Rumania’s stance puts pressure on Warsaw Pact unity

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 8

Rumania’s stance puts pressure on Warsaw Pact unity

NZPA-Reuter Bucharest Rumania’s relations with its Warsaw Pact allies were under intense strain yesterday after staunchly independent speeches by President Nicolae Ceasescu.

Mr Ceausescu first disclosed at the week-end that he had argued with his allies at a Warsaw Pact meeting in Moscow last week, and then said in a speech on Tuesday that Rumania took orders from no-one.

He told a meeting of Army chiefs, senior officers and Interior Ministry officials that Rumania’s Army was responsible to Bucharest alone, and he rejected closer integration of Warsaw Pact armies.

“We shall never permit any Rumanian unit or soldier to take orders from outside. It is only from within the country that they will be given orders to fight,” he said.

Eastern Europe buzzed with reports that Soviet-bloc Governments had withdrawn their ambassadors from Bucharest in anger at Mr Cbausescu’s stand, but they turned out to be untrue.

Western diplomats said that the Czechoslovak, East German, and Polish envoys had attended a Yugoslav reception in Bucharest since the speech. Ambassadors from the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, and Hungary, were reported to be at home on official business. But there were still suggestions that all six Soviet bloc envoys might be absent by the time the Rumanian leader makes a scheduled major speech tomorrow.

Rumania, the only Sovietbloc country to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel, angered the Kremlin this (northern) summer by paying host to chairman Hua Kuo-feng of China, the Kremlin’s arch-enemv.

He has begun a campaign at home to rally support for his Moscow stand, saying Rumanian living standards are more important than increased defence expenditure. Scores of letters of support have been sent to Bucharest newspapers in what

appeared to be a carefullyorchestrated campaign, according to diplomatic observers.