{"id":33661,"date":"2021-11-09T18:03:59","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T18:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/11\/09\/romanian-official-pitched-blinken-on-black-sea-troop-boost\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:50:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:50:01","slug":"romanian-official-pitched-blinken-on-black-sea-troop-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/2021\/11\/09\/romanian-official-pitched-blinken-on-black-sea-troop-boost\/","title":{"rendered":"Romanian official pitched Blinken on Black Sea troop boost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2015 Romania<\/a>\u2019s foreign minister said Tuesday he asked U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken<\/a> in person to consider boosting the U.S. troop presence on the Black Sea to address flaring tensions with Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have discussed about the importance of increasing the U.S. presence in the region and in Romania,\u201d H.E. Bogdan Aurescu said at an Atlantic Council event a day after the meeting \u2015 which also focused on economic and energy cooperation in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Department Spokesman Ned Price<\/a> said Blinken, in the meeting, \u201cpraised Romania as a stalwart NATO ally, and both agreed to collaborate on Black Sea security issues and Russian aggression against Ukraine and others on NATO\u2019s Eastern Flank.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black Sea has become a flashpoint in tensions between Moscow and the West after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, which gave it access to the peninsula\u2019s Black Sea coast. That and Russia\u2019s seizure of Georgian territories in 2008 have fueled two of the region\u2019s protracted conflicts \u2015 and Aurescu called on the European Union to tackle them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have neglected \u2015 we\u2019ve become somehow accustomed to these protracted conflicts,\u201d Aurescu said Tuesday. \u201cSome call them frozen, but they are not frozen. What is frozen is the solution of these conflicts. The conflicts are there, their resolution is being delayed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurescu said he and Blinken discussed NATO\u2019s forthcoming strategic concept<\/a> as well as the idea of further consolidating NATO\u2019s defense and deterrence posture on the Eastern Flank, \u201cespecially at the Black Sea, where we see that there are a lot of a lot of tensions and interesting evolutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurescu said allied resources are imbalanced in favor of the north end of NATO\u2019s eastern flank and needed to be rebalanced toward the south end, \u201cto build this coherent approach of the East Flank as a whole.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\t