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Landmark decisions for CEE at NATO summit: President Duda

PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska 11.07.2016 08:30
Warsaw’s NATO summit has brought landmark decisions for Central and Eastern Europe, said Polish President Andrzej Duda following talks with his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Iohannis.
Polish President Andrzej Duda (R) and his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Werner Iohannis (L), at a press conference following their meeting at Warsaw's Belweder Palace on Sunday. Photo: PAP/Jakub KamińskiPolish President Andrzej Duda (R) and his Romanian counterpart, Klaus Werner Iohannis (L), at a press conference following their meeting at Warsaw's Belweder Palace on Sunday. Photo: PAP/Jakub Kamiński

During their Sunday meeting in Warsaw, the two top officials centered on the key outcomes of the just-finished gathering of the Alliance, alongside bilateral military collaboration and Brexit.

At a press conference that followed, Duda said the visit of the Romanian president was symbolic as it marked a follow-up on a meeting of nine NATO members from Central and Eastern Europe, held in Bucharest in November 2015.

The decisions taken in Warsaw „fall in line with what we had agreed upon in our joint declaration in Bucharest,” Duda said, adding that Sunday’s meeting marked a symbolic closure of a path that had led us to the NATO summit in Warsaw.”

On Friday, NATO country leaders announced the Alliance would deploy four multinational battalions to Poland and three Baltic countries, which fear potential Russian aggression following Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014. The leaders also confirmed plans to bolster NATO’s military presence in the Alliance’s southwestern flank.

The two presidents also discussed the implications of Britons’ recent decision to leave the European Union in a June referendum.

“It is important to make sure their rights are protected,” Duda said, adding that the two top officials were on the same page in this respect. Nearly one million Poles and half a million Romanians are based in Britain, Duda said.

During the summit, NATO leaders also pledged to strengthen their cyber defences, and declared "initial operational capability" of NATO’s ballistic missile defence system. “This means that the US ships based in Spain, the radar in Turkey, and the interceptor site in Romania are now able to work together under NATO command and NATO control,” said NATO chief Stoltenberg said at a press conference on Friday. (aba)

Source: PAP, IAR

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