Romanian President Traian Basescu said Friday in Bucharest that his country will spare no effort to free the three journalists kidnapped in Iraq, after a militant group threatened in a video to kill them.

Earlier, the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV channel reported that insurgents in Iraq threatened to kill the journalists they kidnapped last month, unless the Romanian government pulls out its troops from the country within four days.

The video showed the three journalists sitting on the ground with militants' weapons pointing to their heads.

On Friday evening, their relatives and colleagues gathered in front of the presidential palace to call for their release.

After learning the report, Basescu cut short a regional summit in Moldova and returned to Bucharest to call a meeting of relevant departments to discuss the issue.

Meanwhile, Adriana Saftoiu, an adviser to the president, invited the journalists' families to the presidential palace and expressed sympathy for them.

Basescu told them that he and "the state institutions are doing everything we can (to save the three journalists)."

Romania's Prima TV said its reporter Marie-Jeanne Ion, cameraman Sorin Dumitru Miscoci and reporter Ovidiu Ohanesian from the daily Romania Libera were abducted in Baghdad on March 28.

The kidnapping took place just one day after Basescu's visit to Romanian soldiers serving in Iraq, during which the president announced a reinforcement of 100 soldiers to the country.

Romania has about 850 troops in Iraq, and so far there is no scheduled date for their pullout. The government said it wants to keep them in Iraq until the country's situation becomes stable.

Source: Xinhua