Minister Ciuca and NATO Deputy SecGen, at "Afghanistan - Faces of War" exhibition

The Minister Designate of National Defence, Nicolae Ciuca, at the ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Alliance in Brussels, participated on Wednesday night, together with the NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoana, and the chair of the Military Committee of NATO, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart William Peach, at the photographic exhibition "Afghanistan - Faces of War". The exhibition, put up in the main lobby of the NATO General Headquarters, comprises 27 photographs taken by Romanian journalist Ilie Pintea in his travels to Afghanistan together with Romanian servicemen, shows a release of the Ministry of National Defence (MApN) sent to AGERPRES. "These photographs remind us about each of the servicemen who stand behind the missions and operations conducted by NATO, not only by Romanian servicemen, but also allied and partner servicemen, some of them making the ultimate sacrifice," said Minister Ciuca, according to the quoted source. Ciuca also emphasized the importance the Romanian Army grants to transparency regarding the activities of soldiers deployed in theaters of operation, emphasizing the excellent collaboration with the public radio channel in Romania, which has ensured, for long periods of time, the presence of professional press correspondents, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. The NATO Deputy Secretary General, Mircea Geoana, mentioned that "all this trip, starting in Afghanistan, the place of a lengthy war in which our country also has its share of sacrifice and glory, couldn't have ended better than here, at the NATO General Headquarters." "This is my way of giving back at least in this way some of the camaraderie and warmth I received from the servicemen I met in the theater of operations, be they Romanian or from allied countries. The mission Resolute Support in Afghanistan is the most powerful symbol of the support the Alliance grants the Afghan people, and these photographs symbolize what the support actually means, concretely, and remind us that sacrifices, such as that of corporal Stoica, were not in vain," Geoana emphasized. Ilie Pintea, journalist with Radio Romania News, traveled several times to Afghanistan and accompanied Romanian servicemen in numerous missions. "Being dedicated to a fallen soldier, I believe this exhibition best illustrates the fact that this partnership is not just an abstract concept or a collection of documents, but it's about people, who fight and die together, with the same mission: to bring peace. We say, by honoring a fallen comrade, that WeAreNATO and I believe my photographs illustrate this concept and also draw a parallel between two worlds that seem so different, but which co-exist and learn to understand each other. Thank you to the leadership of the Ministry of National Defence because it offered me the possibility to participate, together with Romanian servicemen in the missions executed in the Afghan theater of operations. Not least I want to thank my colleagues with Radio Romania News for supporting me in this journalistic demarche," said Ilie Pintea. The photographs are centered on humans, be them servicemen or civilians, and the exhibition, in its entirety, is dedicated to the memory of First Lieutenant (post mortem) Madalin Stoica, who was killed on September 15, 2017, following an attack on a Romanian patrol executing a mission in the Kandahar region. Presently, Romania is one of the most important contributors to the Resolute Support Mission, in Afghanistan, with approximately 760 servicemen, and the Romanian Army lost, in this theater of operations, 27 heroes, the MApN shows.AGERPRES(RO - author: Oana Ghita, editor: Antonia Nita; EN - author: Razvan-Adrian Pandea, editor: Maria Voican)

Continue reading on: