Your trusted source

Romania's Foreign Ministry (MAE) 'is voicing regret and is firmly condemning the public remarks that were anti-Semitic and homophobic in nature made by Romania's ambassador to Armenia Sorin Vasile at a conference hosted by the American University of Yerevan, and it has urgently recalled him to explain his remarks,' MAE reports in a press release issued on Friday, according to Romania’s national news agency AGERPRES.

The recall was made by Romania's Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu.

The release also mentions that the MAE has already instructed the ambassador to publicly apologise for his fully 'out of place' remarks and his apologies were posted on Friday on the website of the Armenian publication Civilnet.am.

MAE also says that it is firmly 'condemning any behaviour or speech slippages that promote intolerance and stereotypes.'

'The Foreign Ministry does not tolerate and will not tolerate any behaviour or speech slippages on the part of the representatives of the Romanian diplomacy while in office, irrespective of rank, that could violate basic values, rules and principles of the contemporary international affairs, Romania's bilateral relations with other countries or that would distort or misrepresent the principle positions of the Romanian state on relevant international issues,' reads the MAE release issued on Friday.

MAE assures that it will continue to deploy all efforts so that any similar speech may be efficiently combated in any context, irrespective of the capacity of the speaker, given that Romania will hold the chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016.