A Reich-Rumanian trade agreement to be signed here tomorrow marks only a slight extension of the two countries’ existing trade relations, and in particular gives Berlin minimum oil concessions as contrasted with the demands originally made by the Nazis, it was authoritatively learned tonight.
King Carol this afternoon received the British Minister, Sir Reginald Hoare, as reports poured in that Hungarian troops were continuing to mass on the Rumanian frontier.
Tomorrow’s protocol, it was said, would merely be a rectification of the Berlin-Buchares trade accords of last November, in the framework of which Dr. Helmuth Wohlthat, German commercial expert, has been carrying on negotiations here. Rumanian circles continued to insist that there had not been any German ultimatum, and that the only pressure exerted by the Reich had been the normal influence enjoyed by Berlin in view of Germany’s trade position in this country.
At the same time the Rumanian press headlined the favorable result of current Turkish-Bulgarian trade talks as a step toward Balkan consolidation of a strong front for peace. Germany was significantly described as convinced there was no country in Eastern Europe that could be likened to defunct Czecho-Slovakia.
Despite the reassuring accounts of the imminent trade accord with the Nazis, the consternation caused by reports of a German political-trade ultimatum published abroad has not yet completely disappeared here. The effect was all the more marked because of coincidence of the reports with Czecho-Slovakia’s destruction and the presence here of Dr. Wohlthat’s mission.
Symptomatic of the Government’s position was an editorial in Timpul, newspaper of Foreign Minister Grigore Gafencu, on the results of the Bulgaro-Turkish trade negotiations.”The Ankara communique,” said Timpul, “expresses the true spirit of friendship and collaboration among the Balkan states, which has Rumania’s categorical approval. We congratulate Turkey and Bulgaria for having known how to urge us to unite our efforts toward strengthening peace in Eastern Europe. It seems, moreover, that these desires for friendship, collaboration and national independence have had echoes. That is the way we explain the authorized German declarations which we published yesterday and which proclaimed ‘that at Berlin the opinion prevails that no other nation of Eastern Europe could be compared to former Czecho-Slovakia.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
