Romanian President Traian Basescu said during a talk show on the Realitatea TV news television on Monday evening that by acknowledging the independence of Kosovo, both the UN Charter and the Helsinki agreement are ignored. Basescu argued that Romania is compelled to fully respect its international agreements especially its military ones.

He compared Romania's option not to recognize the Kosovo independence with the gesture made by communist Romania in 1968, when it criticized the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

When prompted about a possible Kosovo precedent over Romania, Basescu said that there is no precedent created as in Romania minorities are fully integrated. Moreover, in towns where ethnic Hungarians have almost a 100% presence, their leaders have the tendency to prevent Romanians from joining local administrations.

The President admitted that there still were some problems with ethnic minorities, as few ethnic Hungarians know Romanian and thus have a hard time to integrate into the community. But Basescu concluded that Romania has nothing to fear in terms of ethnic relations following the events in Kosovo over the past couple of days.

Regarding Kosovo, Basescu says that ethnic Albanians there have to understand that their further economic development depends on the Serbs. Romania will attempt to mediate talks between the two camps, the President declared.