Opening ceremony of the NATO CIS interoperability exercise Steadfast Cobalt 2016

The 48th CIS (Communication and Information Systems) Centre in Bucharest hosted on Sunday the opening ceremony of the NATO CIS interoperability exercise Steadfast Cobalt 2016. 

The event was attended by Colonel Thomas Wirsching of the NATO CIS Group and Colonel Costica Postolache, deputy commander of the Communication and Information Directorate of Romania's General Staff. 

"This exercise means a special opportunity for our country, both to demonstrate its capabilities as host country that must support forces deployed in Romania, and to prove our communication and information capabilities, to test the level of interoperability with NATO structures and to draft and refine joint working procedures when forces must be deployed," Col. Postolache declared. 

According to him, Romania is on a par with NATO structures in terms of communications, and there are no problems of interoperability or capability that the Romanian communications and information structures cannot handle. 

Col. Wirsching appreciated Romania's support as host country for the exercise and pointed out the importance of this support, as it involves huge capabilities and significant resources. He mentioned that 15 NATO countries sent units to this exercises, and three non-NATO EU states are represented by observers. 

Overall, more than 1,000 troops of 30 units and structures of NATO participate until 3 June to Steadfast Cobalt 2016. According to Romania's Ministry of National Defence, the main goals of the exercise are to test and evaluate the interoperability of communication and information systems in support of NATO command structure and forces in a major Allied operation of collective defence in Eastern Europe.

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