Missile defence deployment in Romania runs counter to regional, European security - Russian Foreign Ministry

MOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Steps towards further militarisation of Southeastern Europe, including missile defence deployment in Romania, run counter to the interests of regional and European security and stability, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Wednesday. He commented on statements by Chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers on the “great shield” in Deveselu, Romania. Russia pointed to the statements by the US high-ranking official, who had visited Romania these days. Rogers told Romanian Realitetea TV Channel that the USA was planning to deploy interceptor missiles at the American airbase in Deveselu, including against some threats from Russia, by the end of 2015. “Thus, the American legislator confirmed the validity of Moscow’s doubts that the ‘missile defence shield’ being created by the US was designed to use it for the purposes that Washington declared,” Lukashevich said. “The role, which should be played by Romania to service the regular American project, can be hardly honourable as one tries to present it,” he said. “Bucharest’s involvement in another American project that was approved in the US Senate recent report on tortures in secret CIA prisons in other countries has put Romanian officials, who were forced to decline journalists’ questions, in a rather awkward position,” Lukashevich said. Read more