(11 Feb 2022) NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg paid an official visit to Romania on Friday, where he joined the country's president at a military air base.
The air base will host some of the 1,000 U.S. troops deployed to the country as the alliance bolsters its forces on the eastern flank amid soaring tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
Stoltenberg met with Romania's President Klaus Iohannis and other officials at the southeast Mihail Kogalniceanu air base near the Black Sea.
Russia has massed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine's borders and performed military maneuvers in the region but says it has no plans to invade.
The NATO chief's visit came on the same day that the first U.S. military convoys carrying armored personnel vehicles rolled into the Romanian base, after traversing the country since arriving Wednesday night.
It is part of a U.S. move relocating 1,000 U.S. troops from Vilseck, Germany, to Romania as U.S. officials fear Russia may invade Ukraine.
NATO troops have also been deployed to Poland.
Iohannis on Friday expressed his gratitude to U.S. President Joe Biden for sending the troops to his country.
The troops will add to around 900 U.S. service members that were already stationed in Romania, a NATO member since 2004.
Romania shares more than 600 kilometers of border with Ukraine, to the north. France has also pledged to send troops to Romania.
Romania hosts a NATO missile defense system at the Deveselu military base, in the south, that Moscow has long considered a threat, arguing that the site could fire cruise missiles instead of interceptors. Washington has denied these claims.
Stoltenberg's official visit to Romania comes ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels next week.
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