On May 18, 2011 Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Kostyantyn Gryshchenko paid a one-day official visit to Romania. For the first time during the past six years the Ukrainian Foreign Minister arrived in Bucharest with a view of implementing the willingness of the two sides to get the political dialogue and cooperation at all levels back on track.
During a meeting with President of Romania Traian Basescu Kostyantyn Gryshchenko conveyed him a personal letter from President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych with the gratitude for the Romanian side’s support of the April events in Kyiv, devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster and for the financial contribution by Romania into the construction of the “Shelter” facility at the fourth NPP reactor. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister informed the Romanian Head of State on the strong stance of the Ukrainian leadership concerning the development of partnership and goodneighborly relations with Romania. The Romanian leader, in his turn, reassured the Ukrainian party of a comprehensive support for European integration of Ukraine and, in particular, the process of negotiations on concluding the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU.
A meeting with President of the Romanian Senate Mircea Geoana and a group of members of the upper chamber of the Romanian Parliament dealt with prospects of realization of scaled projects in transportation and energy. The Romanian members of the Parliament confirmed their intention to visit Ukraine soon upon an invitation of Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn.
The Romanian Foreign Ministry hosted negotiations of delegations of the two Ministries on a wide range of bilateral issues. Kostyantyn Gryshchenko and his Romanian counterpart Teodor Baconschi agreed to focus on the completion of the work on a series of important bilateral agreements and promote their signing at different levels. In particular, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister stressed on the special interestedness of Kyiv to conclude an agreement on local transborder movement, which would allow the residents of transborder districts of the two countries to freely travel to the neighborhood regions. Messrs Gryshchenko and Baconschi also focused on the reciprocal assistance of the two countries in evacuation of Ukrainians and Romanians from war-hit Libya.
The two Ministers reached an agreement on the need to depoliticize the issue of protection of national minorities in the two countries and the importance of resuming the mechanisms of monitoring of rights of ethnic Ukrainians in Romania and Romanians in Ukraine. As Kostyantyn Gryshchenko mentioned, official Kyiv counts on the Romanian side’s paying attention to insufficient number of schools with Ukrainian language teaching and its steps to promote the opening of new Ukrainian schools in the areas of Ukrainians’ compact residence.
The Ukrainian Foreign Minister invited his Romanian counterpart to visit Ukraine soon.