October 2, 2015 UPDATE
Click here for a roundup of national and international news
Newsroom, 02.10.2015, 12:05
The Prime Minister of Romania Victor Ponta is on an official visit to Jordan on Saturday and Sunday, at the invitation of his counterpart, Abdallah Ensour. According to a news release issued by the Romanian Government, the goal is to reconfirm the very good level of bilateral political and diplomatic relations and to find the best solutions to improve economic relations. Victor Ponta will be received by King Abdullah II and will have a meeting with the Prime Minister of Jordan, followed by meetings with officials for the country’s Chamber of Commerce and a group of Iraqi business people whose companies operate in Jordan and Iraq. The talks with Amman officials will focus on strengthening the economic cooperation, particularly in the field of agriculture, energy, tourism and health. The participants will also analyse international and regional developments.
As of Saturday NATO is holding the largest military exercises in 13 years, involving around 36,000 troops, including Romanian ones, 60 military vessels and 200 aircraft, the Allied Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands, announced. Called Trident Juncture 2015, the exercises will take place in 3 countries – Italy, Spain and Portugal — and are scheduled to end on November 6. Apart from ground and air drills, naval manoeuvres are scheduled to take place in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The exercises come at a time when relations between NATO and Russia are strained, given the conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, and the immigrant crisis in Europe.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry expressed its regrets for the incident triggered by the statement of a Ukrainian officer concerning Romania, the Romanian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday. The clarifications come after the Romanian party checked the media stories of September 21 regarding the set-up of a unit within the Ukrainian Army with the alleged goal of protecting the country “against possible claims of Romania over this region.” Kiev explained that none of the units of the brigade deployed in the Romanian border area has missions targeted against Romania, and labeled the incident as counterproductive. Ukraine thanked Romania for the constant support it has showed to its efforts, the Romanian FM added.
The air strikes in Syria must target the IS group and be coordinated so as to avoid civilian victims, the EU insisted on Friday. Several countries in the international coalition in Syria (USA, UK, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey) Friday called on Russia to immediately cease strikes against the Syrian opposition and civilians and to concentrate efforts against the IS. Also on Friday, the President of France, François Hollande, and the Russian leader Vladimir Putin discussed in Paris about the crisis in Syria. The main contended issue was the fate of President Bashar al-Assad, a French diplomatic source said, according to France Presse. Moscow supports the leader in Damascus, but Paris and Washington want him to step down as soon as possible, and blame him for the chaos in Syria. Recently, the White House announced that Russia’s air strikes this week against the militants in Syria are “indiscriminate.” The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, said however that the airstrikes target the same terror group that the US-led coalition is fighting against.
The Romanian tennis players Irina Begu and Monica Niculescu will play on Saturday against the Swiss Martina Hingis and Indian Sania Mirza in the doubles final of the WTA tournament in Wuhan (China), with over 2.2 million US dollars in prize money. Irina Begu and Monica Niculescu have won a WTA tournament in 2012, in Hobart (Australia). No Romanian tennis player is taking part in the tournament’s singles.
