President Klaus Iohannis said on Tuesday that during his meeting at the White House with president Joe Biden, he also addressed the issue of his candidacy for the leadership of the North Atlantic Alliance.

„This point has been tackled and together we decided to continue the dialogue,” Klaus Iohannis said in a statement to the press at the Romanian Embassy in Washington.

Asked if there was a risk of there not being a consensus on the NATO leadership until the NATO Summit in June, Klaus Iohannis admitted that was indeed a risk, but stressed that it was good to have two candidates.

„These discussions are not made public and I will not get into what president Biden said. I will tell you what I said there, but the discussion was not a long one, it was a relatively short one and, if you are asking me if there is a risk that there is no consensus, yes, there is a risk. And that is why I think it is very good to have two candidacies, to have two candidates, who are generally considered acceptable, because a strong organisation needs strong competition,” said the Romanian head of state.

He rejected the idea that the unity of the North Atlantic Alliance might be broken if there are two candidates for the NATO leadership.

„And, in the end, one of the two candidates will probably be elected the next secretary general. The important thing is not to mix things up. There have been some who have said that if there are two candidates the unity of the Alliance might be broken. No way! The Alliance is strong, we are moving forward. But it is good to have two candidates, because then there is the possibility to open new topics for debate and there is obviously the chance to make things go better,” president Iohannis said.

Klaus Iohannis had a meeting on Tuesday at the White House with US president Joe Biden.

AGERPRES