The Minister of National Defence, Mircea Dusa, met with Dean Thompson, incoming Charge d`affaires ad-interim at the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest and Duane Butcher, head of the U.S. diplomatic mission Duane Butcher, who is ending his term in Romania. On this introductory visit, Minister Dusa welcomed the US official and asserted the excellent defence cooperation based on the Strategic Partnership for the 21st century between Romania and the USA.

The defence minister thanked Duane Butcher for his contribution to the development of the bilateral cooperation projects and said he had high hopes that the trend of the bilateral cooperation will continue during the mandate of the current Charge d`affaires, Dean R. Thompson.

'Romania is a serious ally and partner, on which the USA and the Alliance can always rely', was the message conveyed by the minister. Another topic approached by the defence minister was equipping the Air Forces with multirole aircraft, a project developed with US support \'a field in which we have an excellent cooperation\'.

Mircea Dusa said further that 'when we talk of multirole aircraft that equip NATO forces, we talk of modern, high performance aircraft, capable to carry out the combat missions of the Air Force\'. The talks agenda focused on the developments in the region, the priorities in terms of the future NATO Summit of Wales in September.

As concerns the NATO Summit of September, the Romanian defence minister said that it will reassert the goals of the alliance as well as the need of a more substantial financial contribution of the European allies.

Minister Mircea Dusa brought up the subject of the construction site of the missile defense system in Deveselu that goes according to the agreed schedule.
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As concerns the stage of the joint strategic projects, the sides expressed appreciation for the very good cooperation at the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, which has a major role in the transit of U.S. and Allied forces toward and from Afghanistan.

The American officials appreciated the strong relationships between the two armed forces, the effort to participate in military operations and the development of the missile defence project in Deveselu. The defence minister reasserted Romania’s military commitment to Afghanistan together with the allies in post 2014 'Resolute Support' mission.

MoND Press Office