1 In an escalation of tension between neighbors, Romania's president has criticized an apparently illegal expression of national pride by ethnic Hungarians and Budapest's ambassador.
2 Traian Chebeleu, spokesman for President Ion Iliescu, said in a statement late Monday that the hoisting of the Hungarian flag and singing of the Hungarian anthem by prominent ethnic Hungarians on Sunday was 'an offense to the Romanian state.'
3 'It is a regrettable, provocative action, which takes Hungarians outside the Romanian state and their normal cohabitation with other groups,' he said on state TV.
4 The sharp words and flouting of what is considered a sensitive law are signs of growing friction between the two sides. Hungarians, most of whom live in Transylvania adjacent to Hungary, make up about 8 percent of Romania's 23 million people.
5 Last month a top Romanian official was snubbed by Prime Minister Gyula Horn on a visit to Hungary.
6 That came after Romanian Justice Minister Iosif Chuizbaian suggested that moves to organize a council of ethnic Hungarian political leaders in Transylvania were illegal.
7 On Sunday, a group of ethnic Hungarians including Hungary's ambassador to Romania and top officials from the party representing the interests of the 1.6 million ethnic Hungarians, hoisted the Hungarian flag and sang the national anthem to commemorate a famous historian.
8 In 1994, the Romanian parliament passed a law banning such activities without permission.
9 Ethnic Hungarian political leaders have called for 'regional and administrative autonomy,' in regions where Hungarians are numerous or predominate.
10 Some Romanians suspect the demand masks a desire to reunite Transylvania with Hungary.
11 Transylvania has changed hands several times between Hungary and Romania, the last time when it came under Romanian rule in 1918. Romanians feel historically wronged that for centuries they were in the majority, but under foreign rule.
12 Romania's worst ethnic violence since the 1989 collapse of Nicolae Ceausescu's Communist dictatorship was in the ethnically mixed city of Tirgu Mures, where three Hungarians and three Romanians died in street clashes in 1990.

Traian Chebeleu , spokesman for President Ion Iliescu , said in a statement late Monday that the hoisting of the Hungarian flag and singing of the Hungarian anthem by prominent ethnic Hungarians on Sunday was " an offense to the Romanian state . "
" an offense to the Romanian state . "
How was this offensive? 