President Klaus Iohannis decided to
\naward the post-mortem Romanian Star National Order to the Romanian military who
\nwas killed in Thursday’s car bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. Corporal
\nCirprian-Stefan Polschi was 38 years old, married with two children. He had
\nbeen an employee of the National Ministry of Defense since 2004, and this was
\nhis third tour in Afghanistan. Early this week, an assault of Taliban rebels
\ntargeted the Romanian Embassy in Kabul. A Romanian embassy employee died in the
\nattack, sacrificing his life to save the others, Foreign Ministry Ramona
\nManescu said. He was born in 1976 and was part of the embassy’s security team.
\nCoincidently enough, this Friday the city of Galati in southeastern Romania
\nhosted a ceremony marking the safe return of the 480 Romanian military who have
\nbeen taking part in a NATO support mission in Afghanistan since February. Their
\njob was to ensure the security of Kandahar airport as well as the protection of
\ncounterterrorist NATO troops deployed on the ground. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Most are part of a
\nmechanized infantry battalion, together with troops from artillery, tank and
\nmarine units, which marked a first for the history of Romanian military navy.
\nWe are grateful to our military stationed in Afghanistan and other theatres of
\noperations, who are doing their job, putting their lives on the line, together
\nwith our allies. By deploying military to conflict areas, our country is
\nactively taking part in maintaining international peace and security, which is
\nan important element of our NATO membership, President Klaus Iohannis said. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After nearly half a century of Soviet membership, Romanians finally found their
\nWestern aspirations confirmed in 2000, at the end of post-communist transition.
\nRomania joined NATO in March 2004 with the biggest wave of NATO enlargement
\nrecorded in history. Three years later our country joined the European Union.
\nOur troops were deployed to Afghanistan even before NATO accession. Since 2003,
\nnearly 30 Romanians have been killed in the line of duty, with scores of others
\nbeing killed in other international missions. Defense Minister Gabriel Les
\nrecently stated that nearly a 1,000 Romanians are deployed in international
\nmissions, although their number exceeded 2,500 in recent years. Of them, over
\n700 are deployed to Afghanistan. A few dozen are taking part in the UN mission
\nin Kosovo, an anti-air defense unit totaling 120 soldiers is stationed in
\nPoland, while 21 military are part of the general staff tasked with liaising
\nwith NATO. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated by V. Palcu)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Another Romanian military was killed in action in Afghanistan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":82813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[34634,32443],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-66480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-nato-cooperation","tag-romanian-military-in-afghanistan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n