Iohannis: Strengthening and extending Strategic Partnership with US represents a basic pillar of Romania's foreign policy

President Klaus Iohannis stated on Tuesday that the strengthening and extending of the Strategic Partnership with the USA represents a basic pillar of Romania's foreign policy. "Strengthening and extending the Strategic Partnership with the United States of America represents a basic pillar of Romania's foreign policy, for the promotion of the fundamental interests of our country, in the spirit of continuity and predictability. I hail the significant progress recorded in recent years of putting in practice our common vision, of an extended, durable, dynamic Strategic Partnership, profoundly anchored in Euro-Atlantic values, capable of responding to the need to manage the risks and threats that we face," said the head of state at the US Embassy, at the ceremony to decorate interim PM, Nicolae Ciuca. He emphasized that defence and security, commerce, investments and energy security, democracy, rule of law, human rights and good governance, education, science, research and technology are defining dimensions of the Partnership with the US which are constantly developing. Iohannis indicated that, in the difficult context of the current pandemic, Romania maintained a continuous dialogue with the US Administration and efficient ways of cooperation for the management and mitigation of the effects of this virus have been found. The head of state mentioned that there are excellent premises for the deepening of cooperation on all levels, from that of defence to the economic domain in the larger sense, including the area of energy and infrastructure. "We appreciate, especially, the cooperation in the domain of defence endowments with corporations in the United States of America, which is beneficial to the modernization of our army. The Romanian state maintains as a major objective the extension and deepening of bilateral cooperation in the future," said Iohannis. He congratulated Nicolae Ciuca and showed that the decoration the latter received represents recognition for the particularly important role that he had in developing bilateral military relations between the United States of America and Romania. Nicolae Ciuca is being decorated with the Legion of Merit (in the rank of officer) as recognition for his merits during his activity as head of the Defence General Staff, in the January 2015 - December 2019 period.AGERPRES(RO - author: Florentina Peia, editor: Florin Marin; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Maria Voican)