MOSCOW, November 7. /TASS/. The issue of withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Transnistria can be looked at only when the Transnistrian conflict is settled by political means, the leader of Moldova’s opposition Party of Socialists and a candidate for Moldovan president Igor Dodon said on Monday.

"As for the military contingent of the Dniester’s left bank, we believe that this issue will be ultimately settled when we find a political solution to the Transnistrian conflict," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel. "As Moldova’s new president, we with the Transnistrian leaders will try to find such political solution which we will refer for consideration in the 5+2 format," he said.

According to Dodon, his party is categorically against Moldova’s membership in NATO and any foreign military presence on its territory.

Earlier in the day, Moldova’s Defense Minister Anatol Salaru said in Chisinau that he had agreed with his Ukrainian counterpart to draft by the yearend a plan of the withdrawal of the Russian military and weapons from Transnistria, which envisages the establishment of a so-called ‘green corridor’ across Ukraine for them.

President of the unrecognized republic of Transnistria Yevgeny Shevchuk told TASS his republic is categorically against withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from the region.