Hungary and Romania plan friendship treaty

BUDAPEST (Reuter) - Hungary and Romania pledged yesterday to negotiate a treaty which would end their long-standing antagonism and ease their integration into Europe.

Meeting in Budapest, the countries' foreign ministers said the treaty would have to include guarantees that Budapest had relinquished any territorial claims against Romania, and that Bucharest would respect the rights of its large ethnic Hungarian minority. But the exact wording of the agreement remains to be negotiated.

'Only two crucial issues are still open, that is the inviolability of borders and also the respect of human rights of the national ethnic minorities,' Hungary's Foreign Minister, Laszlo Kovacs, said at a joint news conference with his Romanian counterpart, Teodor Melescanu. 'The positive aspect of the meetings here is that none of the parties actually challeneged the inclusion of these two points in the basic treaty.'