BUCHAREST, May 4 -- Romania could be strongly impacted by the instability of a possible civil war in Ukraine, President Traian Basescu told a press conference on Sunday.

The president stressed that the worries are related to the "inclusion of this region in an area of instability."

"Romania too is in this region, not elsewhere," said Basescu, adding that conflicts breaking out in Odessa, 150 kilometers from the Chilia Channel of the Danube River, that is from Romania's border, is "an additional reason for worry."

"The instability will materialize also in the conditions for Romania's loans on foreign markets, for its own needs. We are not talking of exports, imports, and so on," Basescu said.

According to him, the events that produced victims in Odessa could be "the trigger of massive civil war." He estimated that the complications of the situation in eastern and southern Ukraine have specific features of an incipient civil war.

Basescu called on the United States and Russia to ensure the beginning of a dialogue between the authorities in Kiev and the secessionists.

"If the two parties do not open a dialogue soon, there is a major risk of a civil war, and Romania, as Ukraine's neighbor, is highly interested to avoid this," he declared.

Meanwhile, he warned that "if the secessionist and Kiev are not brought quickly to the negotiation table, the major hazard is the impossibility of holding the presidential elections in eastern and southeastern Ukraine," and "with a president elected only by the votes in central and western Ukraine, the breakup of Ukraine would be stimulated."