CFM Files
United States Delegation Journal
USDel (PC) (Journal) 31
M. Tatarescu, Foreign Minister of Rumania, addressed the Joint Meeting on the subject of the Rumanian-Hungarian frontier. His main argument was that the present frontier had been established after the last war after full study of all relevant factors by the Allied Powers and in accordance with justice. He said it represented the proper line of ethnic division between the Rumanian and Hungarian peoples. He stressed also the economic unity of Western Transylvania, which he said would be disrupted should the Hungarian claims to the cities of Arad, Oradea and Satu-Mare be accepted. These cities, he said, were the economic, administrative, and cultural centers of Western Transylvania, and the railway connecting them was absolutely essential to Rumania.
M. Tatarescu said that the area claimed by Hungary contained only 67,000 more Hungarians than Rumanians, and that it would be unthinkable to disrupt the entire life of Western Transylvania in order to make such a change. He said that any change in the frontier which had been established in 1920 and confirmed by the decision of the Council of Foreign Ministers in 1946, would be against all moral principle and would be an egregious error.
M. Tatarescu then referred to the Hungarian request that the Conference recommend direct negotiations between Hungary and Rumania on the protection of the Hungarian minority in Rumania.14 He said that any action forcing Rumania to negotiate concerning its internal affairs would be regarded as an attack on Rumanian sovereignty and independence. He took occasion also to deny all the allegations made by the Hungarian Delegation concerning discrimination against the Hungarian minority in Transylvania.