Ion Iliescu’s lies, dismantled by CTP. The story of the “red thread” with the Kremlin. “It was like he had a microphone in my office”

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The well-known journalist Cristian Tudor Popescu shared, in the Vorbitorincii podcast, how former president Ion Iliescu lied to him three times. He told about one of these situations, which refers to the direct telephone line that Iliescu had with the Kremlin in the early 90s.

“I lied to my face three times”, CTP told the hosts of Vorbitorincii, writer Radu Paraschivescu and journalist Cristian Striblea, reports hotnews.ro.

The first time, says Popescu, took place shortly after Iliescu lost the presidential election to Emil Constantinescu.

“Ion Iliescu comes to the director of the Adevărul newspaper, Dumitru Tinu, together with Corina Crețu, she was his spokesperson. What they discussed there in the office, I don’t know (…) When he leaves Tinu’s office, he says to Corina Crețu: But Where does Mr. Popescu work? Let’s go to his office, I say: A caviar, a protein… I didn’t understand what he was looking for, that I hadn’t gone to interview him,” CTP said.

The meeting took place immediately after the Russian newspaper Zavtra published the information that Ion Iliescu, as president of Romania between 1990 and 1996, maintained a direct connection, known as the “red thread”, with Kremlin leaders in the 90s, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. “Here (in Romania – ed.) everything exploded, we were in the middle of a storm”, Cristian Tudor Popescu reported.

In this context, CT Popescu asked Ion Iliescu, privately, if this story was true.

“He looked at me with an absolutely sincere, direct look: Darling, how can I? Don’t you see what they are inventing? I was impressed by the naturalness with which he told me. They left, I had to write an editorial (…) It set me Mr. President, I believed him. That’s when I was convinced,” the journalist confessed.

After Ion Iliescu’s departure, CTP received a phone call. “It seems like bad literature because on the phone was a future president, Traian Băsescu, at that time Minister of Transport, with whom I was then on good terms (…) He says: Do you know why I called you? Because I wouldn’t want you to compromise. It’s like he had a microphone in my office… It’s a red phone! Because I took it out, Cristian Tudor said Popescu.

“I hung up the phone and then I said to follow Basescu’s hand. And I did well. We see the common school he has with Mr. Putin, to lie without blinking,” CTP concluded.