National Defence Ministry

A C-27 J Spartan aircraft of the Romanian Air Force took off on Saturday morning from the 90 Otopeni Air Base to Milan carrying to Italy 90,000 FFP2 protection masks.

A third air transport carrying medical equipment from South Korea has landed, on Wednesday morning, on the Otopeni Airport with a C-17 Globemaster III airplane. According to the Defence Ministry, the aircraft transported approximately 45 tons of medical protection equipment. The airplane was greeted by Defence Minister Nicolae Ciuca and US Ambassador in Bucharest Adrian Zuckerman.

The Romanian portable isolator has been created at the request of the Medical Directorate of the National Defence Ministry (MApN), being adapted according to the system through which those transported with it were protected from an external contaminating agent, scientific researcher with the Military Equipment and Technologies Research Agency (METRA) Claudiu Lazaroaie said on Saturday.

The National Public Health Institute (INSP) has been designated as the authority in charge with monitoring testing and the integrated reporting of the situations generated by the novel coronavirus, head of the Department for Emergency Situations with the Interior Ministry (MAI), Secretary of State Raed Arafat said on Tuesday evening.

National Defence Minister Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca will be paying an official visit to Portugal, Monday through Tuesday, at the invitation of his counterpart Joao Gomes Cravinho.

The importance of the strategic dialogue between Romania and the Netherlands was highlighted on Monday within the discussions between National Defence Minister Nicolae-Ionel Ciuca and Dutch Ambassador in Bucharest Roelof van Ees, reads a National Defence Ministry (MApN) release.

Romania was the only country facing wide spread violence during the 1989 revolutions; officially, 1,104 people died and 3,300 were injured. Nicolae Ceausescu's dictatorship, believed to be the most brutal and repressive in Eastern Europe, was without doubt one of the main reasons for such a tragic end - as the work ''The 1989 Revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.

The accession of North Macedonia to NATO will contribute to the improvement of the security environment in the Balkans, National Defence Minister Gabriel Les stated on Tuesday, on the occasion of the visit to Bucharest of his counterpart of the Republic of North Macedonia Radmila Sekerinska-Jankovska.

Defence Minister Gabriel Les met on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New York with UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, with the discussions focusing on streamlining the missions carried out under the aegis of the Organization.

The development of bilateral cooperation relations in the defence area between Romania and the Republic of North Macedonia was included on the agenda of the meeting which Romanian National Defence Minister Gabriel Les had on Wednesday with his North Macedonian counterpart, a release of the National Defence Ministry (MApN) informed.