Mon Oct 31
US-Romanian bases deal nears completion
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected in Bucharest soon to sign an agreement setting up American bases in Romania , Foreign Minister Razvan Ungureanu said.
Ungureanu said in a statement cited by the Mediafax news agency that the date of the visit had not yet been fixed, but a government source said it would take place by the first half of December at the latest.
President Traian Basescu said after a recent meeting with US President Geo rge W. Bush's national security advisor Stephen Hadley that the agreement to establish one or more bases was ready apart from some fine-tuning.
Basescu said possible base locations included Babadag , Constanta and Fetesti in the east of Romania .
The Pentagon has announced plans to redeploy between 60,000 and 70,000 men from Germany and South Korea to new bases in eastern Europe, particularly in Romania and Bulgaria .
A Bulgarian foreign ministry spokesman, Dimitar Tsanchev , said there were no plans for Rice to visit Bulgaria at this time, since talks on establishing bases there are at a less advanced stage.
As part of an increasingly close relationship, about 860 Romanian soldiers are currently serving in Iraq and 492 in Afghanistan .