The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte, made his first visit to Romania since taking office. Coincidentally or not, it came shortly after the United States announced it would reduce the size of its troops stationed at the Mihail Kog\u0103lniceanu air base near the Black Sea. The visit\u2019s purpose was to reassure Bucharest that the allied commitment to the Eastern Flank, the area most vulnerable to Russian threats, remains intact.<\/p>\n
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Security issues dominated Rutte\u2019s discussions with Romania\u2019s top officials. Here is president Nicu\u0219or Dan addressing a joint press briefing:<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe had a discussion about security developments in the Euro-Atlantic area and about the cooperation we must maintain in this context. We talked about the need to increase defense spending. We discussed how we will continue our support for Ukraine. We talked about \u2018Eastern Sentry\u2019, which is NATO\u2019s program for air defense on the Eastern Flank, including Romania, not just the drone component but an entire coherent air defense program across the Eastern Flank. In this context, we also discussed additional military capabilities that will be deployed along the entire Eastern Flank, including in Romania\u201d.<\/p>\n
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\u201cRomania invests in NATO, and NATO, in turn, invests in Romania\u201d, Secretary General Mark Rutte said in turn. He reiterated that the Alliance is ready and will defend every inch of its territory in the event of an attack.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf an attack would take place from whoever, be it the Russians or whoever would attack NATO or would attack Romania, particularly. \u00a0It is not only Eastern Sentry which will help you. It is not only the forward land forces which will help you. It is then the whole of NATO which will come to the rescue with its fleet of F-35s, its full naval capacity and its full land forces capacity, this is how NATO works, and not only a theory, but because we have all the plans in place to make sure that we defend every inch of Allied territory.\u00a0 And I really want to stress this, because otherwise there is this feeling we have all these abbreviations and activities. We need them on a day-to-day basis. We can scale them up wherever necessary. We can bring more capabilities where needed. But in the end, if this country would be under attack, it is 31 other nations coming to the rescue of Romania, this is how NATO works. And I think this makes us unbeatable, absolutely unbeatable, and that is why I believe that nobody will ever try\u201d.<\/p>\n
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The NATO Secretary General delivered the same message during his meetings with the Prime Minister and the heads of both chambers of Parliament. Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan hailed the Alliance\u2019s commitment to strengthen its defense and deterrence posture on the Eastern Flank through initiatives such as Eastern Sentry, designed to increase vigilance in this part of Europe, which is exposed to drone incursions and other types of threats from Russia.<\/p>\n
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Mark Rutte also attended the NATO Defense Industry Forum, which aimed to find concrete solutions to increase the Alliance\u2019s defense capacity and expand military production. (VP)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte, made his first visit to Romania since taking office. Coincidentally or not, it came shortly after the United States announced it would reduce the size of its troops stationed at the Mihail Kog\u0103lniceanu air base near the Black Sea. The visit\u2019s purpose was to reassure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":948394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[37632,30036,36514,32140,152016],"coauthors":[113257],"class_list":["post-948416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-defense-spending","tag-mark-rutte","tag-nato-support","tag-nicusor-dan","tag-russian-attacks"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n