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U.S. House submits draft urging Russia to pull out of Transdnestr

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WASHINGTON, June 7 (RIA Novosti) - A group of eight U.S. Representatives submitted a draft resolution Thursday urging Russia to withdraw its troops, weapons and ammunition from Moldova's breakaway province.

The draft says Russia's military presence in Transdnestr is a violation of Moldova's sovereignty, and contradicts Moscow's formal pledge to move out by 2002.

The lawmakers propose that troops currently deployed in Moldova's security zone be replaced by an international peacekeeping contingent under an OSCE mandate.

NATO countries have insisted on Russia's withdrawal from Transnestr and other post-Soviet regions as a condition for their ratifying the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty on arms reduction. NATO's reluctance to ratify the re-drafted the pact is a key source of tension between Russia and the Western security alliance.

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that "artificial links" between the CFE treaty and a UN-mandated peacekeeping force in Georgia or a Russian battalion guarding ammunition depots in Moldova are "unacceptable" and "legally irrelevant."

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