Romania supports NATO antimissile system, not bilateral defense agreements

Romanian President Traian Basescu said Thursday during an official visit the NATO headquarters in Brussels that Romania will support the creation of a NATO antimissile defense system and not of bilateral antiballistic shield agreements, adding the latter case is not the “right solution”.

“Romania has a bilateral agreement with the U.S.A. regarding antimissile defense, which meets the country’s security needs. But our objective is that the antiballistic shield be a NATO reality and not a bilateral reality of the Romanian-American relation or the Romanian-Dutch or American-Dutch relations. This bilateral ground does not seem to me to be the right solution and does not seem to comply with the fifth article of the Washington Treaty,” Basescu said during a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

The NATO secretary general said Romania understood the threat posed by the missile proliferation and supported NATO’s responsibility to fight this threat.