Defense Minister Vasile Dincu underscored on Friday the "soundness and timeliness" of Romania and Bulgaria's NATO accession 18 years ago.
"18 years ago, Romania and Bulgaria made an extremely important choice in terms of security and defense. We joined together the North Atlantic Alliance, the strongest and most effective military alliance in the world. Back then, both governments considered this to be a reasonable choice, (...) although the public opinion didn't find this Alliance stringently necessary. But now, the Alliance and joining this common project are proving their soundness and timeliness," Vasile Dincu said after the meeting with his visiting Bulgarian counterpart Dragomir Zakov.
DefMin Dincu said that "in this extremely complex period for the regional security of NATO's eastern flank", the visit of the Bulgarian counterpart confirms the two states' "exceptional bilateral relations".
Reiterating Romania and Bulgaria's solidarity with Ukraine, Dincu stressed that Romania and Bulgaria's priority "is the operationalization of the NATO battle groups."
He also congratulated the Bulgarian Defense Minister on his cooperation with Romanian diplomats on "working up the most important NATO documents, on debates on the Strategic Compass (...) and NATO's future strategic concept," as well as on "the professionalism with which Bulgaria is currently serving as Chairman-in-Office of the South-Eastern Europe Defense Ministerial Process for the period 2021-2023".
AGERPRES