Ambassador Kuzmin, optimistic: Russia - Romania relations positive overall, despite various obstacles and complications

Russia - Romania relations have been through all sorts of problems, obstacles and complications, but are positive overall, Russia's Ambassador in Bucharest Valery Kuzmin told a press conference on Thursday. 

Commercial relations have increased and this trend is expected to continue this year too. Last year they stood at 4 billion dollars, the diplomat said. 

He also spoke about the US military presence in Russia's vicinity and about Russia's perception of this state of play, stressing in this context the need for Romania and Russia to resume a substantive political dialogue. 

For us to better understand the notion of 'red lines', we must resume a substantive, meaningful political dialogue. So far we have not succeeded in doing so, but we don't lose hope, Kuzmin said. 

He announced the first visit, within soon, after many years, of a parliamentary delegation of the State Duma Friendship Group, (...), on the invitation of the Parliamentary Group of Friendship with the Russian Federation, and voiced hopes the visit will be a modest yet important step towards the resumption of political talks. 

We see that there is a drastic difference of perceptions - the perception of the government, that is mainly of the Romanian political leaders, and our perception, because Russia's national security cannot be viewed outside global stability and under no circumstances can we be condemned for strengthening our defensive potential on national territory, Kuzmin said. 

Using a map on which both American and Russian military bases in different countries were marked, the diplomat spoke about the global US military presence, referencing also the NATO battalions in Estonia's bases with a rotational presence. 

Rotational presence refers to the military personnel, but the equipment remains there, and the presence is in fact permanent, Kuzmin said. 

Tackling also the US anti-missile systems, the Russian Ambassador said that the US had claimed and offered assurances they were not against Russia. They said they were targeted at Iran, at North Korea, but not at Russia, Kuzmin said. We replied that we cannot ignore the deployment of such systems at our borders, which would spoil the global security balance. Whether we like it or not, since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear disasters (...), the whole international stability system has been based on the principle of parity as regards nuclear deterrence. Creating a global anti-missile system would break such a balance, the Russian diplomat said. 

Valery Kuzmin went on to mention a possible avenue of dialogue. The only solution which our President also reiterated today is to sit down for talks, not speak from a position of force or with the intent of discouragement, but simply sit down together and try to design a new, modern global arrangement, he said. 

The diplomat said that Russia-US relations are currently at a low. I think you have heard this many times from our President, from the Spokesperson as well - they said we do not remember our relationship with the US being worse than now, Kuzmin said. 

The press conference on Thursday preceded the reception offered in Bucharest to mark the National Day of Russia.