ROMANIA: The region's leaders crave the political kudos of hosting US bases, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Romania
It is one of the remotest corners of the continent, where rolling hills descend to barren plains that slip into the Black Sea, and Europe gazes out towards the Middle East.
Its villages carry Russian, Ukrainian, Cossack and Turkish names, memories of invaders, fugitives and refugees who have settled here over the centuries, and of the shifting borders of a region that now belongs to Romania.
The map also throws up names of Romanian heroes, men who challenged the Austrians, Hungarians, Ottomans, and any other power that laid claim to this place.
One such is Mihail Kogalniceanu, a 19th century champion of Romanian independence, whose name is easily missed by drivers plying the serpentine road that ends at the Danube Delta, the vast wetland where the river finally merges with the sea.
Not that the average driver would get far along the quiet side road leading to Mihail Kogalniceanu.
Here, the US has spent millions of dollars upgrading an old Soviet-era airbase, boosting the number of aircraft it can handle and giving it a $900,000 security fence and a street called George Washington Boulevard. It may also now serve as a covert CIA prison for high-value suspects in Washington's "war on terror".
Human Rights Watch claims that on September 22nd, 2003, a Boeing 737 known to be used by the CIA landed here en route from Afghanistan, and later proceeded to Morocco before finally landing at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Romania's defence ministry has denied all knowledge of a detention centre at the base, and the prime minister, Calin Tariceanu, said: "We do not have CIA bases in Romania."
What is undeniable is the Pentagon's keen interest in the potential of what its troops - many of whom are already familiar with the facility - simply call "MK".
Early in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Washington sent equipment and 7,000 combat troops from this base to the Gulf, and temporarily kept up to 3,500 soldiers here.
This summer, more than 1,600 US servicemen took part in exercises on a desolate firing range just to the south near the old Ottoman village of Babadag, while US and Romanian pilots flew sorties from the airfield at MK. Pentagon top brass - including defence minister Donald Rumsfeld - have been regular visitors to Romania in recent years, during negotiations over plans to establish US bases next year at MK and Babadag.
Just two weeks ago - in the presence of US national security adviser Stephen Hadley - Romania's president Train Basescu said a deal was as good as done.
Down the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria, hopes are also high that the US will open military bases next year, as part of a strategic shift of its troops away from Cold War-era facilities in Germany and closer to conflict zones in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon says it would not deploy huge numbers of soldiers permanently on the territory of either of the new Nato members, but would regularly rotate troops through the Black Sea region on combat missions further east or on training exercises.
Many leaders in Bulgaria and Romania crave the political kudos of US bases almost as much as the financial benefits that such an arrangement would bring.
Such a resounding vote of confidence from Washington could also, so conventional wisdom suggests, boost the bids of both nations for EU membership.
But if Brussels baulked at an unsavoury alliance between either country and the US on the so-called rendition of terror suspects, that equation could easily be thrown off balance, potentially harming their ambitions to join the 25-nation bloc in January 2007.
Poland - allegedly the first European stop made by the 2003 CIA flight revealed by Human Rights Watch - does not fear the EU's cold shoulder.
The country joined last May and, after Britain, it is perhaps Washington's staunchest continental ally, providing the third-largest contingent of troops in Iraq.
Polish officials also denied that the Szymany airbase in the remote northeast of the country has served as a secret CIA prison.
Gazeta Wyborcza, a leading Polish newspaper, reported that flight records showed that a Boeing 737 with registration number N313P landed at Szymany on September 22nd, 2003, the day after Czech media reported it arriving there from Uzbekistan.