Lome

Turkey highly appreciates Togo's support in the fight against the FETÖ, the group behind the 2016 defeated coup in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Oct. 19.

Turkey and Nigeria decided to boost their bilateral cooperation, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Oct. 20 after signing seven agreements with the African country.

Erdoğan and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari signed seven agreements during a four-day tour of the Turkish president to three African countries, including Angola, Togo and Nigeria.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) informs on Monday that Minister Bogdan Aurescu has convened, on an emergency regime, the interinstitutional task force on the incident occurred on November 29, this year, in the area of the Port of Lome, the Republic of Togo, involving the Agisilaos ship and which is said to have resulted in the kidnapping of several navigators, including a Romanian citizen.

Pirates attacked a Greek oil tanker off the coast of Togo in the early hours of Monday and fled after taking four crew members as hostages, the West African nation's navy said, two days after a similar attack in the waters of neighboring Benin. 

Bulgaria and Vanuatu will establish diplomatic relations - this was agreed in Lomé, Togo, the foreign ministers of the two countries Ekaterina Zaharieva and Ralph Regenvanu, the press center of the MFA announced.

Four vessels of the Alliance are approaching the Black Sea, military-diplomatic sources say.

Reports cited by Russian agency ITAR-TASS suggest the warships are US Destroyer USS Ross, French aviso Commandant Birot (F 796), Canadian frigate HMCS Toronto, Spanish air-defense Almirante Juan de Borbon (F-102).

NATO will send two surveillance ships to the Black Sea in the next few days to conduct radio-electronic reconnaissance of the military objects of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Pentagon officials have announced the USS Vella Gulf, a US warship, will reach the Black Sea later this week as part of maneuvers showing support for Ukraine.

Navy Rear Admiral John Kirby was quoted by the Huffington Post as saying that the US also aimed to reassure its European allies that Washington is committed to their security, as tensions between Kiev and Moscow remain.

The military exercise, codenamed “Vector 2014”, is to end later this week and will involve some 1,600 naval personnel, the Romanian Defence Ministry confirmed on Monday.

“The exercise is organized annually and aims at training naval structures for their missions. It was planned around one year ago,” the ministry said.

The US guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook has left the Black Sea, reported the Russian wire service ITAR-TASS on Friday.

The information was confirmed on the site of the US Navy. 

USS Donald Cook left the Black Sea on Thursday, passed through the straits and entered the Aegean Sea.