VZCZCXYZ0004
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBM #0980/01 1641609
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 131609Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY BUCHAREST
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 4648
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUCHAREST 000980 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE DEPT FOR EUR/NCE - BILL SILKWORTH 
NSC FOR DAMON WILSON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/20/2016 
TAGS: PREL PGOV MD RO
SUBJECT: MOLDOVAN-ROMANIAN DIFFERENCES OVER SIGNING BASIC 
TREATY, BORDER AND VISA REGIMES 
 
Classified By: CDA Mark Taplin for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: In a June 5 meeting with Deputy NSA J. D. 
Crouch, Moldovan President Voronin sought U.S. assistance in 
encouraging Romania to sign a "Basic Treaty" with Moldova. 
The question of concluding a basic treaty between the two 
countries is a long-standing one that is fraught with 
domestic political sensitivities as well as cultural and 
historical complications.  In this latest surfacing of the 
issue, Moldovan Ambassador to Romania Lidia Gutu tacitly 
acknowledged in a follow-up meeting with Ambassador Taubman 
on June 8 that Moldova hopes to get Romanian agreement to a 
basic treaty as a pre-condition for signing separate border 
and visa bilateral agreements which are already close to 
having been successfully negotiated.  Meanwhile, Romanian 
government officials insist that Chisinau has sent 
"conflicting signals" in recent months on any possible 
linkage, even as they play down the political and historical 
sensitivities that have bedeviled earlier efforts to bring 
into force a basic treaty.  We would welcome input from 
colleagues at Embassy Chisinau as well as guidance from 
colleagues in Washington on how we can work constructively to 
help these two neighboring states, astride the NATO and -- 
imminently -- EU border, to avoid unnecessarily complicating 
a bilateral relationship that has been on a marked upswing. 
End Summary. 
 
¶2. (C) During Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin's June 5 
bilateral meeting with Deputy NSA J. D. Crouch, Voronin 
complained that Romania has yet to sign a basic treaty with 
Moldova. The Moldovan president argued that what he 
characterized as the failure of the Romanian side to come to 
terms on a "Treaty for Partnership and Cooperation" provided 
ammunition to the Tiraspol separatists and their Moscow 
patrons to resist the reassertion of Moldovan control over 
the Transnistrian region.  For her part, Moldovan Ambassador 
to Romania Lidia Gutu argued in a separate meeting with the 
Ambassador that Romania has signed such treaties with Ukraine 
in 2003 and Russia in 2004, but has yet to formalize its 
recognition of an independent Moldova in a basic treaty.  She 
pointed out that the Transnistrians and "others," presumably 
their Russian backers, use the argument that the lack of a 
basic treaty between Moldova and Romania is evidence that 
Romanian-Moldovan integration is still possible in the 
future. 
 
¶3. (C) In the course of the June 8 meeting, Gutu acknowledged 
that Moldova had first linked signature of the bilateral 
border and visa agreements with conclusion of a basic treaty 
during a February visit to Chisinau by Romanian FM Razvan 
Ungureanu, and subsequently on the occasion of Gutu's 
presentation of credentials in Bucharest in April. She 
claimed that Ungureanu had raised the idea of Chisinau 
signing an equivalent basic agreement with the EU rather than 
with Romania, an idea that she labeled as unacceptable 
because it would not contain responsibilities for Romania; 
only a bilateral treaty would do.  Chisinau reportedly sent a 
revised draft of the basic treaty to the Romanian MFA in May 
2006, based on an earlier version of the agreement that was 
initialed by the two sides in 2000 but never ratified by the 
two countries' parliaments.  Gutu asserted Romania was 
reluctant to sign and had tried to avoid discussing a basic 
treaty at every turn.  She argued that Moldova would never be 
able to conclude a basic treaty with Romania if it did not 
happen this year, i.e. before Romania's anticipated accession 
into the EU on January 1, 2007. Gutu said it was Voronin's 
idea to try to enlist U.S. support to influence Romania to 
sign the treaty. 
 
¶4. (C) In an informal response, the Ambassador emphasized to 
Gutu that the U.S. is interested in promoting good relations 
between neighboring states in this region, not in seeing 
borders shut down to commerce and exchanges because necessary 
agreements have not been signed. He mentioned that some might 
ask whether signing the border and visa agreements ahead of 
the basic treaty might not be a more practical approach, 
since negotiating and concluding a basic treaty would take 
time, and certainly would not be possible before January 
¶2007.  He also commented that it was striking that, by its 
own account, Moldova had only recently brought to the 
attention of the Romanian side its expectation that 
successful conclusion of a basic treaty would have to precede 
signing of the nearly complete bilateral agreements on visas 
and borders.  Gutu argued, however, that "any agreement 
signed without having a basic treaty in force would not be 
recognized internationally." She suggested that moving ahead 
on the border and visa agreements without an umbrella 
agreement would be "juridically not valuable" and "subject to 
cancellation at any time." 
 
 
¶5. (C) Romanian officials involved in these issues seemed 
perplexed by the latest state of play on the Moldovan side, 
if not overly worried.  On June 7, Romanian MFA Director 
General for Legal Affairs, Cosmin Dinescu, who heads the 
Romanian negotiating effort on the Border Regime Agreement 
with Moldova, explained that two rounds of negotiations had 
been held so far: the first in January in Chisinau, and the 
second in May in Bucharest. The Romanian side was awaiting an 
invitation for a third round in Chisinau. Dinescu thought at 
most "two or three" more rounds would be necessary to come to 
agreement, as only "technical details" remained to be 
resolved.  A signing ceremony and then ratification would 
follow, perhaps with much effort as early as this fall, but 
more likely in the second half of 2007.  (Note: As a 
reference, the Ukrainian-Romanian Treaty took 17 rounds of 
negotiations. End note.) Dinescu characterized the agreement 
as 90-95% complete and said there were no complicated issues, 
just remaining details such as how to actually mark the 
border, how to designate a border along the meandering Prut 
River, and how to repatriate people or animals that 
unwittingly cross the border. 
 
¶6. (C) Dinescu said that the Romanian-Moldovan frontier has 
long been established since the same border marked the Soviet 
Union's border with Romania. He said this was unlike the 
Moldovan-Ukrainian treaty, which fixed a previously unclear 
border between two post-Soviet successor states. Dinescu 
commented on how this treaty, on occasion, has been perceived 
by Moldovans and others as having a political angle to it, 
but he insisted that Romania had repeatedly stated that it 
had no territorial ambitions towards Moldova and no 
disagreement with Moldova over their internationally 
recognized mutual border. 
 
¶7. (C) According to Romanian MFA Director for Moldova Dan 
Iancu, the Moldovan experts involved in the border agreement 
negotiations did not appear to have a political mandate to 
negotiate. Instead, they just told the Romanian side their 
position and served as messengers who had to present 
proposals to their supervisors. Iancu said the Moldovans were 
currently "reconfiguring their reply" to Romanian proposals 
and that "a lot depends on how Moldovan leaders see it." 
Iancu said the Moldovans were not ready to compromise on some 
issues, in part because of restrictions in Moldovan law. For 
example, according to Iancu, the Moldovan delegation did not 
have the same flexibility as Romania on establishing a border 
on water, which could change course according to floods. He 
said this preoccupation reflects some fears in Chisinau 
toward Moldova's other neighbor, Ukraine. 
 
¶8. (C) On the separate visa agreement, Iancu said the draft 
had been agreed in Bucharest at the experts level. Moldovan 
negotiators now had to submit the draft to the political 
level in Chisinau. 
 
¶9. (C) Iancu did not wish to speculate when the agreements 
would be signed. He said Romania has had "good and not so 
good experience with the Moldovans on signing papers." He did 
not think it should be much of a problem -- a matter of 
months rather than years. In particular, he said the separate 
visa agreement "must be in place before November in order to 
be in effect on January 1." Iancu mentioned two or three 
documents on mutual assistance and cooperation on the border 
that remain to be signed. Neither Iancu nor Dinescu seemed to 
be aware of any active Moldovan effort to sign a basic treaty 
ahead of the other agreements with which they have been 
engaged during the past year. 
 
¶10. (C) Comment:  Based on our limited interactions here in 
Bucharest, the Moldovans seem to be pressing for U.S. help in 
landing a Romanian signature on a basic treaty, and to make 
that happen before the end of this year.  That would seem to 
be an unrealistic objective in light of the past interactions 
between the two countries on this subject.  In April 2000, 
Moldova and Romania had actually reached the point at which 
their two foreign ministers were able to initial a draft 
agreement.  That version, however, soon ran afoul of thorny 
historical and linguistic issues that were difficult to 
manage on the domestic political front.  Bucharest, for 
instance, wanted explicit reference to the 1939 
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that had led to the annexation of 
Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, and resisted formulations 
that gave credence to the existence of a distinct "Moldovan" 
vice Romanian language.  In the end, the treaty draft was 
never ratified.  Meanwhile, our working level Romanian 
interlocutors still seem blissfully unaware that getting to 
closure on the visa and border regime agreements before 
Romania's EU accession may be in jeopardy.  We leave it to 
 
our colleagues in Chisinau to speculate over Voronin's 
motives in taking this tack at this time.  However, in light 
of the diplomatic challenges that Moldova and the 
international community face in resolving the Transnistria 
situation, unnecessary distractions in the relationship 
between Romania and Moldova, which now straddle the NATO and 
EU fault line, are clearly not in anyone's interest.  It may 
be necessary for the U.S. and our European partners to try to 
nudge both sides towards a more constructive approach.  On 
the other hand, there are plenty of reasons to be cautious 
before setting out on this bumpy terrain of conflicting 
historical sagas and national agendas.  End Comment. 
 
¶11. Amembassy Bucharest's reporting telegrams are available 
on the Bucharest SIPRNet website: 
www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/bucharest 
TAPLIN