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Bogdan Aurescu: I believe American military presence in region needs to be increased, not just in Romania
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, believes that "American military presence in the region needs to be increased, for both troops, as well as equipment, not just in Romania, but also in the southern part of the Eastern flank".
On a visit to Washington, the head of the Romanian diplomacy took part in the "Security and Cooperation in the Black Sea" dialogue, organized by the Atlantic Council of the United States.
"I discussed yesterday with Secretary Blinken (US State Secretary, Antony Blinken, ed. n). and I expressed Romania's openness to participating in building the US strategy regarding the Black Sea region and I already sent a few preliminary ideas. I believe that it is important to have a multilateral approach regarding security in the Black Sea. This is not about the classical approach regarding military means and security," Bogdan Aurescu said.
He said that "it is a sort of an unbalance, at this moment, between the allocated resources for the northern part and those allocated for the southern part".
"So we need to balance the situation and to have more resources in the southern part of the Eastern flank and to continue building this coherent approach of the Eastern flank as a unitary whole," the Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister pointed out.
According to him, "all that happens in the Black Sea does not remain in the Black Sea, it has a major impact on transatlantic relations, in general".
Furthermore, he highlighted that, "in the last three decades, the Black Sea has been an area of conflict", and this "trend remains, unfortunately, if we look at what happened this year, for example, in April, when we witnessed the massive deployment of Russian forces, perhaps the largest such deployment since the Cold War, in the region, with a lot of equipment left there. (...) It is worrisome, and should preoccupy us all, not just the countries in the region, but also NATO".
The Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs highlighted that "the risk of future challenges, including security challenges, remains high".
"I believe that we need to take this into consideration and to act for reconstructing security and stability, including prosperity in the Black Sea region," he said.
(Photo: mae.ro)