Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko on Thursday said he supports Romania’s initiative for the creation of a NATO flotilla in the Black Sea zone.
“Security is very important and needs new decisions, new approaches (…). We support Romania’s initiative to create a NATO flotilla at the Black Sea and I underscore that we are willing to join it as soon as this initiative is approved by the Alliance. I talked about this matter with Mr President and we shall develop this collaboration, but this isn’t the only direction in which we shall collaborate in the security area. During a visit of Bulgaria’s President to Kiev and also today, during the talks we had, we discussed the possibility of creating a Romanian-Ukrainian-Bulgarian brigade patterned on the existing one involving Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. (…) Ukraine will gladly join this initiative. We confirmed this after the Alliance’s approval,” Poroshenko said at Cotroceni Palace in Bucharest.
He underscored that the Minsk accords must be fully implemented.
“Crimea’s annexation, the continuation of the presence of Russian units in Donbas, the violation by the Russian side of the Minsk accord create dangers to the current system of international relations and international law. Ukraine and Romania cannot accept this. We gladly find that our countries have one single main position. The discussions on lifting the sanctions on Russia cannot take place before the aggression ceases. Any reduction of the sanctions in exchange for some partial fulfillment of the Minsk accord will be a direct danger to the regulation of the situation in Donbas. I am positive that this may lead to Russia’s continuing its aggressive actions and it cannot be accepted, because the Minsk accords must be fully implemented,” Poroshenko said. More…