President Basescu to meet US vice president, defense secretary, CIA chief.
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi were scheduled to sign yesterday in Washington the Agreement on the Deployment of the Ballistic Missile Defense System in Romania. The event is part of a visit by the foreign minister and President Traian Basescu to Washington with the purpose of “defining a series of bilateral deals,” as the presidential administration said. Basescu’s office did not release any agenda of the visit, but according to Mediafax, quoting the schedule of the trip made available for journalists, the president was scheduled to have meetings with various American officials. The schedule did not include discussions with President Barack Obama, but a meeting between the two heads of state at the White House was not entirely out of the question, Mediafax said. Basescu met with Vice President Joe Biden at 4 p.m. (Romania time), after which he was to attend the signing of the missile-shield agreement (7:15 p.m.). At 8:45 p.m. he was to meet members of Congress, followed by talks with CIA chief David Petraeus (around 9 p.m.) and Defence Secretary Leon Panetta (12:30 a.m.).
