Moldovan renaming of official language raises questions on territorial integrity: Russian official

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) — A recent decision by Moldovan lawmakers to rename the country's official language to Romanian raises questions about Moldova's territorial integrity, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has said.

Maria Zakharova was commenting on Saturday on a statement by the Romanian Foreign Ministry which called the renaming "restoration of scientific truth" by saying that renaming Romanian into Moldovan would "restore historical justice,

Zakharova noted that the Moldovan language was the ancient language of Moldovans and a symbol of their self-identification in modern borders in 1940 and added that it has long been established in historical linguistics that Moldovan and Romanian were similar but different languages.

Rejecting the Moldovan language also raises questions about the ownership of Bessarabia and the lands along the Dniester, she also said.

"Rejecting the Moldovan language, the current regime in Chisinau raises the question: whose is now Bessarabia (which was occupied by Romania until 1940) and who owns the lands along the Dniester (which were part of Ukraine until 1940)?" she wrote.

She noted that "paradoxically" now the Moldovan language is only preserved in Moldova's breakaway region of Transnistria.

"If they want to rewrite the name of the language, then let them adhere to historical logic and call Romanian Moldovan, and not vice versa," she stressed.

The Moldovan parliament on Thursday approved the final reading of a draft law renaming the state language from Moldovan to Romanian.

According to a statement by the parliament’s press service, Romanian will replace Moldovan as the country's language in all legislation published by the country, while the terms "official," "state" and "native" will also be replaced.

The bill was proposed by the ruling Action and Solidarity Party. Incumbent Moldovan President Maya Sandu has double Moldovan-Romanian citizenship.