Kremlin expects good relations with new Moldovan leadership

MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia expects good relations with the new Moldovan leadership, but its position on the country's possible accession to NATO remains unchanged, a presidential press secretary said.

The new Moldovan leadership has openly supported unification with Romania and closer ties with the West.

"I expect constructive and neighborly relations with the new Moldovan leadership, we have the necessary background," Natalya Timakova said, expressing hope that positive tendencies in bilateral relations would continue.

"We respect any choice of Moldovan people," she added

She said, however, that Russia had clearly expressed its position on NATO's eastern expansion and "was not going to change its stance in this respect."

Moldovan Prime Minister Vladimir Filat said on Tuesday that his country needed a transition period "to convince the people about the need of joining NATO, and to change the perception of NATO as a hostile bloc, which has been created under the influence of Russian media."

Alexander Kuzhba, Moldova's envoy to the United Nations, said earlier in the day that the new government would demand the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from its breakaway region of Transdnestr.