August 30, 2014 UPDATE
A roundup of domestic and international news.
România Internațional, 30.08.2014, 12:02
The idea of military intervention in Ukraine by Romania, Europe or NATO should be approached with extreme caution, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta said on Saturday. After returning from Paris, where he participated in a meeting of the social democratic leaders from the EU countries, Ponta has reiterated that Romania, just like the international community, condemns Russia’s intervention in eastern Ukraine and supports the country’s sovereignty.
The Foreign Minister of Romania, Titus Corlatean, participated on Saturday, in Milan, Italy, in an informal meeting of the EU foreign ministers, devoted to the recent developments in Ukraine. The EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who participated in the meeting, accused Russia of “direct aggression” in eastern Ukraine. She called on Russia to stop the flow of arms, equipment and personnel into Ukraine and said it was up to the EU’s 28 leaders to decide the measures to be taken. In his turn, Minister Corlatean voiced Bucharest’s support for a political solution to the crisis in neighbouring Ukraine and for a joint European stand on it. Corlatean pointed out that a new frozen conflict in the area, like the one in Transdniester, must be avoided.
Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said on Saturday in Brussels that Russia, by attacking Ukraine, was effectively “in a state of war against Europe”. She called for urgent military supplies to Kiev and a tougher arms embargo on Russia. After an extraordinary meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission on Friday, following the serious escalation of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Anders Fough Rassmusen urged Russia “to cease its illegal military actions, stop its support to armed separatists, and take immediate and verifiable steps towards de-escalation of this grave crisis.”
Cultural events staged simultaneously in Romania, the Republic of Moldova and the Romanian communities in the diaspora are marking, as of today, the Romanian Language Day, celebrated on August 31st. Bucharest is hosting, on this occasion, book launches and concerts while in Chisinau will be held an international conference dubbed “The Romanian Language — a European Integration Language”. In Cernauti, in western Ukraine, a country that is home to almost half a million Romanian ethnics, the 25th anniversary of the Society for the Romanian Culture is celebrated. The Romanian Cultural Institute offices all over the world also mark the Romanian Language Day this weekend. Set up last year by the Parliament in Bucharest, this day is also celebrated in the Republic of Moldova, with a majority Romanian-speaking population. On August 31, 1989, with the communists still in power, the Parliament in Chisinau was picketed by about 750 thousand people, and had to declare Romanian as the countrys official language and switch to the Latin Alphabet from the Cyrillic one, imposed by the Soviets in 1940.
