July 18, 2016 UPDATE
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Newsroom, 18.07.2016, 12:30
CLEANSING Turkish security forces on Monday continued the “cleansing” operation ordered by president Recep Tayyp Erdogan following Friday night’s attempted coup. After a faction of the army failed to take over power, Erdogan launched a cleansing campaign among the army and the judiciary, which has been met with concern by the international community. Almost 9,000 interior ministry staffers, mostly police and gendarmes, have been sacked. Earlier, around 6,000 people had been arrested, most of whom military, as well as 3,000 magistrates, including judges and prosecutors, who are suspected of involvement in the coup. Also on Monday Prime Minister Binali Yildirim decided that the annual holiday of more than three million public servants all over Turkey be suspended until further notice. According to the latest toll, at least 290 people have been killed in the coup, while more than 1,400 have been wounded.
MEETING The EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the EU foreign ministers on Monday called on Turkey to refrain from possible general repression in the wake of the failed coup. Mogherinin said the rule of law must be protected in the interest of the country. A meeting of the EU External Affairs Council was held in Brussels on Monday to discuss the failed military coup in Turkey, the attacks in France and the UK’s leaving the European Union. Talks also looked at the Union’s global strategy in respect of China. EU foreign ministers held an informal meeting with the US state secretary John Kerry. Romania was represented in Brussels by its Foreign Minister, Lazar Comanescu.
SEARCH French and Romanian authorities are still looking for a Romanian national reported missing after the terrorist attack in Nice last week. His wife, who was also missing, was found in a hospital in serious, but stable condition. Their minor son, who was also wounded, is in a hospital in Nice. Two other Romanians, husband and wife sustained injuries in the attack. A third day of national mourning was observed in France on Monday. The perpetrator of the attack was a 31-year-old Franco-Tunisian man who, investigators say, minutely planned his Bastille Day attack. This is the third terrorist attack taking place in France after January 2015, when 17 people died, and November last year, when 130 people were killed, both times in Paris.
DRILL 1,000 Romanian military and another 1,000 from Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, Poland, the US, Turkey and Ukraine are taking part in the biggest multinational exercise held this year by the Romanian Naval Forces. Called Sea Shied 16, the drill is being carried out between the 18th and the 22nd of July in Romania’s territorial waters and the Black Sea international waters. The 2,000 troops will conduct joint training and apply NATO standard operational procedures to fight sea, underwater and aerial threats. In another move, the Romanian Naval Forces are taking part in an exercise held and coordinated by the United States Naval Forces Europe and the Ukrainian Naval Forces which takes place starting Monday until the end of the month in the Black Sea and on Ukrainian territory. Participating in this exercise are military from NATO states such as Bulgaria, Germany, Lithuania, Britain, Poland, Romania, the US and Turkey, and the signatory countries of the Partnership for Peace, namely the Republic of Moldova and Georgia.
