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Romania's Defence Minister Mihai Fifor said on Friday during a visit to the 57th Air Base with Canadian counterpart Harjit Singh Sajjan that incidents such as the recent one when an American military aircraft was intercepted by a Russian airplane in the Black Sea international airspace, are frequent.
"Such incidents, unfortunately, are relatively common; I do not mean this type of interception, it indeed did not happen in a long time and it was at least a bizarre attitude on the part of the Russian Federation. It was an obvious challenge, and we believe such actions have no place in such situations, because there are challenges that can have unpleasant consequences. There can be accidents and no one wants such a thing," the minister explained.
Fifor reiterated that the role of air policing is to prevent the violation of NATO airspace and that no incidents of this level have been recorded so far.
"We believe that there is enough space to be able to carry out our missions. We have repeatedly shown that we are ready for these missions with our allies. We all know that there have been reports from Canadian colleagues of Russia's aircraft approaching the NATO airspace. Once again, they did not enter the NATO airspace, but it is precisely the role of air policing missions to prevent such things and that is why we are prepared and carry out these missions (...) I cannot put an exact number on these incidents. Our aircraft take off whenever needed and they carry out the air policing missions. Once again, that is their role, that is why we are here with our partners," said Fifor.
Fifor reiterated that the procedure for the acquisition of corvettes is almost complete and hopes that by November 15 he will be able to announce the completion of the procedure, the object of which is the construction of four corvettes at a shipyard in Romania under a partnership, industrial cooperation and know-how transfer, so that the offset under this programme may help upgrade two frigates purchased from the British Navy.
He also said that acquiring submarines for the Romanian Navy is still on the agenda.
"The concept phase of the submarine acquisition project is complete and we hope to be able to take it as soon as possible before the Supreme Council for National Defence (CSAT)," said Fifor.
AGERPRES .
