Basescu: We are interested in redefining NATO-Russian Federation relation

President Traian Basescu on Tuesday said that Romania had eight priorities concerning the forthcoming NATO Summit taking place this September, one of these envisaging the redefinition of the relation between the Alliance and the Russian Federation.

'The first and utmost [priority] is the adoption of concrete measures in the long-term and reaching a geographical balance of the Alliance military resources on the EU territory, namely we would not want resources on the eastern side to be diminished to the detriment of the resources allotted to the northern area, the Baltic countries and Poland. Both Romania and Bulgaria need to be treated with attention, taking into account the realities, in the first place. For instance, Romania has a 649 kilometre border with Ukraine, land, river and sea border, and with the illegal annexing of Crimea, we have an immediate vicinity on the border of Romania's exclusive economic area with the Russian Federation,' said the Romanian head of state before leaving for Warsaw to attend the meeting of Central and East European heads of state, which will tackle the situation in the region and the preparation of the NATO Summit of September.

He pointed out that other priorities of Romania are that the documents of the NATO Summit reflect the strategic importance of the Black Sea, encouraging Georgia and Montenegro's path towards the Alliance, and the member states assuming a 2 per cent allotment of the GDP for defence.

'Following the events in the region we are interested in redefining the NATO-Russian Federation relation. After Nagorno Karabakh in Azerbaijan, after Ossetia and Abkhazia, in Georgia, after Transnistria in the Republic of Moldova, we now have the recent annexation of Crimea and the situation...