RFE/RL NEWSLINE 
Vol. 1, No. 127, 29 September 1997

HUNGARIAN PARTIES CROSS-COOPERATE ON GABCIKOVO RULING.
The leaders of the six Hungarian parliamentary parties consulted
with Premier Gyula Horn on 26 September and agreed to set up a
cross-party committee to examine Hungary's strategy for the talks
with Slovakia on implementing the International Court of Justice
ruling on the Gabcikovo power plant. Interior Minister Gabor Kuncze
said future efforts should be geared at a "zero option" on mutual
compensation claims and at the return of the Danube river bed to its
original course, Hungarian media reported. In other news, the
Foreign Ministry on 26 September confirmed that the third round of
talks between Hungary and NATO has been postponed from 3
October to 13 October at the request of NATO officials. Hungarian
ambassador to NATO Andras Simonyi confirmed that NATO will grant
special status to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as of
January 1998, as an important step toward membership.

ROMANIAN DEFENSE MINISTER VISITS HUNGARY. Romanian Defense
Minister Victor Babiuc, who paid a visit to Hungary on 26-27
September, agreed with his Hungarian counterpart Gyoergy Keleti
that the document providing for the establishment of a joint
Hungarian-Romanian peacekeeping battalion will be signed in
Bucharest later this year. The battalion will become operational in
the second half of 1998, Hungarian and Romanian media reported.
The original intention was to have the battalion set up this year, but
plans had to be postponed due to financial difficulties in both
countries. Babiuc also met with Premier Horn, with whom he
discussed the latter's visit to Romania, planned for October. They
agreed to "isolate extremist parties" which seek to undermine
Hungarian-Romanian relations and democratization.


ROMANIAN OPPOSITION ALLIANCE CALLED OFF. The leader of the
Greater Romania Party (PRM), Corneliu Vadim Tudor, on 26
September called off the planned alliance of his party with the Party
of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR) (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 17
September 1997). In response to PDSR leader Ion Iliescu's statement
on Romanian television one day earlier, who called on Tudor and
Socialist Labor Party vice-chairman Adrian Paunescu to "temperate"
their extreme nationalist postures, Tudor said the PRM rejected
Iliescu's "attempt to use the unification of the opposition to return at
the head of the state." The PRM leader said that a "genuine national
opposition" can only be formed around himself, Paunescu and Cluj
mayor Gheorghe Funar, Radio Bucharest reported. The PDSR on 28
September signed an agreement with the anti-Hungarian "Vatra
romaneasca" organization and several other small parties and
organizations for setting up an anti-government alliance.


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