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Rice signs deal for US military bases in Romania
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-07 10:58
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a deal with Romania allowing
the United States to set up military bases in the country, the first such
facilities in the former Soviet bloc.
Rice, in Bucharest on the second leg of a four-nation European tour, signed
the deal with Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu at a public ceremony in the
Romanian capital.
"This agreement brings Romania into the mainstream of global security," the
country's President Traian Basescu said at a press conference alongside Rice.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (L)
shakes hands with Romanian President Traian Basescu (R) after the press
conference minutes before the signing of the 'Access Accord' at Cotroceni
Palace, the Romanian Presidency headquarters in Bucharest.
[AFP] | According to Basescu, the deal will see
the United States establish four permanent military bases, one of which, the
Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in the southeast of the country, was previously
used by US forces during the Iraq war.
The other three sites are a base at Babadag, also in the southeast, and in
Smardan to the south and Cincu in the centre.
US State Department officials told reporters travelling with Rice that the
bases marked "the first US military presence in a former country member of
Warsaw Pact," referring to the Soviet-era military alliance linking Eastern
European nations to the USSR.
"We do not plan a permanent presence of substantial combat forces," the
official added.
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