His objections were noted by hirado.hu.
A battalion of some 800 troops are set to operate in the city. According to the diplomat, the fact that the Ukrainian authorities explained this step by arguing that there was a “need to protect the territorial integrity”, has caused concern.
“This means that they consider the Hungarian national community a threat to Kiev, which is outrageous, which is why Hungary is bluntly against it,” Szijjártó said.
Earlier in the capital of Transcarpathia, unknown people set fire to the building of a cultural landmark twice. In response to the arson, Budapest is demanding a special OSCE monitoring mission to be sent to Transcarpathia.
The Hungarian Cultural Association’s (MKSZ) central office in Uzhorod, a city in western Ukraine, has been attacked twice over the past few weeks. After the second attack on the MKSZ office, Péter Szijjártó summoned the Ukrainian ambassador, citing threats to Ukraine’s Hungarian community.
Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Shemjen, said last year that from the perspective of Budapest, the Hungarians living in the region had the right to autonomy. The rights of ethnic minorities, also territorial, have sparked debates not only in Hungary, but also in Romania and Poland.
Budapest has taken good care of Transcarpathia, issuing some two hundred thousand passports. Kiev in the past has expressed support for Budapest assuming the provision of Hungarian schools in Transcarpathia with textbooks, training of teaching staff, as well as additional payments to teachers, because it has saved them money.
Hungary has meanwhile stated that it cannot support Ukraine’s integration into the military bloc and it vetoed the NATO-Ukraine Committee summit in December.
As UNIAN reported on March 19, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that his country demanded from Ukraine to amend the law on education and postpone its implementation until 2023.
If Ukraine fails to do so, Szijjarto said Hungary would block Ukraine’s efforts toward EU and NATO integration. The Hungarian foreign ministry also at one stage promised that they would initiate the withdrawal of Ukraine’s Association Agreement with the European Union.
The Hungarian Constitution obliges the government to protect the rights of Hungarians in places where Hungarian communities reside outside the country. Mostly it concerns the Ukrainian, Romanian and Slovak territories in the Carpathian region, the Serbian Vojvodina and the northeast of Croatia. Budapest distributes its passports not only to citizens of Ukraine. A total of 870 000 passports have been given to foreign Hungarians.
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