"Our purpose was to discuss questions of urgent character whose decisions are necessary for Russian and Romanian security," Mr. Basescu said, noting the talks were open and businesslike.
"I would characterize our meeting as very open. We discussed concrete, strategic questions of our relations," Mr. Basescu said.
He noted that cooperation in the Black Sea basin had been one of the principal themes. "The Black Sea is a bridge for trafficking drugs, weapons and people, and these questions must be considered and decided jointly, since no country can decide them on its own," he continued.
According to Mr. Basescu, the two sides did not discuss the questions of the past in bilateral relations. He said that the problems of "Romanian gold" and of the Molotov-Riebbentrop pact had not been raised at the talks.
He noted that more pressing questions had been discussed. "I hope that Vladimir Putin will not feel hurt by the fact that I will disclose some of the themes of our conversation: we discussed specifically the possibility to locate NATO military bases on Romania's territory," Mr. Basescu said.
He believes that "the Romanian gold issue must be considered at the level of historians."
Mr. Basescu recalled that a joint commission of historians had been set up on this problem, and it must consider these questions while working on archives.
The problem of "Romanian gold," which came to Russia during the WWI, complicated relations between Moscow and Bucharest for a long time. The "Romanian gold" story began in August 1916 when the Kingdom of Romania entered the WWI on the side of Britain, France and Russia. Shortly afterwards the armies of the "central powers" grew hostile towards them and, led by Germany, occupied half of Romania, its government and gold reserves urgently left for the city of Iasi.
It was there that in December 1916 Romanian Finance Minister Antonescu and General Mosolov, who represented Russia, signed an agreement guaranteeing the safety of the Romanian valuables being transferred to Russia for temporary safe keeping.
In keeping with the accords, in December 1916 and July 1917 the Romanians dispatched two trains of treasures - 41 railway cars with 3,549 boxes in the aggregate - to Russia. They contained, alongside Romania's gold reserves, the royal family's jewelry and archives, works of art from Romania's museums and private depositor's valuables from its saving bank's storages. All of these values were placed in the storehouses of the Kremlin's Armory in Moscow.
