The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will stand by Ukraine "as long as it is needed" and will support this country "along the long road of Euro-Atlantic integration", the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, Mircea Geoana declared, on Thursday at the Conference on the security of the Black Sea region that is taking place in Bucharest, under the auspices of the Crimea International Platform.
"Seeing our Finnish allies and Swedish allies joining us, I know that you belong to the West, you belong to the democracies, you belong to the Euro-Atlantic family and we are with you all this way", Geoana told the Ukrainians.
He highlighted the strategic importance of the Black Sea, highlighted at the NATO Summit in Madrid last year. "It is not just a piece of paper, it is our conviction transformed into action", Mircea Geoana pointed out.
The NATO official recalled that since 2014, since the illegal annexation of Crimea, the alliance has increased its presence in the region and strengthened its partnership with Ukraine.
"The Black Sea region is at the center of the current discussions, and as a Romanian I know and feel that this is a region of strategic importance for Euro-Atlantic security," said NATO's Deputy Secretary General. He added that this space "has been at the center of the accumulation of aggression by Russia for over a decade, and the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and parts of Donbas were the beginning".
According to Geoana, "Russia's irresponsible and hostile behavior in the extended Black Sea region deeply affects the security of the entire alliance".
AGERPRES
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