Romania hopes that at the NATO summit which will take place in Bucharest between 2-4 April a “strategy” will start to shape up for Afghanistan which will not be limited only to sending new troops, declared President Traian Basescu on Thursday.
“We are hoping that during the NATO summit a vision, a strategy related to Afghanistan will start to shape up, which will not be perceived just as a battle field”, declared Traian Basescu within the meeting with the foreign press. Such a strategy “should not focus only on the deployment of additional troops but also on development solutions” of the country, he mentioned. “The Northern-Atlantic Alliance must demonstrate that the military intervention will be followed by a development project”, added the Romanian President.
Traian Băsescu declared that “Romania has the intention to maintain the commitment regarding Afghanistan and already answered to the request of sending additional troops, increasing the contingent from 500 to 780 people and accepting these to be reallocated to the Southern part of the country.” Bucharest “holds resources” to improve its military presence and could allocate to Afghanistan an additional unit but “it expects a commitment in this sense from all the other state members in particular for the Southern part of the country” where the battles against the Talibans are the toughest, added the Romanian Chief of State.
(Source: Rompres)
