Participants of the Bucharest 9 (B9) Summit want a consolidated NATO presence on the eastern flank, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said.
This presence should be "unitary and coherent, robust, credible and sustainable, especially on the Black Sea", Iohannis said after co-chairing the Summit with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda, reports Xinhua news agency.
Leaders attending the Summit discussed recent security developments and the allied response, the Romanian President said, in preparation for decisions at the NATO Summit in Madrid later this month.
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The Polish president said that Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia should also be covered with an "advanced defence presence".
The B9 Summit, launched in 2015 by Iohannis and Duda, was attended by the presidents of Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and Bulgaria, while the presidents of the Czech Republic and of Slovakia participated online.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also attended the meeting remotely.
