ROMANIA: Romania was embroiled in a new diplomatic row with Israel yesterday after the Balkan country's ex-communist President Ion Iliescu told an Israeli daily the Holocaust was not unique to Jews.
Mr Iliescu (73), was quoted by the Israeli daily Haaretz as saying on Friday: "The Holocaust was not unique to the Jewish population in Europe. Many others, including Poles, died in the same way."
The Israeli embassy in Bucharest delivered a protest to the Romanian Foreign Ministry and the presidency on Monday. "We expect clarifications from the Romanian government," said a statement issued by the embassy. Romanian officials acted swiftly to try to halt the new row.
"We expressed our full willingness to resolve this once and for all," Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mr Cosmin Dobran, said yesterday, adding: "It was also agreed that Prime Minister Adrian Nastase would discuss the issue directly with his Israeli counterpart."
The Foreign Ministry also said the government would expand university education on the issue and set up a Holocaust memorial day in Romania - which hopes to join the EU in 2007. Mr Iliescu sent a letter to Israeli President, Mr Moshe Katzav, on Monday, expressing his regret for what he said were comments taken out of context.
"Nobody questions the fact that Jewish people were the ones particularly targeted by the criminal policies of Nazi Germany and its allies," he wrote.
Last month Romania, which co-operated with Nazi Germany during the second World War, averted a crisis with Israel by retracting a government statement that no Holocaust took place on its territory. Historians say Romania has yet to come to terms with dark chapters of its wartime past.
- (Reuters)