Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Romania's Foreign Ministry (MAE) is firmly denying press allegation of tanks and firearms manufactured in Romania being delivered to the extremist forces of the Islamic State group, MAE says in an answer on Wednesday to an Agerpres question.

Bodies recovered from the crash site of Malaysian flight MH17 will be flown to the Netherlands Wednesday as the country mourns 193 citizens killed in the crash. 

According to the BBC, the he first bodies are expected to arrive by plane at Eindhoven in the Netherlands on Wednesday afternoon. 

Members of the Dutch royal family and Prime Minister Mark Rutte are to meet the plane.

Romania's President Traian Basescu on Tuesday said the Russian Federation is a partner state of terrorist groups operational in eastern Ukraine.

International monitors said Sunday that pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine had loaded scores of bodies from the crash site of downed Malaysian jet MH17 into train wagons as grieving families clamoured to have their loved ones brought home.
      

EU leaders gave Russia until Monday to change policy on Ukraine or face the prospect of tougher sanctions.
      
In a statement Friday, the 28 European Union leaders said Moscow had to take four steps, among them clear backing for the Ukraine government's peace plan, by Monday June 30.
      

BELGRADE - It is a great responsibility to chair the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Borge Brende said in an interview for the Wednesday edition of the Belgrade-based daily Politika, adding that he is sure that Serbia is preparing well for the role it is to take on in 2015.

VIENNA - Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Dunja Mijatovic said in her regular six-month report on freedom of the media in Serbia that her office is ready to help improve the situation in the media in the country, and she also called on the government to protect the freedom of the Internet.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on May 31 it had lost contact with a second four-member international team in restive eastern Ukraine.

The Vienna-based security body said it had not heard from its team in the industrial region of Lugansk since May 29 evening when it was stopped "by armed men" at a roadblock in the town of Severodonetsk.

All 7 kidnapped observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, who were held by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine since 25 April, were freed, Saturday.

Five Ukrainian officers taken with them were also freed, according to Russian media reports.

Negotiators are trying to release a group of observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) being held by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

Germany's defence minister, Ursula von der Leyen, has confirmed that 13 mission members have been arrested, including the observers, their interpreter and driver.