Mark Esper

Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper says the United States should deploy more troops along the Black Sea in Bulgaria and Romania to deter potential aggression from Russia as tensions between Moscow and Washington heat up.

The charge d'affaires of the United States Embassy in Bucharest, David Muniz, and the commander of Aviano's 31st Fighter Wing, Brigadier General Jason E. Bailey, visited, on Thursday, the 71st General Emanoil Ionescu Air Base in central-western Campia Turzii, Cluj County.

The ruling centre-right National Liberal Party, PNL, went to the polls with its leader and then-prime minister, Ludovic Orban, as their choice to head the new government. 

But the PNL's unexpected defeat on Sunday at the hands of the opposition Social Democratic Party, PSD, which won 29 per cent of the votes, 4 more per cent than the PNL, left Orban in a precarious position. 

President Donald Trump on June 10 said his administration will "not even consider'' changing the name of any of the 10 Army bases that are named for Confederate Army officers. Two days earlier, Defense Secretary Mark Esper indicated that he was open to a broad discussion of such changes.

White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said at a press briefing that there was enough evidence that the Antifa organization was responsible for the violence during protests in cities across the United States, which erupted after the murder of African-American George Floyd during a police action.

National Defence Minister Nicolae Ciuca has stated that the mission of the National Defence Ministry (MApN) specialist team leaving for the U.S. the state of Alabama, in order to provide support to local authorities in the fight against COVID-19 proves that, when needed, Romania and the U.S. are able to support each other.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has sharply criticized China's behavior in the spread of coronavirus, saying the ruling Communist Party is still hiding information needed to prevent other cases.

The United States has offered to sell Turkey its Patriot missile defence system if Ankara promises not to operate a rival Russian system, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said, in what he called a significant softening in Washington's position.

Turkish foreign minister and NATO chief spoke over the phone to discuss the latest situation in Idlib, northwestern Syria, and issues pertaining to migrants, state-run Anadolu Agency said on March 2.

Jens Stoltenberg expressed his solidarity with Turkey during his phone talk with Mevlut Çavuşoğlu, the agency cited anonymous sources as saying. 

Scores of Syrian regime elements were "neutralized" on Feb. 12 in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib, the Turkish Defense Ministry has said.

"According to information conveyed by several sources in Idlib region, it has been learned that 55 regime elements were neutralized today," said the statement.