Portuguese Join NATO Aerial Mission in Romania

Four Portuguese F-16 fighter jets and 150 Portuguese troops and civilians belonging to NATO Air Police will come to Romania to take part in an aerial policing mission, Romania's Supreme Defence Council, CSAT, announced on Tuesday.

CSAT approved a request from Prime Minister Victor Ponta to allow the planes and troops into Romania during May and June 2015.

This was the first CSAT meeting to be headed by the country's new President, Klaus Iohannis.

Romania is a strong supporter of NATO plans to boost its military presence on its eastern flank in the context of the conflict raging in neighboring Ukraine.

The alliance decided last month to set up command-and-control centres in six East-European countries, Romania included, in response to perceived challenges from Russia as well as from Islamic extremists. A new "South-eastern headquarters" is to be established in Romania.

The two NATO units in Romania will be ready in 2016. Romanian soldiers as well as troops from other member states will be stationed there.

Romania is one of Alliance's strongest supporters among the ex-Communist countries of Eastern Europe.

Unlike some other countries in the region, Romania has given full backing to Western sanctions imposed on Russia in connection to the Ukraine crisis.

Romanians view Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, and its support for the separatists in eastern Ukraine with concern, fearing that Russia might try something similar with the breakaway Russian-speaking enclave of Transnistria in neighbouring Moldova.

A new military base at Deveselu, in the south of the country, set to form part of NATO's missile defence shield, is scheduled to become operational by the end of this year.

The base in Deveselu is one...