KIEV: Hungary's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, warned on Tuesday that Ukraine would not be allowed to join the European Union or NATO unless it restored the rights of ethnic Hungarians living in its Transcarpathian region. Is.
At a news conference in Brussels, Szijjarto said the US-led military bloc was breaking its own rules by going ahead with a series of meetings involving Kiev officials despite his government's objections.
I want to say that until the rights of the Hungarian ethnic community are restored in Ukraine before 2015, we will not support any significant integration movement of Ukraine towards EU or NATO.
In the Transcarpathian region of contemporary Ukraine, just across the border from Hungary, there are approximately 150,000 ethnic Hungarians. Despite pressure from both sides of the Atlantic to do so, Budapest would not release them "under any circumstances", Szijjarto said.
Furthermore, he disagreed with Budapest's objections to the ministerial meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Committee.
In reference to NATO's need for consensus, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said on Tuesday that "this decision violates NATO's procedures for unity of will and unity."
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Szijjarto expressed his concerns to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, but he agreed to attend the meeting on 4 April to "discuss minority protections".
After joining NATO in 1999, Hungary joined the European Union in 2004. Brussels recently withheld funds from Budapest in an effort to force Budapest's government to adopt a set of measures backed by the bloc that Prime Minister Viktor Orban has dismissed as harmful.
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Hungary has consistently pushed for an arbitrated solution to the conflict in Ukraine. Budapest has not agreed to provide arms or ammunition to Kiev and continues to prohibit the transit of any arms or ammunition through Hungarian territory.