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President Basescu: Diplomatic inefficiency, maintaining grey areas, a major risk to regional security
The diplomatic inefficiency and maintaining grey areas are a major risk to the regional security, President Traian Basescu said on Tuesday in an address to the Romanian Parliament on the 10th anniversary of Romania's joining NATO.
According to Basescu, the frozen conflicts in Transnistria, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh or South Ossetia are a test for NATO's capacity to bring stability and security to the region, including the capacity to ensure Europe's energy security.
Traian Basescu said that put emphasis on the degradation of the security environment in the Black Sea region and the re-emergence of conventional military conflicts between European states, in Romania's 2010 National Defence Strategy, submitted to Parliament.
'The current strategic context, marked by asymmetric transboundary threats, regional instability, a complex relation with Russia, violations of international law overlapping challenges in Afghanistan and the entire region, confirm our analyses. In this situation, there is no other response than to adapt our national and NATO's capabilities to address threats, whatever their origin, in close proximity or at strategic distances. In order to have stability in Europe, we should avoid the grey areas and an ambiguous approach,' the head of state said.
President Basescu pointed out that one of the risks in our region regards the fact that Russia has decided to annex Crimea.
'Therefore, we must continue our dialogue with Ukraine and encourage it to act as a reliable partner and a predictable contributor to the regional and international security. We must support the reformist forces in Kiev and provide assistance. Romania unreservedly backs Ukraine's independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty and we recognize the new Ukrainian authorities as legitimate representatives of their country,' he said.
The head of state underscored that any presence of Russian troops on Ukraine's territory without its assent and by violating the bilateral agreements is an aggression against this country. Basescu condemned Russia's move to annex Crimea, pointing out that Romania does not recognize this illegal annexation.
In addition, Basescu said that Romania is concerned about possible reverberations of the Ukraine crisis upon the Republic of Moldova.
'The ethnic composition of Transnistria, including significant Ukrainian and Russian communities, is another reason for which we should keep a watchful eye on how things develop beyond the Dniester,' Traian Basescu added.