President Basescu’s administration believes that Romania should continue to promote its special relationship with the Arab world. In its 50 long and dark years of communism, Romania has developed friendly relations with the Arab and Muslim leaders, mainly with Yasser Arafat and Gadhafi. Nicolae Ceausescu????????s private ambition was to act as a mediator between Arafat and Israel, hoping to receive the Noble Prize and the West’s friendship. Back then, thousands of young Arabs (mainly Palestinians and Syrians, but not only) have either studied in Romania, or were militarily trained here. Nowadays, Romania has an active role as an ally of the United States in the war on terror, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the end of 2005, the Romanian President, Traian Basescu, (former mayor of Bucharest) visited the Hashemite Kingdom, at the personal invitation of King Abdullah. Afterwards, President Basescu said that Romania’s relationship with the Arab world will be a top priority for the year 2006.

“Whether we discuss about Iraq, Jordan, Libya or Iran, everywhere we can find individuals who have studied in Romania, and one of my aims is to reopen the academic gate for the Arabs and Muslims, young men and women. Romania enjoys a good reputation in the Middle East, and it would be a pity not to use it.”

As for the presence of the Romanian troops in Iraq, President Basescu declared “our wish is to see our soldiers back from Iraq, and send our engineers instead.”

However, Romania will withdraw its troops only when the Iraqi government will ask it to do so.

The Human Rights Watch organization was the first to recently claim that Romania is on the list of states the CIA used for hosting secret detention facilities. The “Wayne Madsen” report pointed out the following CIA torture facilities: Taszar (Hungary), Lvov (Ukraine), Skopje (Macedonia), Poland, Mihail Kogalniceanu (Romania), Georgia (Tbilisi), Albania, Burgas (Bulgaria), and the Moldavian Republic.

Dick Marty, the Swiss Senator who is the President of the European Investigation Commission recently declared to Mediafax, “for two, or three years the European countries knew what is going on.”

“There are countries which actively cooperated Äwith CIAÅ, others tolerate it, and some has closed the eyes to this practice. It is not acceptable to incriminate only these two countries ÄPoland and RomaniaÅ. The entire Europe has chosen voluntarily to be silent about it.”

Dick Marty’s report about the CIA facilities on the continent is expected to be presented at the end of this month, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Council.

The last piece of news of this affair came a couple of weeks ago, from the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Egyptian Minister sent a fax to the Egyptian Embassy in London, stating that 23 persons suspected of being engaged in terrorists activities were being held and interrogated in Romania. The daily SonntagsBlick had published the fax.

Until now, the United States did not change its rhetoric on this topic. The Romanian authorities, as all the rest of Europe, denied the accusation. However, as one of the closest American allies in Eastern Europe, it would not be too surprising to find proof that Romania is indeed involved in this ugly affair.

Nicholas Wood wrote an interesting piece about this affair, ???????Romania’s ‘look for yourself’ offer.”

Manuela is a graduate student studying human rights and democratization in Romania and is a new contributor to Publius Pundit. She will be taking a look at a variety of topics, including Romania’s relations with the Arab world, reform in the country, and the overall effects of the transition from communism.