UPDATE Romanian President Traian Basescu met Barack Obama in Oval Office on Tuesday
Romanian President Traian Basescu met US President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on Tuesday, according to Romanian TV news reports. Realitatea TV broadcast images of the to heads of state in the late afternoon.
Traian Basescu left for a visit to the US on Tuesday morning, but the Romanian presidential administration had not mentioned anything about a possible meeting with Obama. It only announced the visit is aimed at signing bilateral accords.
UPDATE The meeting between Traian Basescu and Barack Obama lasted about 25 minutes, as a B1 TV news channel correspondent to the US reported.
The same source said only the official camera operator of the Romanian Presidency was allowed to film at the beginning of the meeting and no other Romanian journalist had access to it.
The meeting was not included in the agenda of the Romanian President’s visit to Washington and did not appear in the official agenda of President Obama.
Also on Tuesday, Basescu met US Vice-President Joe Biden and has scheduled meetings with CIA head David Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.
Meanwhile, Foreign minister Teodor Baconschi and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were due to sign an accord on the deployment of terrestrial components of the US missile shield in Romania.