Premium
The Minister of National Defence, Vasile Dincu, declared on Wednesday evening that the decision regarding the deployment in the next period of a contingent of 1,000 American troops in Romania has existed for a long time and is not directly related to the situation in the region and, as such, it is not conditioned by a possible Russian intervention in Ukraine.
The minister thus responded when asked on Antena 3 to comment on a CNN piece of news according to which the American administration has already decided the number of American troops to be sent to Romania, and that, based on the high-level dialogue, three NATO member states on the flank Eastern Europeans agreed to receive 1,000 US troops on their territory - Romania, Poland and Hungary, Agerpres.ro informs.
"This decision, to a large extent, is one that is being communicated now, but which has existed for a long time. I know it is a proactive measure, but it is not directly related to this moment, so to speak. Therefore, it is not conditioned by a possible Russian intervention in Ukraine. This is what we have called for, through the President's voice, since 2014, when we did not exist in the official NATO documents as a strategic position in this regard, that of consolidating the forward presence of NATO on the Eastern flank. In the event of a conflict situation, it is obvious that further action will be taken in this sense. This battalion that will come here, probably multinational, we still don't know exactly where it will be deployed, is a situation that we are currently discussing, we are analyzing the strategic situation. We know that deployment in a defensive system is important also from the perspective of the way in which there are scenarios that threats could come. (...) So, clearly, the entire Romania is on the NATO flank and it matters less how or where the possible defensive support troops will be positioned here," said Vasile Dincu.
