(Initially published in www.romania-report.ro -- Jan 23, 2006)
Romania wants that future relations with Moscow be based on bilateral trust and economic cooperation, Romanian President Traian Basescu told at the annual meeting with the foreign diplomats accredited to Bucharest, last Friday.
“Romania will also pay a special attention to Moldova’s European road-map in 2006,” Romanian President, Traian Basescu said while presenting Romania’s foreign policy priorities for 2006.
“We want the European Union to use in the relations with Moldova the same road map as for the Balkan Countries,” Basescu said expressing his conviction that the unification of the Romanian nation can take place within the EU.
The head of the Romanian state raised the subject of the Black Sea saying that as long as the EU’s energy security depends on this region, the existence of “frozen conflicts” gives it a destabilizing potential and transforms it into a bridge for trafficking in persons, drugs and weapons.
Basescu underlined that the attempts to exclude the regional authorities, Russia and Turkey, from the cooperation projects of the region are erroneous. Romania wants the future relations with Moscow be based on reciprocal trust and economic cooperation.
At the same time, Romania’s foreign policy in 2006 will focus on the relations with NATO and the European Union. “Romania shall not diminish its military presence in Iraq. Peace-keeping actions will continue and we shall join the allies in undertaking the reconstruction stage,” Basescu said.
Last Friday, during an interview with ‘Realitatea’ TV channel, President Basescu said he would start investigation in order to find out why Romania buys Russian gas at the highest price as compared with other European states.
Basescu also said that the alleged ‘CIA prisons case’ (covered by Western media) did not damage U.S.-Romanian intelligence cooperation. “Even if U.S. intelligence centres are actually located on the Romanian territory, allegations about torture are, nevertheless, gross media speculations,” Romania’s President said. The presence of anti-terrorist fight centres in Romania has nothing to do with any ‘CIA detention facilities’, Basescu added.
As addressing the recent alleged corruption cases tackled by the Romanian prosecutors, President Basescu said that the local media should avoid spectacular scoops and try to show temperance when covering the ongoing events.
Basescu also dismissed any allegations according to which Romanian secret services would have been politically involved into the fight against corruption to date.
Romania Report
No comments:
Post a Comment