Iuscenko wrote to Basescu on Romania's National Day: I'm convinced by the regulation of the bi-lateral issues and the construction of good neighbouring relations between our countries

Ukrainian President Viktor Iuscenko is convinced by the regulation of the existent issues in the Romanian – Ukrainian relationships and the construction of good neighbouring relations between the two countries, according to the card Iuscenko sent Romanian President Traian Basescu on Romania’s National Day.

„I am convinced that the active dialogue, based on mutual respect and trust, will have a constructive character in the future and will rend possible the regulation of bi-lateral relations and the construction of good neighbouring relations between our countries”, the card reads, according to podrobnosti.ua, quoted by Romanian press agency NewsIn. Iuscenko underlined that an important instrument in this sense is an active Ukrainian-Romanian presidential commission.

Podrobnosti.ua reads that Iuscenko has previously expressed his hope that Basescu would support and active dialogue between the two countries. In May, the Ukrainian president said he was in favour of the European Commission to examine the issue addressing Romania granting citizenship to Ukrainian citizens. A double-citizenship is forbidden by law in Ukraine.

President Traian Basescu was due to go on an official visit to Ukraine in February, but the visit was postponed immediately after a public intelligence scandal between Kiev and Bucharest broke out, which failed to attract reactions and decision taking at a high level.

Some say Basescu postponed his official visit to Kiev because the states did not manage to sign in time an agreement regarding the small traffic or because Romania did not receive Kiev’s permission to open a Cultural Institute in Cernauti.

O February 3, the International Court of Justice from Hague ruled the verdict in the case of drawing the border of the Black Sea’s continental plateau between the two states, granting Romania 9,700 sqm. The relations between Kiev and Romania started to get tense again, after the military attaches from the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest were involved in an espionage scandal.

Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest have kept completely silent in March, after the scandal about Bulgarian citizen Marinov Zikolov broke out. Zikolov obtained classified military information from a Romanian officer and passed them on to the military attaché at the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest. There has been said that the two military attachés of the Ukrainian Embassy in Bucharest have been expelled following this episode and Ukraine followed the example and expelled two Romanian attachés from the Romanian Embassy in Kiev. The information has never been officially confirmed.