MP Pop, intel control committee: President's allegations on PM's undercover past undocumented

President Traian Basescu did not produce any document so far in support of his allegations about Prime Minister Victor Ponta being a former undercover intelligence officer, says MP Georgian Pop, the chair of the joint Senate and Chamber of Deputies Committe for the control of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI).

'It was just political declarations. Secondly, we must be responsible after all, and somehow clearly set the limits of our competencies. I am the chairman of the SRI Control Committee. As a general rule, I wouldn't make extensive comments on the personal war of Traian Basescu against the SIE [the Foreign Intelligence Service]. From my point of view, I think what he does, this personal war is wrong,' Pop said on Thursday.

He underlined that any parliamentary control on the intelligence services' activities is based on documents.

'I am talking about SRI; SIE is not within my competency. When I took over the chair of this committee, the first control, the first check I carried out was hearing the SRI leadership, and one of the topics checked was related to undercover officers; so basically from the beginning of my chairman term I have solved and checked this issue. I want to detail the reason of invoking the term 'documents.' Any parliamentary control in the committee I chair results in documents, not in words. Not in political declarations. This makes the big difference, and there are official documents of the Romanian state, kept in archives and available for consultation by a court, for instance, anytime — now, in one year, in 30 or 50 years. Of course, they are also classified,' the Social Democrat MP explained.AGERPRES