Rumanian leader likely to upset Kremlin even more

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 7

Rumanian leader likely to upset Kremlin even more

NZPA-Reuter

Bucharest

rhe Rumanian President (Mr Nicolae ill make an important foreign-policy speech today emphasising communist Rumania’s right to pursue its own path without taking orders from Moscow.

Senior diplomats said Mr Ceausescu’s speech could put fresh strain On al readv tense relations between Bucharest and Moscow. The 60 year-old indepen-dent-minded leader last week rejected Soviet proposals at a Moscow summit meeting for greater arms spending end military’ integration by the seven-nation Eastern bloc. Yesterday, officials saidl President Ceausescu was ; likely to give a long justifi- i cation of the reasons for Ru-! mania’s public defiance of the Kremlin. Soviet-Rumanian relations ; have been strained for years! because of Bucharest’s increasingly close links with Peking, and its refusal to conform with Kremlin policy on important military and political issues. Apart from the Peking connection, Rumania is the only Warsaw Pact country that does not allow Soviet troops to be stationed on its territory. It is also the only member of the Eastern alliance to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel. Western diplomats said Mr Ceausescu, who has

; already made four tough i [speeches since the Moscow I I summit meeting, now apparently regarded this period of ] Soviet troubles in other , spheres as the right time to i press Rumanian demands for ( greater independence. . “Ceausescu is clearly j banking on the Kremlin’s j deep preoccupation with |, I troops in Central Europe,” t said a senior Western diplo- , \ mat. ! Rumania was also taking I into account the uncertainty about the health of the age-H ling Soviet leader, Mr Leonid Brezhnev, the bitter Sino-So- ; viet ideological conflict and ■. Peking’s new thrusting for-' 1 eign policy, diplomats said. [ Rumania, like Yugoslavia, ■ came under heavy fire from 1 Moscow for playing host three months ago to the Chi- ! nese leader, Mr Hua Kuo- £ feng, on his first visit to I Europe. t A public quarrel with ‘ Moscow now was sure to I rally support for Mr Ceau- E sescu among the Rumanian £ people, and take their minds off grievances such as short- s ages of consumer goods, e electricity restrictions, short- \ ages in agriculture, as well v

as unpopular- education and housing laws, they said. President Ceausescu was bound to win popular support for his argument that Rumania should take its own decisions that its army should be responsible only to its own nation, and that increased military spending would prevent an increase in the country’s living standards — among the lowest in Eastern Europe. “Ceausescu has picked the right argument on which to have a public quarrel with the Kremlin — he is certain to get home and international support for advocating detente, public welfare, and peace,” said a senior Western diplomat. Mr Ceausescu will make his speech, already officially announced as an important policy declaration, at Bucharest’s Congress Hall to an audience of party chiefs, Parliamentarians, and leaders of all key Rumanian organisations. The meeting will mark the sixtieth anniversary of the establishment after the First World War of Rumania as a unified State.