Minister of National Defense, Gabriel Les, on Thursday argued at the NATO Defense Ministers meeting in Brussels on the need to strengthen the allied posture in the Black Sea.
"Today, the first discussion was on the stage of implementing the strengthened posture of deterrence and defense, as well as the fair sharing of responsibilities. (...) As ever, Romania evoked the need to strengthen the allied posture in the Black Sea. We thanked for the allies' contribution to the adapted advanced presence, and we also said that we need to do more together so that the command structures in Romania, and here I refer to the Brigade and the future corps, to ensure consistency for the entire command and control architecture of NATO," the Defense Minister told AGERPRES.
Regarding the Alliance's nuclear deterrence posture, namely changes and implications for the organization regarding the developments in the Middle Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Minister Les reiterated the "importance of allied unity and indivisibility, which are, from the point of view of Romania, the essential things to formulate coherent responses to the challenges we face."
In the talks on the impact of destructive technology development, Les stressed "national investments, the fact that we have [allocated for Defense] 2pct of GDP and we have acquisitions of modern, current hardware and the fact that we are perfectly aware of the extremely high technological advance that can also bring benefits and challenges to the security environment."
On the sidelines of the meetings in Brussels, Gabriel Les had bilateral meetings with his counterparts from France and Georgia.
"We have approached the security situation on the Eastern Flank, a number of elements of bilateral cooperation, the need to have partners and affiliated troops in Romania at our brigades. We have been encouraged, in particular, by the French counterpart to think very seriously on this proposal," the Defense Minister said.
