From: msirbu@next5.cs.umr.edu (Mihai Sirbu)
Subject: Moldova/Romania News from RFE/RL, 9/15/92
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 16:32:25 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri-Rolla, Missouri's Technological University

 RFE/RL Daily Report            No. 177, 15 September 1992


CSCE DELEGATION IN MOLDOVA. A fact-finding team sent by the
Chairman of the CSCE Committee of Senior Officials, and comprised
of three Polish diplomats, completed on 11 September a week-long
visit to Moldova.  The team's leader, Daniel Adam Rotfeld,
currently the Director of the Stockholm International Peace
Research Institute (SIPRI), told journalists that, in the team's
assessment, the Dniester conflict was "a political, not an
interethnic conflict," Moldovapres reported.  That assessment
coincides with that of Chisinau and contradicts the position of
Tiraspol and its Russian nationalist supporters, who maintain that
the conflict results from ethnic discrimination by Moldova against
left-bank Russians. The fact-finding team will report its
conclusions within a week to the Committee of Senior Officials,
which will then devise a mechanism for CSCE assistance in settling
the conflict. (Vladimir Socor)

ROMANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ON "LACK OF SIGNALS" FROM MOLDOVA.
Interviewed in the Bucharest daily Meridian of 13 September, as
cited by TASS, Romanian Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase told
domestic critics that the question of Romanian-Moldovan unification
should be resolved by and in Moldova, but nevertheless regretted
that "we do not receive any signals from there." He added that
Romania must strive for "including Moldova in its sphere of
influence," preventing it from "falling under the influence of
other countries" if unification does not take place. (Vladimir
Socor)

ILIESCU MEETS POPE.  Romanian President Ion Iliescu was received on
14 September by Pope John Paul II at his summer residence Castel
Gandolfo. Radio Bucharest, which described the private interview as
a "tete-a-tete," noted that Iliescu is the first foreign official
to see the pope after his surgery in mid-July.  John Paul expressed
hopes that Romania will completely restore democracy and religious
freedom and that relations between the Vatican and Romania will
further develop.  Iliescu later met in Rome with Italian president
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, with whom he discussed mutual ties and
prospects for Romania's association with the EC.  Rome was the last
leg on Iliescu's three-day visit to Spain and Italy. (Dan Ionescu)

ROMANIA'S RUMP COMMUNIST PARTY BACKS ILIESCU.  A spokesman for
Romania's reborn communist party, the Socialist Labor Party,
announced at a press conference on 14 September that his party has
decided to support incumbent president Ion Iliescu in the 27
September presidential race.  Reuters quoted the spokesman as
saying that his party "will not field its own presidential
candidate in order to preserve the unity of the left wing." In a
press statement the SLP praised Iliescu for alleged "tolerance and
transparency" during his term in office, saying he tried "to defuse
tension and conflicts and strengthen the role of democratic
bodies." Iliescu, a former communist, was a high-ranking party
official before falling out of favor with late dictator Nicolae
Ceausescu in 1971. (Dan Ionescu)

ROMANIAN ASSOCIATION WITH THE EC. On 14 September a Romanian
delegation began a new round of negotiations in Brussels on
association with the European Community. In an interview with Radio
Bucharest, delegation leader Napoleon Pop said that the two-day
talks will focus on the text of some 10 articles (out of a
124-points association agreement) dealing with Romanian exports of
agricultural products, iron and steel, and textiles to EC
countries. (Dan Ionescu)

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