Above: U.S. Secretary of State Ms. Condoleezza Rice together with President Traian Basescu, at the "Cotroceni Palace" in Bucharest. Below: U.S. Secretary of State Ms. Condoleezza Rice and Romania's ForMin Traian Razvan Ungureanu sign the deal.(Initially published in www. romania-report.ro -- Dec 7, 2005)
Bucharest, Dec 6 – During a three hours visit, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met President Traian Basescu and has signed a deal with Romania to set up the first U.S. military bases in a former Warsaw Pact country.
Last evening, Rice went to Cotroceni presidential palace in Bucharest and held official talks with Romania’s President Traian Basescu. There were discussed topics such as security in the Black Sea region and Western Balkans, the bilateral US-Romanian cooperation in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans.
During a press conference, President Basescu said that the US-Romanian agreement “places Romania within the global security framework. Starting with the moment of coming into force of the treaty, Romania shall become a pillar of stability in the region.”
Basescu said that the US bases are to be located in Mihail Kogolniceanu airport, Babadad (both in the Eastern region of Dobrogea), Cincu (Brasov county, center-Romania) and Smardan (near the Danube delta).
Ms. Rice said she is really glad that this ‘historic agreement’ will help in the fight against terrorists and praised Romania as a strong ally of the United States. “has demonstrated indeed that Romania is one of our strongest friends, a friend with whom we share common values, a friend with whom we share a belief that those who are fortunate enough now to be on the right side of history's divide in terms of liberty and freedom have an obligation to those who are on the other side of the divide and have not yet had the blessings of liberty and freedom, that we have an obligation to them to extend those blessings. And it is therefore fitting that the United States and Romania are not just friends, that indeed that our forces are brothers and sisters in arms in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Balkans. I especially would like to take a moment to thank the Romanian people for their sacrifice and to the families of Romanian soldiers who are serving with us in difficult and dangerous places, to thank them for the sacrifice and for the commitment because there is no stronger commitment that one can make to the future of new democracies like Iraq and Afghanistan than to be willing to put one's people in harm's way so that the blessings of liberty can be secured.:”
“(…) whatever challenges come in this historic period, whatever challenges come in this time of testing for nations of the free world, we know that we have a great and committed partner in Romania which is willing to make the sacrifices and to make the commitments that are necessary to spread liberty and freedom and to make it a more peaceful and stable world,” Rice concluded.
The media representatives asked Secretary of State about the alleged secret transfers of terrorist. Ms. Rice answered: “I've had discussions with our allies about the importance of our intelligence activities in taking terrorists off the streets. Let's remember that you can't prevent an attack if you don't know about it, and so in intelligence is the only way that you know about an attack before one is actually to take place. I have said before I have faced an inquiry about whether or not all was done that could have been done, and what we know from that inquiry is that we were not able to mobilize the intelligence that we needed inside and outside of the country to prevent the attacks of September 11th. Perhaps it wasn't possible to prevent them, but we know that we put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of intelligence in doing precisely that.”
“And so I feel quite confident in the argument that I have made to our -- my colleagues publicly through the statement that I made yesterday that we -- that taking terrorists off the streets, not simply releasing them back into the general population, making certain that you use every lawful means to capture them and to interrogate them and to make certain that you're getting the information that you need, that that is a practice that saves lives. I know this business well enough to know that without doing those things and without gathering intelligence, you're not going to save lives,” Rice further elaborated.
Glenn Kessler’s (of The Washington Post) question: The base in this agreement (i.e. Mihail Kogalniceanu) has been cited as a potential detention centre by Human Rights Watch in a letter to the Counsel of Europe, and ABC News last night reported that detainees were moved before your arrival here in Europe. Can you reassure the American public that this base has never been used for any sort of detentions? And for the President, as an incoming or a hopeful member of the EU, are you concerned about the reports of secret CIA prisons wherever they may be?
Secretary Rice answered: “Glenn, first of all, this defence agreement is transparent. It will be debated, I am certain, in the parliament. It will be clear for everyone to see that this is a base where we intend to keep access for training and to enhance our capabilities and Romania's capabilities to be able to do the sorts of activities that we're doing together in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I've spoken earlier to the reports about activities, but I've said and I will say again that I am not going to talk about whether such activities take place because to do so would clearly be to get into a realm of discussion about supposed or purported intelligence activities, and I just simply won't do that.”
On the same question, President Basescu said: “I have already provided statements regarding the alleged ‘CIA prisons’ on Romanian territory: such prisons did not exist and it would not be possible that torture was practiced in Romania. Our country observes human rights. (…) Romania is open to any international NGO or political organization wishing to visit whatever military facility or location suspected as a detention or torture place. The only thing we are asking is that those who state that Romania would have sheltered or is sheltering torture facilities to assume responsibility of their words. We cannot anymore accept allegations on airplanes landing here and alleged secret prisons and tortures. Planes have landed and they are to land in the future, there is not only about a military and political cooperation between Romania and USA, but also our intelligence agencies are cooperating. Under the circumstances, I think it is absolutely misleading to assume that there exist secret prisons and torture practices only because aircrafts are landing and taking off. Romania considers this issue as a closed matter.”
Following the press conference, US State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu signed the agreement. President Traian Basescu, PM Calin Popescu-Tariceanu and US Ambassador Nicholas Taubman were present.
Shortly after that, Ms. Rice left for Kiev, Ukraine.
Romania Report
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