Rice signs deal for US military bases in Romania
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-07 10:58

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed a deal with Romania allowing the United States to set up military bases in the country, the first such facilities in the former Soviet bloc.

Rice, in Bucharest on the second leg of a four-nation European tour, signed the deal with Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu at a public ceremony in the Romanian capital.

"This agreement brings Romania into the mainstream of global security," the country's President Traian Basescu said at a press conference alongside Rice.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (L) shakes hands with Romanian President Traian Basescu (R) after the press conference minutes before the signing of the 'Access Accord' at Cotroceni Palace, the Romanian Presidency headquarters in Bucharest. [AFP]

According to Basescu, the deal will see the United States establish four permanent military bases, one of which, the Mihail Kogalniceanu air base in the southeast of the country, was previously used by US forces during the Iraq war.

The other three sites are a base at Babadag, also in the southeast, and in Smardan to the south and Cincu in the centre.

US State Department officials told reporters travelling with Rice that the bases marked "the first US military presence in a former country member of Warsaw Pact," referring to the Soviet-era military alliance linking Eastern European nations to the USSR.

"We do not plan a permanent presence of substantial combat forces," the official added.