Iliescu Agrees to Talks With Opposition Parties : Romania: Thousands of National Salvation Front protesters and defenders hold an emotional rally. It underscores the country’s deep political divisions.

President Ion Iliescu agreed to further talks with opposition parties as the biggest demonstration since the overthrow of Communist rule five weeks ago drew to a close Sunday night.

The slim concession was wrung from the interim government amid tumultuous scenes as rival groups besieged and defended National Salvation Front headquarters in the Foreign Ministry in Victory Square. As midnight approached, about 10,000 chanting people were still massed outside the headquarters of the ruling front.

In a televised speech, Iliescu criticized the anti-government demonstrators, saying they are trying to provoke political battles.

“To destabilize the National Salvation Front right now means destabilizing the country,” he said.

Leaders of all three parties--the National Peasants, the National Liberals and the Social Democrats--went into the front’s headquarters Sunday afternoon, and a Peasants Party spokesman said they met Iliescu to demand that the front give way to a broader-based interim government. “The dialogue began and will continue,” Iliescu said.

Earlier, thousands of protesters broke through a line of armed soldiers, rushing to the doors of the government headquarters and scurrying atop six tanks guarding the building.

“That is the way the revolution began in December,” said Alin Dragomea, 23. “I had no fear then, and I have no fear now. We must fight to the end together.”

Another protester, Parpauta Florin, thrust his 3-year-old son into the crowd and said: “I am not afraid for myself or my child. We have never had a good life here. What can we lose?”

The crowd booed Iliescu when he appeared and tried to speak. The protesters chanted, “Resign! Resign!” and “Get out, or we’ll come get you out!”

Defying a front ban, the three main opposition parties staged the rally to protest against what they say are attempts by the front to hijack the popular movement that toppled Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu on Dec. 22.

The opposition parties contend the front would have an unfair advantage in the upcoming election through its control of the government and media. On Saturday, they had called on the front to resign in favor of a national unity government ahead of the first multi-party elections since 1946, scheduled for May 20.

Representatives of many of the rest of 21 newly formed parties also took part at talks at the front’s headquarters in the Foreign Ministry, political sources said.

But the anti-Communist turnout, in a country where such a protest would have been unthinkable a few weeks ago, was below expectations.

Anti-front spokesmen said that up to 200,000 people took part, but reporters believed the figure was far too high.

However, until pro-front reinforcements, responding to appeals on state television and radio, swelled the crowd later in the evening, the opposition was in a clear majority.