President of Romania: “Justifies his country’s decision to join the war against the Soviet Union on Hitler’s side”

By Global Research
Global Research, July 08, 2011
Nine O'Clock News (Romania) 8 July 2011
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Voronin urges EU to publicly denounce Basescu’s WWII statements

The head of the Republic of Moldova’s Communist Party, former President Vladimir Voronin, yesterday criticised President Traian Basescu’s recent comments about the Second World War and demanded that the EU publicly denounce the Romanian head of state for his words, Pro TV Chisinau reported.

In a TV show on June 22, President Basescu said he would have done the same as Marshal Ion Antonescu did during the war, when joining Germany in invading the Soviet Union. “We had an ally and we had a territory to recover (e.n. Moldova). If I had faced the same conditions I would have done it,” Basescu argued.

“The president of a EU member state labelled as correct the actions of a war criminal and Nazi executioner, Antonescu, by whose actions more than 300,000 people were exterminated,” Voronin said yesterday.

Basescu’s comments were fiercely criticised by the opposition and large parts of the public, but also by Russia, which said the head of state was practically trying to justify his country’s decision to join the war against the Soviet Union on Hitler’s side. Moreover, it was reported that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev also had some very tough comments on Basescu during the NATO-Russia council earlier this week. Asked to comment on the reports, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused.

“President Medvedev talks about this matter in a confidential diplomatic framework and in the terms appropriate for this framework. The Romanian envoy to NATO replied in the same framework and the same terms,” he said. NATO envoy Sorin Ducaru too refused to make any comments.

http://www.itar-tass.com/en/c154/181545_print.html

Itar-Tass
July 8, 2011

Moldova’s former Pres urges EU to condemn Romanian Pres statement.

CHISINAU: Moldova’s former President Vladimir Voronin on Thursday expressed surprise over the absence of reaction on the part of the European Union to the remarks made by Romanian President Trajan Basescu regarding Hitler’s aggression against the USSR in 1941.

Basescu said earlier this week he would have sent Romanian soldiers to take part in the occupation of the USSR along with Hitler’s forces in 1941.

Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu did send Romanian troops to war against the Soviet Union in June 1941.

‘We’re indignant over Basescu’s statement,” Vladimir Voronin said Thursday as he met in Chisinau with European Council President Herman van Rompuy. “In actual fact, Basescu, who is president of an EU member-state, justified the war criminal and butcher Antonescu, whose immediate involvement – in the punitive operations – took away the lives of more than 300,000.”

“Now Basescu says that if he had been in Antonescu’s position seventy years ago, he, too, would have ordered the troops to cross the river Prut,” Voronin said.

“We expect condemnation of these statements,” Voronin said.

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