EXCLUSIVE: Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad To Visit Romania This Year

Baconschi, who is paying an official visit to Syria, said the agreements the two countries will sign are currently being drawn up, adding negotiations in this respect were held both in Bucharest and in Damascus.

Baconschi told Bashar Al-Assad that Romanian authorities are willing to enhance the economic cooperation between the East European country and Syria.

In June 2010, Romanian Foreign Ministry representatives met in Bucharest with a Syrian delegation and discussed the state of negotiations on a bilateral judicial framework.

Romanian President Traian Basescu visited Syria in October 2008. He said at the time, after meeting with his counterpart, the topic of Syrian terrorism convict Omar Hayssam was also raised during talks.

On November 16, 2009, Basescu said the goal of his 2008 visit to Syria was to amend the extradition agreement between the two countries, so that Omar Hayssam would be extradited to Romania. On January 8, 2010, the Romanian Foreign Ministry confirmed it had sent the Syrian authorities a draft treaty on extradition and said the draft is being analyzed by Syria.

In 2007, a Romanian court found Hayssam guilty of masterminding the kidnapping of three Romanian journalists in Iraq in 2005, and sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison. Hayssam fled Romania in the first half of 2006, while under a terrorism inquiry for his role in the kidnapping.

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