch of the Heads of State and Government of countries
Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council in
Bucharest. On 18 November 2008,
NATO Parliamentary Assembly adopted Resolution 371 on the future of
NATO–Russia relations, with among other things, "urges the government and the parliament of Russia to respect its commitments which were taken at the Istanbul OSCE Summit in 1999 and has to withdraw its illegal military presence from the
Transdnestrian region of Moldova in the nearest future." In 2009, Moldova cancelled its attendance of the
Cooperative 09 in response to
a troop mutiny in Georgia. The former communist government, which lost its majority in parliament in
2009 elections, was seen as more allied with Russia and was already a member of the
Commonwealth of Independent States. In April 2009, Moldova announced it would not participate in the June NATO military exercises. The new ruling party, the
Alliance for European Integration, declined to take any action to either move towards membership, or withdraw from the Commonwealth of Independent States, and denied plans to do either. ==Membership debate==