(story to be published in tomorrow’s issue, March 14)
The exchange of statements between the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the responsibility of the postponement of Dutch Defence minister Frank de Graave’s visit to Romania is presented in detail in NRC Handelsblat, a Dutch daily newspaper. The daily quotes the minister as saying he found out from his secretary that his visit was considered inappropriate by the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Through my secretary I found out that the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said my visit to Bucharest would be inappropriate at this moment,” says the minister in the Dutch newspaper. “And now it is difficult to go there given these circumstances,” said de Graave, quoted by the source. NRC Handelsblad points out that the postponement of the Dutch minister’s visit created a “political turmoil” in Bucharest, as “the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through its embassy in Hague, cancelled the visit,” but “the Romanian counterpart Victor Babiuc or President Constantinescu were not consulted in this sense.” Currently in Kosovo and without fully understanding the circumstances, de Graave considers this situation is not a disaster. “Among other subjects we would have discussed Romania’s participation to SFOR beside Holland as in the case of Bulgaria within KFOR. But it is not a tragedy,” said the official in Hague, according to NRC Handelblad. The conflict registered over the last few days between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence produced reactions of the opposition as well.