BUCHAREST: Romania’s President Klaus Iohannis plans to make an announcement Thursday about his bid to become NATO chief, after his rival candidate Mark Rutte of the Netherlands got backing from EU holdout Hungary.
Iohannis’s withdrawal would clear the way for the Dutch prime minister to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as head of the defense alliance later this year.
“About NATO, more tomorrow. I will present these issues first to the CSAT (Supreme Council of National Defense), then to the public,” Iohannis said at a news conference Wednesday alongside Italian President Sergio Mattarella, who was visiting Bucharest.
“Tomorrow afternoon you will be fully informed and we will move forward,” he said.
Iohannis, 65, has vowed to bring a “renewal of perspective” to the alliance as a member of its eastern flank.
“It is time” for Romania, which joined NATO in 2004, to “assume an even greater responsibility within the Euro-Atlantic leadership,” Iohannis said when announcing his bid in March.
Leading NATO powers spearheaded by the United States are pressing to get an agreement on a new head of the alliance before a summit meeting in Washington next month.
Romania, which borders Ukraine and the Black Sea, has gained increased strategic importance since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The country hosts more than 5,000 foreign troops, the largest contingent anywhere in NATO’s southeastern region.
The nomination of a new NATO secretary general requires consensus from all 32 alliance members, and most appear ready to back Rutte — though Hungary had remained opposed until this week.
On Tuesday, Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he was “ready to support” Rutte’s candidacy after securing a guarantee from the Dutch leader that Budapest would not have to contribute to any coordinated NATO arms deliveries for Ukraine.
Rutte currently serves in a caretaker capacity as prime minister and is set to leave his position in the coming weeks once a new Dutch government is installed.
Romania’s Iohannis to make NATO statement as Dutch PM seen taking over
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Romania’s Iohannis to make NATO statement as Dutch PM seen taking over
- Iohannis’s withdrawal would clear the way for the Dutch prime minister to succeed Jens Stoltenberg
- “About NATO, more tomorrow. I will present these issues first to the CSAT (Supreme Council of National Defense), then to the public,” Iohannis said
Three Afghan migrants die of cold while trying to cross into Iran
- More than 1.8 million Afghans were forced to return to Afghanistan by the Iranian authorities between January and the end of November 2025
AFGHANISTAN: Three Afghans died from exposure in freezing temperatures in the western province of Herat while trying to illegally enter Iran, a local army official said on Saturday.
“Three people who wanted to illegally cross the Iran-Afghanistan border have died because of the cold weather,” the Afghan army official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He added that a shepherd was also found dead in the mountainous area of Kohsan from the cold.
The migrants were part of a group that attempted to cross into Iran on Wednesday and was stopped by Afghan border forces.
“Searches took place on Wednesday night, but the bodies were only found on Thursday,” the army official said.
More than 1.8 million Afghans were forced to return to Afghanistan by the Iranian authorities between January and the end of November 2025, according to the latest figures from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which said that the majority were “forced and coerced returns.”
“These mass returns in adverse circumstances have strained Afghanistan’s already overstretched resources and services” which leads to “risks of onward and new displacement, including return movements back into Pakistan and Iran and onward,” UNHCR posted on its site dedicated to Afghanistan’s situation.
This week, Amnesty International called on countries to stop forcibly returning people to Afghanistan, citing a “real risk of serious harm for returnees.”
Hit by two major earthquakes in recent months and highly vulnerable to climate change, Afghanistan faces multiple challenges.
It is subject to international sanctions particularly due to the exclusion of women from many jobs and public places, described by the UN as “gender apartheid.”
More than 17 million people in the country are facing acute food insecurity, the UN World Food Programme said Tuesday.
